Many people are in despair at rising cost

Slough Trades Council will be attending the TUC demonstration on Saturday in London.

We stand by our delegates, in their campaigns and action, to tell the government ‘We Demand Better’.

The cost of living crisis has escalated out of all proportion, affecting the lives of millions of people who have seen eyewatering increases in the cost of food, their energy bills and petrol prices.

It is no wonder that the use of food banks has surged and that people are having to choose between eating and heating.

The austerity agenda of the 2010

Coalition Government imposed measures on ordinary people which made life hard and sometimes impossible.

The recent and sudden changes come on top of these previous policies, compounding the effect on people’s lives.

The Tory government is run by those who have little interest in the lives of ordinary people and a Prime Minister who refers to people as ‘feeling the pinch’.

Tory MP Lee Anderson provoked fury when he stated that people need to learn how to make a meal for 30p.

The Governor of the Bank of England warned that workers should not demand higher wages as they would be inflationary.

It is not only insulting to people’s intelligence but reflects a sense of entitlement.

The trade union movement is planning for industrial action across sectors of employment.

With inflation projected to rise to 11 per cent, any pay rise below this means a pay cut to add to those already experienced over previous years.

All those who worked so hard during the pandemic have faced a pay award so mean as to be an insult to their service and dedication, e.g. three per cent to NHS key workers. No wonder people are in despair.

Meanwhile the government boasts that unemployment has come down, leaving aside its decision to make redundant 90,000 jobs in the civil service.

Job insecurity remains a vicious situation for workers whilst the P and O debacle is, for the government, a distant memory.

Our society is unequal and unfair. We only have to read the news on bosses’ huge bonuses, on the salaries of the highest earners, on the profits made by companies whilst increasing the costs to ordinary people.

The failures of this government to address poverty and to reduce such abject inequality are becoming increasingly evident in the empty promises and ill thought through policies, intended more to divert attention away from the shoddy behaviour and lack of integrity as demonstrated by Partygate.

Slough Trades Council will be at the demonstration, supporting the fight for a better life and a better future for people whilst demanding genuine action rather than policies, described on June 10 by journalist Paul Waugh in the ‘i’, as being no better than written ‘on the back of a fag packet’.

Join us in London. Join the march for change.

MARGERY THOROGOOD Secretary, Slough & District Trades

Union Council