Voters won’t forgive these punishing costs

FOR months, households have braced themselves for a cost of living spike. But this has been only the phoney war. Today, the heavy bombardment on people’s wallets and purses begins in terrifying and tangible earnest.

Heaping misery on millions, the energy regulator is poised to announce that gas and electricity bills will rocket to an eyewatering £1,900 a year in April.

The impact will be crippling, with hardpressed families and pensioners agonising over the distressing choice of warming their homes or feeding themselves.

That’s why we welcome Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s plan to soften the blow for the worst-hit households.

Of course, global wholesale energy prices are beyond the Government’s control. This, though, should be the spur for ministers to confront our exposure to volatile energy markets. It is absurd we have foregone exploiting the abundant oil and gas reserves ringing our island only to then import fossil fuels at higher prices, which increases pollution and leaves us at the mercy of unsavoury regimes.

Meanwhile, real wages are falling. Interest rates are set to rise, pushing up mortgages. Inflation is soaring. The weekly shop has seen its highest price surge in a decade.

Family finances are being well and truly flogged. And to make matters even worse, nearly half a million Scots will face a huge tax bill of more than 54 per cent on their earnings from April.

The double whammy of the UK-wide national insurance rise and the SNP decision to freeze the threshold for paying the higher rate in Scotland will be a hammer blow for thousands of households.

As the Scottish Tories point out, Scotland is lagging behind the rest of the UK as a result of the SNP’s ‘chronic mismanagement’ of our economy.

Experts are now voicing fears for our longterm performance. Increased tax powers and higher rates of tax are simply not producing the higher revenues which Scotland so desperately needs.

Given this bleak financial picture, it’s impossible to fathom why No10 is pressing stubbornly on with the ludicrous national insurance hike. Boris Johnson used to pride himself on his common touch. Now he is not only picking the pockets of people already struggling to make ends meet, he is stifling business and economic growth.

We really are through the looking glass when Labour can taunt the Tories for being the high tax party!

Sir Keir Starmer says the Prime Minister is about to ‘drive the country off the economic cliff’. For once, he’s right (although with his socialist ideologues at the wheel, Britain would have already plunged into the abyss).

Thanks to the Government’s Covid support measures, many still have jobs and savings in the bank. So why is the Prime Minister turning the goodwill into anger with this mutton-headed tax hike?

Mr Johnson is badly wounded by Partygate and it remains to be seen whether he can survive.

Like many sleaze scandals, this one may eventually die down. But he will not be forgiven for plunging voters into hardship – or ruining the Conservatives’ reputation for economic competence.