The shape of things

A fascinating tweet by George Eaton, editor of the left wing New Statesman magazine: “We’re about to discover what happens when you have the inflation of the 1970s with the gutted trade unions of the 2020s.” Eaton, who was of course privately educated, as befits an influential figure on the hard left, is 35 years old, and so born long after the 1970s, and one must assume he has done his research on the subject to make such a point. I sense that Eaton believes he knows the answer, too.

I was around in the 1970s, although I lack a private education and indeed a university course which followed his, and I have a distinct memory of what the 1970s was like. I certainly remember high inflation and frequent strikes by unions seeking to defend their members standards of living. And there were certain sectors that faced a strong union presence, in for example the state-owned bodies such as the coal mines, steel, the utilities, the railways and so on and so on. We can get into a debate about whether unions were actually too strong, a debate that is not straightforward, because in some areas they were definitely seen to be, like in the printing industry. But then, you might ask yourself, ‘What is a union?’ It’s a union of working people working collectively for better conditions and pay.  What isn’t up for debate is how the trade unions have been gutted, hollowed out, since the 1970s.

I suggest Eaton is suggesting that workers are about to be massively fucked over – I apologise for using a technical term like this – because they will have no form of protection when the economy crashes, specifically no effective trade union or no union at all. Because he couldn’t actually be suggesting anything else.

And things are going to get incredibly hard for people. An inflation rate of 9% and rising is going to eat into people’s living standards, particularly poorer people who spend proportionately more of their income on heating and eating than the better off. With utility bills already increasing by 54% and potentially by another 40% in the autumn (measure the 40% increase on top of the figure already increased by 54%), for many this will not be survivable.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been seen to be tin-eared so far, tinkering on the edges rather than addressing the crisis head on. “We’re doing everything we can,” he says. “I’m working on a plan.” But this isn’t leadership, it’s reacting to events; frankly he’s dithering. Labour’s Keir Starmer calls for an emergency budget to deal with the cost of living crisis and a windfall tax on energy companies who have more money than they know what to do with, thanks to the effects of Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The premise behind Eaton’s tweet is that people may take things into their own hands if nothing changes. If bills can’t be paid and people become desperate and angry, is there not the possibility of civil disorder? Normally, us Brits take everything that’s thrown at us, but does there come a time when we say enough is enough? And is that time coming?

I did a small shop in Asda yesterday and while we are not currently struggling to make ends meet, I was struck by the massive increases in some prices. I am cutting at the edges, cutting out inessentials and what might be considered luxury purchases. As I saw line after line of shoppers with trolleys bulging, I wondered to myself how they might be responding when the winter fuel bills start coming in. If my family is being more austere, I cannot believe we will be alone.

Sunak’s lethargy in the face of financial headwinds is not a good look, certainly not on the day we learn that Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty have made the Sunday Times rich list at number 222 with a combined family fortune of £730 million. It has never been my view that being rich, or even filthy rich, like Sunak, should be a barrier to people doing good things in politics. If he can do a good job for all of us, especially the vulnerable, I’m happy that he’s made his fortune, as long as he pays his taxes. Unfortunately, Ms Murty was outed as a non-dom tax dodger, not a good look for a family worth three quarters of a billion quid. She later effectively admitted she’d been out of order by deciding to volunteering to pay UK taxes on her overseas earnings, but the damage was done. It was one rule for the multimillionaires and another for everyone else. Politically, but more so morally, Sunak must act before disaster strikes.

The unions did protect many people from the ravages of the 1970s but they were systematically destroyed in the following decade by Margaret Thatcher and they have never recovered. Now, we rely on a right wing Conservative government, with a fiscal hawk as chancellor, to become an interventionist. Well, he did during Covid and now he must do again.  Otherwise, we may discover what happens when you have the inflation of the 1970s with the gutted trade unions of the 2020s. And it won’t be pretty.