In southampton 20-odd people are picketing Red Funnel, a ferry company that carries people to and from the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. The strikers complain about their pay and treatment. But they are most exercised by the rapidly rising cost of living. One young woman says that she went into debt to attend a friend’s wedding. A man describes watching his electricity meter in horror, knowing that a big bill is coming. “Everyone’s just had enough,” he says.
The sun pours down on the strikers. Britain as a whole has had a hot, dry summer; southern England extremely so. A weather station west of Southampton recorded no precipitation in July—the first zero monthly reading since it began operating in 1957. On August 5th Southern Water, the local supplier, banned residents from watering their gardens or washing their cars with hoses. Other water companies will follow.
It has not been a long, hot summer in the American sense—the country has thankfully seen no large-scale disturbances. Instead it is a season of drift and dysfunction. Dry weather has combined with inflation, industrial disputes, transport snafus and political paralysis. As Michael Gove, until recently a cabinet minister, admitted last month, parts of the state are barely functioning. It is Britain’s summer of discontent.
For the middle-aged and old, the inescapable comparison is with the summer of 1976. That year saw a lower peak temperature but a worse drought—in parts of Wales the water was turned off every day at 2pm. It was also a period of high inflation, industrial unrest and political turmoil: the prime minister, Harold Wilson, had unexpectedly resigned in the spring. The weather fused in people’s minds with other problems. Bernard (now Lord) Donoughue, a political adviser, lay awake at night, “too hot to sleep”, worrying about the pound.
Inflation is what keeps people tossing and turning today. Consumer prices rose 9.4% in the year to June, driven in part by wholesale energy markets. The government has so far opted to help mostly by providing grants to households, with additional benefits for the poorest—a contrast to countries such as Germany, which have slashed fuel duty. Britain’s approach is better targeted and does not incentivise energy use as much. But it makes for scarier headline figures. Energy-price inflation in Britain stands at 57%, compared with 42% in the euro area, according to the oecd, a club of mostly rich countries.
A wide range of goods have become more expensive. The price of milk (a favourite question for interviewers who want to discover whether a politician has his or her ear to the ground) rose by 21% in the year to June. As some products rise in price, others shrink in size. The Grocer, a trade publication that tracks such things, finds that own-brand ready meals at Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket, have shrunk from 800g to 750g and from 450g to 400g.
Industrial unrest is spreading as workers attempt to keep ahead of rising prices, or at least to ensure that they do not fall too far behind. In 2019, the last year for which official records exist, 234,000 working days were lost to labour disputes. Railway workers alone could drive this year’s figure higher. More than 40,000 walked out on June 21st, in the first of a series of ongoing stoppages. The Royal College of Nursing is balloting its 465,000 members about a strike, which would be the first in its history.
Nobody on the Red Funnel picket line in Southampton can remember a previous strike at the company. Ian Woodley, the regional organiser for the Unite union, is surprised by the speed at which young workers have been radicalised: “They’ve never been in a union before, let alone on strike.” He suspects that workers have been emboldened not just by leaping living costs but also by Britain’s tight labour market.
If some are angry about pay, many are quietly grumpy about the state of public services. Over the past five years the proportion of Londoners who think that the police can be relied upon has fallen from 79% to 57%. Two years ago, during the worst of the covid-19 pandemic, Britons felt warmly towards their local councils. That did not last. In June only 52% said their council acted on residents’ concerns—the joint lowest figure for a decade, in a survey conducted three times a year. In your correspondent’s street, the weeds that grow on the edge of the pavement are almost two metres high.
If the National Health Service is the closest England comes to a religion (as Nigel Lawson, a politician, once put it) the country is falling into unbelief. Only 36% of people are satisfied with the nhs, the lowest figure since 1997. Fully 6.6m are on a waiting list for treatment, up from 4.4m on the eve of the covid-19 pandemic. Ambulances are supposed to respond to “category 2” incidents, such as suspected heart attacks and strokes, within 20 minutes. The average in June was 52 minutes. One in ten waited for at least 1 hour and 54 minutes.
At the moment, the UK is still a decent Northern European economy with low unemployment, pretty good wages and a reasonable tax regime – it remains pretty attractive to immigrants.
Whether this will still be the case after the crisis that seems to be expected this winter and into 2023 remains to be seen.
Almost figuratively, the Tory party is ruining this nation. Five governments and three leaders were involved in a truly astounding governance failure.
They have a very good chance of keeping their position of power, which is the sad reality.
Somewhere in the UK is a control room full of little light bulbs representing everything that needs to run and a lot of those tiny bulbs are either flashing red, broken or missing. I think we’ll be going steam punk soon.
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In southampton 20-odd people are picketing Red Funnel, a ferry company that carries people to and from the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. The strikers complain about their pay and treatment. But they are most exercised by the rapidly rising cost of living. One young woman says that she went into debt to attend a friend’s wedding. A man describes watching his electricity meter in horror, knowing that a big bill is coming. “Everyone’s just had enough,” he says.
The sun pours down on the strikers. Britain as a whole has had a hot, dry summer; southern England extremely so. A weather station west of Southampton recorded no precipitation in July—the first zero monthly reading since it began operating in 1957. On August 5th Southern Water, the local supplier, banned residents from watering their gardens or washing their cars with hoses. Other water companies will follow.
It has not been a long, hot summer in the American sense—the country has thankfully seen no large-scale disturbances. Instead it is a season of drift and dysfunction. Dry weather has combined with inflation, industrial disputes, transport snafus and political paralysis. As Michael Gove, until recently a cabinet minister, admitted last month, parts of the state are barely functioning. It is Britain’s summer of discontent.
For the middle-aged and old, the inescapable comparison is with the summer of 1976. That year saw a lower peak temperature but a worse drought—in parts of Wales the water was turned off every day at 2pm. It was also a period of high inflation, industrial unrest and political turmoil: the prime minister, Harold Wilson, had unexpectedly resigned in the spring. The weather fused in people’s minds with other problems. Bernard (now Lord) Donoughue, a political adviser, lay awake at night, “too hot to sleep”, worrying about the pound.
Inflation is what keeps people tossing and turning today. Consumer prices rose 9.4% in the year to June, driven in part by wholesale energy markets. The government has so far opted to help mostly by providing grants to households, with additional benefits for the poorest—a contrast to countries such as Germany, which have slashed fuel duty. Britain’s approach is better targeted and does not incentivise energy use as much. But it makes for scarier headline figures. Energy-price inflation in Britain stands at 57%, compared with 42% in the euro area, according to the oecd, a club of mostly rich countries.
A wide range of goods have become more expensive. The price of milk (a favourite question for interviewers who want to discover whether a politician has his or her ear to the ground) rose by 21% in the year to June. As some products rise in price, others shrink in size. The Grocer, a trade publication that tracks such things, finds that own-brand ready meals at Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket, have shrunk from 800g to 750g and from 450g to 400g.
Industrial unrest is spreading as workers attempt to keep ahead of rising prices, or at least to ensure that they do not fall too far behind. In 2019, the last year for which official records exist, 234,000 working days were lost to labour disputes. Railway workers alone could drive this year’s figure higher. More than 40,000 walked out on June 21st, in the first of a series of ongoing stoppages. The Royal College of Nursing is balloting its 465,000 members about a strike, which would be the first in its history.
Nobody on the Red Funnel picket line in Southampton can remember a previous strike at the company. Ian Woodley, the regional organiser for the Unite union, is surprised by the speed at which young workers have been radicalised: “They’ve never been in a union before, let alone on strike.” He suspects that workers have been emboldened not just by leaping living costs but also by Britain’s tight labour market.
If some are angry about pay, many are quietly grumpy about the state of public services. Over the past five years the proportion of Londoners who think that the police can be relied upon has fallen from 79% to 57%. Two years ago, during the worst of the covid-19 pandemic, Britons felt warmly towards their local councils. That did not last. In June only 52% said their council acted on residents’ concerns—the joint lowest figure for a decade, in a survey conducted three times a year. In your correspondent’s street, the weeds that grow on the edge of the pavement are almost two metres high.
If the National Health Service is the closest England comes to a religion (as Nigel Lawson, a politician, once put it) the country is falling into unbelief. Only 36% of people are satisfied with the nhs, the lowest figure since 1997. Fully 6.6m are on a waiting list for treatment, up from 4.4m on the eve of the covid-19 pandemic. Ambulances are supposed to respond to “category 2” incidents, such as suspected heart attacks and strokes, within 20 minutes. The average in June was 52 minutes. One in ten waited for at least 1 hour and 54 minutes.
At the moment, the UK is still a decent Northern European economy with low unemployment, pretty good wages and a reasonable tax regime – it remains pretty attractive to immigrants.
Whether this will still be the case after the crisis that seems to be expected this winter and into 2023 remains to be seen.
Almost figuratively, the Tory party is ruining this nation. Five governments and three leaders were involved in a truly astounding governance failure.
They have a very good chance of keeping their position of power, which is the sad reality.
Somewhere in the UK is a control room full of little light bulbs representing everything that needs to run and a lot of those tiny bulbs are either flashing red, broken or missing. I think we’ll be going steam punk soon.