Evelyn D

I feel that we are glossing over the many price rises we are facing as supermarkets, including the ‘go to’ cheap ones, raise the cost of everything.

I want us to talk about the doubling of the price of female sanitary products… I want us to talk about deodorant and toothpaste being almost doubled or more in some cases, that tape and wrapping paper is massively hiked in price.

I want us to talk more about the level of greed in this country making the gap between its people and their living conditions, so much wider.

I want to talk about our kids being unable to have life affirming experiences and the children of those of us living in poverty being so directly affected by the huge, huge stress it brings to parents and carers who are just trying to make ends meet.

That washing our clothes is a luxury! I want to talk about that!! I want us to be brutal in our criticism of corporate greed meaning that affording our phones is touch and go, where anything beyond the immediate is becoming unreachable for so many of us…

Why are we not talking about these things more?

When we do go back to lower inflation, the prices won’t return to what they were, so it’s not the huge relief it should be. Because so many companies have exploited our need in such a grotesque way, and got away with it, the power imbalance is so much greater than it ever was and that, is so frightening to me.

Poverty is not something we should just expect… but we are being made to believe that it is ‘a cost of living crisis’ and we need to pull our belts in and there are media influencers giving us ‘tips’ on how to live ‘better’ with our meagre income… it is not the cost of living, it is the cost of greed and the many who cannot afford it at all, are footing the bill.

I want us to talk about cancelled hospital appointments, the ultimate effect of this on already reduced people, the worry over our health, our finances, the future, I want us to talk about the bitter taste that leaves us with… I want us to talk about why, we are raising a generation of children to believe that this is how we are meant to live…