Paying the price for Tory failings

■ WITH food inflation at 19% and no sign of it coming down, the Government is apparently holding discussions with supermarkets about a price cap on staple food products (Mirror, May 29).

The question is what has taken them so long? Have they only just woken up to the fact people are suffering real hardship? Shops aren’t blameless but the fact is 13 years of Tory misrule is behind the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Years of austerity, the disaster of Brexit and Truss’s catastrophic mini Budget have left us more exposed to the economic fallout from Covid and the war in Ukraine.

Sunak is a desperate PM, flipflopping from one crisis to the next. Bring on the next election.

John Lyttle, Salford

■ Can somebody please explain to me how raising interest rates will help curb inflation? We’re asked to show restraint when considering wage increases, and to accept being “a bit poorer” to reduce inflation, but I think we’ve long passed the point of having any disposable income for luxuries. It concerns me that sooner rather than later there will be mortgage foreclosures and fixed-rate mortgages coming to an end, meaning a huge hike in payments. Also businesses will have to increase prices, if only to cover their costs. To me, it’s a neverending merry-go-round of rises to help the banks, not the ordinary person.

Shirley Broadbent, Leeds

■ The Tories own the current rate of inflation which continues to grow despite what the figures tell us. They also own the disasters that are the NHS, the transport system, the sewage calamity, the immigration crisis, and the tragedy of the care system.

They own the worry they’ve created for the working class and vulnerable people by failing to cooperate with the unions and charitable bodies in touch with what is happening to our society.

They allow large companies to make vast profits while they do nothing to compel them to pay better wages. If you want to ruin a country, vote Tory.

Barbara Clifford

Barnsley, South Yorks

■ Liz Truss trashed the economy and the people now have to pay for it via higher interest rates as the Bank of England tries to correct rampant inflation.

The mess we are in is down to the bad decisions made by this and past Tory governments but do they accept responsibility? No, it’s everybody’s else’s fault.

Wake up Britain and see through the lies and deceit.

Michael Cuttill, Waterlooville, Hants

■ If interest rates rise again on the pretext of helping to bring down inflation, more and more people will lose their homes because they can no longer afford to pay.

Wages aren’t increasing to meet rising costs, and more businesses are closing because customers no longer have spare money to go shopping for things other than essentials.

Where is the sense in continuing these interest rises?

C Smith, Coventry

■ It beggars belief that the Government plans to make the supermarkets lower the prices on basic goods like milk and bread. It’s a pity they didn’t tell the greedy energy companies to do the same.

This couldn’t be because these companies have links to the Tory Party could it?

Alan Robinson, Liverpool

■ If inflation doesn’t start to come down, it seems to me the only sensible way out of this crisis is to impose price controls temporarily. People are suffering real hardship but the privileged Tories can’t see it or more likely just don’t care.

Paul Hynde, Wigan