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Tory Britain

Ponty said:
I do find the food price increases puzzling. I was in Aldi yesterday and really don’t think stuff has gone up much, if at all. Contrast that to Greece, where I’ve just been for a week, where I’d say the equivalent produce (at a large AB supermarket) was at least twice the price. Why is that?
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Giffen goods are staples that go up in times of austerity as most people cannot afford more expensive alternatives, so the poor shopping for potatoes for their gruel dip notice a price increase but as there is no change or a decrease in demand for luxury goods the price doesn’t change or even falls. So someone with a basket of caviar, foie gras, quails eggs and swan stuffed with widgeon won’t see any inflation.
 
I'm now trying to get my head around the concept of Manchester as part of Scotland.

It's not going well.
 
wulbert said:
Yes. The nasty party are in charge and Britain is becoming a nastier place by the day.

( Is the House of Commons usually that empty? Where is the "Turbo-Charging our Economy" work taking place? )
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They merely give the appearance of doing something and when they actually do do something, it’s with themselves in mind.

Take Gove, once their most strident mouthpiece, one minute he’s the levelling up man, the next he’s “Minister for the Union” (once Boris became bored with the work that came with the appellation ). He threatened to be in Scotland every week conducting HM Govt business as a show of force. He came once to Glasgow as a stunt, once to Aberdeen where he was seen dancing by himself in a night club.

They move from one crisis to the next, one photo opportunity to another and the stuff they do create is repressive ( Patel’s anti-protest legislation, Rwanda detention camps) and divisive ( Northern Ireland). When they’re eventually kicked out they will leave a trail of wreckage beyond anything even Margaret Hilda was capable of.
 
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russel said:
someone with a basket of caviar, foie gras, quails eggs and swan stuffed with widgeon won’t see any inflation.
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Likewise when I was in Aldi's only last week I noticed how reasonably priced the beer and wine was.
Cheaper than before the pandemic. The new high hopped beers, in particular, have been discounted considerably.

With the annual increases in benefits, pensions etc it seems to be more affordable to become an alcoholic these days.

I didn't really look at the other prices.

... hic...
 
Minio said:
Likewise when I was in Aldi's only last week I noticed how reasonably priced the beer and wine was.
Cheaper than before the pandemic. The new high hopped beers, in particular, have been discounted considerably.

With the annual increases in benefits, pensions etc it seems to be more affordable to become an alcoholic these days.

I didn't really look at the other prices.
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I believe one of the proposals to deal with the rising cost of living that this government will publish next week is to stay pissed until the next General Election.
 
ks.234 said:
stay pissed until the next General Election.
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I've just been to Sainsburys and they are selling doughnuts at 5 for a quid.

Now that lockdowns are over one of the most economical expenditures in these hard times is to have cake and ale parties like what our illustrious leaders did.
 
Ponty said:
Clearly that is true with all goods and services but doesn’t help me understand why, in my very recent experience, groceries cost an awful lot more in an EU country than in the UK. Fuel was also more expensive.
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PsB said:
For the comparison to be valid, you would have to look at the prices of the same items (preferably something universal like a kilo of oranges or a salad etc.) in an equivalent Greek Aldi. Comparing AB to Aldi is like comparing Sainsbury’s and Lidl. And location counts: if you shop in Mykonos, you are definitely going to pay more.

My experience (admittedly 6-7 years ago) was that produce (fruit, veg) in Greek supermarkets was much, much cheaper. Some items like meat were about the same, and imported specialty items were more expensive. Fish was cheaper if you stuck to local farmed sea bass or sea bream. Wine was cheaper if you went with the excellent local wines. Etc.
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wulbert said:
I agree. UK food is cheap. Too cheap. Worryingly cheap (supermarket chicken?). And has been for years. But when an essential commodity like food goes up in price, those with no margin in their household budget will feel the pain severely. Plus, as you say, all the other pressures (crap wages, higher energy costs, expensive housing).

The percentage of our household budget that was freed up by cheap food perhaps went into inflating property prices (including rents) and consumer goods. And, usefully, cheap food for the masses means that employers can pay lower wages. ( "Wage rise!!?....look how much pasta you can buy with your minimum wage!" ).

Mrs T's violent crusade to destroy our manufacturing and industrial sector (where a unionised workforce earned a decent wage) and replace it with service industries (where a non-unionised, part-time, zero-hours, insecure labour-pool earns minimum wage) was a race to the bottom. And here we are.
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I'm not sure why food is cheaper in the UK than the rest of Europe, this has been the case for 20 years to my knowledge. It's a known fact in the food industry. As to the timing of price rises, bear in mind that there are advance contracts and that things like grain were harvested last year so fuel costs etc were at 2021 rates. They will come, just not yet.
The minimum wage thing is interesting. I remember as a 16 year old casual farm labourer my agreed NFU official pay rate was £1 an hour. Actually I think it was a shade less. Plug that into the CPI inflation calculator and you get £3.60. A 16 year old is now paid £4.81, so they're slightly better off. It matches my memory that back then my pound would buy about 1.2 pints in a pub, now maybe a shade more (cheap rural pubs).
A further observation of the introduction of minimum wage has been that it has improved the lot of the unskilled labourer, however in my reckoning at the cost of those one rung up. I see this in food factories, where people putting chicken in a box get the lowest rate, typically slightly above min wage, and line leaders and so on get only a few pence more an hour. The legitimate complaint I hear is that they are taking on a lot more responsibility for maybe only another £20 a week. Unsurprisingly a lot then turn it down because a few hours of OT a month makes up the difference.
 
When visiting UK cousins over the years I have noticed how cheap food was compared to Ireland. Aldi/Lidl certainly made a difference in Ireland and perhaps we are now on a relative par.

However another thing I noticed when in the UK was how low wages were compared to Ireland. I’ve since presumed that the government needed cheaper food in order to (a) run the country (b) make sure their friends made maximum profits- take your pick depending on your political orientation but certainly from an Irish perspective average food price are lower in the UK and average wages are also. Maybe when the economic historians get a chance to look at all this there may be a clearer explanation re policy decisions that made this situation occur.

.sjb
 
Minio said:
With the annual increases in benefits, pensions etc it seems to be more affordable to become an alcoholic these days.
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Remember that 1984 is a manual for this lot, drinking was all that the masses had (Victory Gin etc) in their austerity
 
Minio said:
I've just been to Sainsburys and they are selling doughnuts at 5 for a quid.

Now that lockdowns are over one of the most economical expenditures in these hard times is to have cake and ale parties like what our illustrious leaders did.
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Marie Antoinette was right…
 
We have the same politicians in France. Our favourite Tory in disguise is called…?
 
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