The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Leadership goes AWOL in crisis
Do you ever wonder what would be happening now if Gordon Brown was still prime minister. Or chancellor of the exchequer. Or even leader of the Labour Party?
Because he appears to be paying the cost-of-living crisis more attention than the guys who’ve taken his place.
The former Fife MP was back in the news this week when he called for an emergency budget before a “financial time bomb” (in the form of October’s energy price cap rise) “pushes millions over the edge”.
Mr Brown, who is honorary patron of the Cottage Family Centre in Kirkcaldy, has suggested suspending the increases to the energy price cap and nationalising the energy firms.
He’s set out proposals for a windfall tax, which could raise £15 billion and give eight million lowincome families a £2,000 payment.
And he urged Boris Johnson to sit down with both of his potential successors – Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss – and agree to emergency measures this week.
Now I’m no expert. But time bombs and cliff edges sound like the kind of things we expect our actual political leaders to be putting a bit of time and effort into preventing.
But our “caretaker” PM and chancellor are both on holiday.
The leader of the opposition has also been notable by his absence.
There’s no plan to cut short the parliamentary recess, which isn’t due to end until September 5.
And the Conservative leadership candidates are so tied up with knocking verbal lumps out of each other that the prospect of taking action to stave off financial disaster will just have to take a back seat for the foreseeable.
While Gordon Brown’s pleas were falling on deaf ears this week, a report from Loughborough University found some families will be up to £1,600 worse off this year – and the support being offered by the government will not come close to bridging that gap.
The Scottish Government estimates at least 700,000 households in Scotland – that’s 30% of all households – will be living in extreme fuel poverty by October.
And by the time the next energy price cap rise comes into effect in January, the annual energy bill for a typical household is likely to top £4,200.
If ever there was a time to get some adults in the room, it’s now.
It’s a shame half of them aren’t even in the country.
As usual it’s being left to charities and community groups to pick up the pieces.
In Kirkcaldy, the Cottage Family Centre has distributed millions of pounds’ worth of household goods to 30,000 families in the seven months since Gordon Brown launched its Big Hoose Project in January.
At Cupar, the Scottish Deer Centre ditched its usual entry charges for the last week of the school holidays, and instead asked visitors to “pay as you please” so hard-up families could still enjoy a day out.
And on Thursday, Nicola Sturgeon visited a breakfast club in Forfar, where she learned how spiralling food and fuel costs are affecting families there.
Parents said they were depending on the free meals provided by the Lowson Memorial Church to feed their children during the school holidays.
One mum, Leanne Prophet, said the social aspect of the group had also been a godsend since the cost of petrol meant she could not take her children to free activities elsewhere.
“Coming here has been a lifeline for us because we
can’t afford to go places,” she said.
“I was so worried about how we were going to fill nearly seven weeks of holidays.”
It is safe to say that wherever Boris Johnson is sunning himself, his children’s memories of the summer of 2022 will be more exotic than those of Leanne’s family.
To prove oneself unfit to lead the country out of one national crisis is unfortunate. To prove it again during a second looks like carelessness.
Here, at least, an emergency budget is on the cards. The first minister announced it after convening a meeting of the Scottish Government’s resilience committee this week.
The group will meet weekly to consider measures to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.
But Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t pulling any punches when she warned: “In the absence of substantial and urgent action, this emergency will cause acute deprivation and suffering.
“Bluntly, it will cost lives.”
There are things the Scottish Government can do within its devolved powers.
It can redirect existing money to those who are most in need, put in place measures to stimulate the economy, dispense advice on reducing energy costs…
But the big decisions on spending, systemic change and channelling support to those who need it most will have to come from Westminster.
And sadly there’s just a giant vacuum where strong leadership should be.