As we come to the end of the Christmas holiday season, the party’s over and it is time for the piper to be paid. The problem is, a lot of people are finding it harder and harder to pay not just the piper but their living expenses too.

“As the cost-of-living crisis squeezes British households, many have fallen behind on their bills, according to the Which? Consumer Insight Tracker.

Data released on Wednesday shows that an estimated 1.9 million households have failed to make at least one mortgage, rent, loan, credit card, or other bill payment over the last month. The figure is up from 1.7 million households this time last year.

The report indicated that missed payment rates generally tend to be lower in the lead-up to the holiday period and peak in January, when many households have to pay back their Christmas expenses.

The data suggests that there could be a significant wave of payment defaults in the coming months as the UK heads into recession, and consumers will only face further financial pressures in 2023.

Which? data shows that energy bills have been missed the most (2.3% of households), followed by council tax (1.9%).

Overall, renters were more likely to have missed a housing payment. Of those surveyed, 3.1% reported having missed a loan or credit card payment.

“We’re worried that many more people could be facing financial crisis in January – as the credit repayments pile up and the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite,” Rocio Concha, director of policy at Which? said.

“As so many people face financial hardship, Which? is calling on businesses in essential sectors like food, energy and broadband providers to do more to help customers get a good deal and avoid unnecessary or unfair costs and charges during this crisis.”

According to the latest report by research group GfK, consumer confidence in the UK has remained at its lowest level in almost 50 years for eight months now, as households across the country grapple with the deepening cost-of-living crisis.

Inflation in the UK reached 10.7% in November, according to the Office for National Statistics, which is more than five times the 2% target.”

Ain’t capitalism wonderful?

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Dave C.

 Zero-hours contracts among the over-50s have reached their highest level since records began, according to new analysis of official government statistics.

There are nearly 300,000 people aged 50 and older with zero-hours contracts, the highest number for this age group since records began in 2013 and almost double the number 10 years ago, from 149,000 in October to December 2013 to 296,000 in July to September 2022.

More than a quarter of the total number of zero-hours contracts are held by workers aged 50+.

“The large rise in the number of people aged 50+ working under zero-hours contracts is worrying,” said Stuart Lewis, chief executive of Rest Less. “We know many who have turned to zero-hours contracts because they were unable to find a more permanent or structured type of work thanks to age discrimination or a lack of workplace flexibility,” he added. “Others are juggling zero-hours contracts alongside other part-time roles to top up working hours to make ends meet amidst double-digit inflation.”

Chris Peace, director of campaigning organisation Zero Hours Justice, warned that the usual challenges of relying on a zero-hours contract – the insecurity of not knowing whether one is working or not, whether one has enough money coming in to pay their bills, and what one’s employment rights are – are exacerbated for those aged over 50 because of how their inconsistent wages affect their financial planning as they get closer to retirement.

“Often, pension contributions of those over 50 are particularly badly affected because their wages fluctuate month to month,” said Peace. “Added to which, the use of zero-hours contracts is rife in the health and social care sector, and the impact on women over 50 in this sector is worrying.”

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said that zero-hour contracts are on the rise among older people because, “sadly, it’s often very hard to find a new job in your 50s and beyond, because ageism is rife in the labour market…”

Dr Emily Andrews, deputy director for work at the Centre for Ageing Better, said, “all too often, these contracts mean one-sided flexibility in favour of the employer. Last-minute changes to shifts leave people unable to structure their time or plan their finances. This is particularly worrying in a cost-of-living crisis”.

Zero-hours contracts among over-50s hit highest level recorded | Zero-hours contracts | The Guardian

If you’ve been reading this blog then you know what the solution is.

“The British government borrowed a record £22 billion ($27 billion) in November, the highest monthly figure since records started in 1993, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed.

According to its report on Wednesday, the figure is £13.9 billion more than the same month in 2021, as the country has been hit by soaring natural gas prices that have forced the government to subsidize heating and electricity costs for millions of households and businesses.

The ONS data showed that public sector net borrowing (excluding banks bailed out during the financial crisis) was £105.4 billion in the financial year to November 2022, the fourth highest year-to-date total since 1993 and £50.8 billion higher than in 2019.

The report comes as the British government is facing a wave of strikes by public sector workers, who are demanding a wage increase due to rising inflation. These include nurses and ambulance drivers, as well as workers in the railway industry, which is heavily dependent on subsidies.

In response, Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt has said he will not change his spending plans. According to Reuters, these allow no scope for public-sector pay to keep up with inflation, which hit a 41-year high in October.

“We have a clear plan to help halve inflation next year, but that requires some tough decisions to put our public finances back on a sustainable footing,” Hunt said.

Official data shows that inflation, which slowed from a peak of more than 11% in October to 10.7% last month, is still near its highest since the early 1980’s.

Last month, the British government’s Office for Budget Responsibility revised up its forecast for borrowing in 2022/23 to £177 billion, or 7.1% of GDP, from an earlier estimate of £99.1 billion.”

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Dave C.

 Actual earnings in the UK have shrunk by £76 ($93) a month over the course of a year as a result of pay not keeping pace with inflation, the nation’s federation of trade unions, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has said.

According to its report on Monday, Britons have seen the sharpest drop in real wages since 1977 and the second worst on record since the end of World War II in 1945. Real wages are defined as the amount people earned in relation to their cost of living.

Data showed that key workers in the public sector are now £180 ($221) a month worse off in real terms than they were a year ago.

The report comes as many workers across the UK, including postal workers, train and bus drivers, as well as NHS workers and teachers, have either started or are about to strike for increased pay.

The current wave of industrial action in Britain is the result of workers “being pushed to breaking point” by years of pay austerity, TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady explained. She has accused ministers of being more interested in escalating disputes than resolving them.

“Family budgets have been shredded by soaring bills and more than a decade of pay being held down. The Conservatives have presided over the longest real wage squeeze in over 200 years,” O’Grady stressed.

“The Tories’ failure to get pay rising has left millions of households brutally exposed to the cost-of-living emergency. We cannot be a country where NHS and teaching staff have to use food banks, while City bankers are given unlimited bonuses,” the TUC general secretary concluded.

12\12\22

Dave C

From the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Christianity is a comparatively recent religion but it is thick with the debris of man’s earlier superstitions. The pagan influence on the Christmas festival is especially well marked, for December 25th was a holy day long before Jesus Christ was even thought of. Primitive man worshipped the sun because the course of his life was dominated by the yearly round of that planet in the heavens. This practice was widespread but especially in northern countries mid-December was thought to be a critical time, as the days became shorter and shorter and the sun itself weaker. Great bonfires were lit to give the sun god strength and, when it became apparent that the shortest day had passed, there was great rejoicing. Thus the Roman winter-solstice festival, held on December 25th in connection with the worship of the sun-god Mithra, was known as the birthday of the unconquered sun-god.

December 25th was not generally introduced into the Western Church as Christmas day until the fourth century and it was even later before it was accepted in the Eastern Church. Several Christian sects had previously fancied the 24th or 25th of April as a suitable “holy” period—thus arbitrarily connecting Christ’s birth with the vernal equinox rather than the winter-solstice—while still other factions chose alternative solar festivals. However, St. Chrysostum (5th century) gives a very practical reason why December 25th was to be preferred. “On this day the birthday of Christ was lately fixed at Rome, in order that while the heathens were occupied in their profane ceremonies the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed.”



Man’s consciousness is a reflection of his material environment. While he was struggling to find his feet in the universe it was understandable that he should interpret phenomena which he could not comprehend in supernatural terms but, in the twentieth century, such irrational relics from the past can be of no value to the working class.



Christians have argued against the materialist conception of history by claiming that the driving force behind the universe is a god’s will and that, while everything else may be subject to change, God and his religion remain constant. Yet the briefest examination of Christ and his theories shows him clearly as a product of his times. For example, he plainly shared the then common belief that disease was due to infestation with demons and he told his followers, “In my name ye shall cast our devils”. Again, religion has always been the willing tool of the ruling class. The church today holds chattel slavery to be immoral. But when Constantine the Great accepted the Christian religion the pope of the time received him with acclamation and no one suggested to him the need to surrender his slaves, of which he held thousands. Similarly the Christians’ god today dutifully reflects the interests of capital. Thus for hundreds of years the popes excommunicated those who put their money out at usury and denied them Christian burial because of this “grievous sin”. Yet, strangely, since Pope Benedict XIV’s condemnation in 1745, God has not moved his spokesmen to breathe one word against this practice.



We are told that the Bible is God’s word. This being the case, his laconic message could not be clearer—“Thou shalt not kill”. The record of the Christian churches in this century alone illustrates that they have never hesitated to take sides in Capitalism’s bloody quarrels. In the first world war the workers were urged to slaughter one another with God on their lips: “God of our Fathers . . . Be thou the rampart of our costs, the frontline of the battlefield”. And in the second world war Christians intoned in harmony with capitalist interests in both Germany and Britain. “You have every reason to say prayers for the Führer. May God preserve him, because we need an eternal Germany.” (Reported in the Daily Mail, May 9th. 1944.)



On the other hand in the Church of England Newspaper, February 23rd, 1940, we find a thoroughly English god rallying under the Union Jack: “It is to the living God therefore we must look for deliverance in the present hour. He it is Who delivered our fathers from the ‘Invincible’ Spanish Armada; He appeared on our behalf in 1914-18; and He will help us now if we call upon Him with a true heart.”



Capitalism is a dirty business, based as it is upon the misery of the majority of mankind. But it is well served by its priesthood, always ready with the facile lie and the glib distortion to endorse the actions of the bourgeoisie and persuade the workers that their present lot is part of some unalterable, God-given system.



Clearly then the Christian religion is a most versatile creed. Is it possible that it could be adapted again to serve the interests of a socialist society? The answer is no, for at all times Christianity and Socialism are contradictory. Socialism involves a rejection of leadership and the determination that the workers themselves must achieve socialism. Conversely? Christianity is rooted in a blind faith in leaders, both worldly and supernatural. The priests urge their flocks to remain servile and reap the blessings of poverty. They say that it is not up to the workers to consider the system which robs them, throws them into unemployment, subjects them to war and disease; that it God’s province. The Bishop of Barcelona orders: “Have confidence in your Bishops, who have received from God the mission of commanding; learn to obey . . . do not change a word of the directives that the Holy Church gives you through the Bishops. Be obedient!”



Again, within capitalist society there is a continual class struggle which can only be abolished by the establishment of a classless society—socialism. But Christians believe that there is a harmony of interests under capitalism. Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclincal on Labour asserted: “If one man hires out to another his strength or his industry, he does this in order to receive in return the means of livelihood, with the intention of acquiring a real right, got merely to his wage, but also to the free disposal of it . . . Socialists . . . strike at the liberty of every wage-earner, for they deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages.” The good pope has a point—in that socialism will certainly deprive everyone of the “liberty” of wage-slavery. However, with typical Christian charity (towards the bourgeoisie) he chooses to overlook the fact that under capitalism the workers are forced to sell their labour power to the owners of the means of living. This is not, as the pope suggests, a case of fair exchange but is based upon the appropriation of the surplus value created by the workers by the master class.



Yet there are those who still maintain that Socialism and Christianity can somehow by synthesised, given the right leader as a catalyst. The Labour Party has always taken this line and the so-called Christian Socialist Movement lingers on. desperately trying to create some sort of comprehensible amalgam out of conflicting idealist and materialist theories. Their analysis of capitalism is based upon the contention that it is an “evil” system, rooted in sin. But in their literature we find: “Capitalism has served mankind by accumulating capital, so making large scale production possible and increasing wealth generally . .  .” Thus these Christian gentlemen admit that what they call “sin” and “ evil ” have been of service to man. This inconsistency is the inevitable result of trying to accommodate Christianity and Socialism—the utopian and the scientific.



Christmas is supposed to be a time of good cheer, when the harsh reality of this world is briefly forgotten. But it is impossible to disregard capitalism even at this time of the year. We address our Christmas message to the working class, about to enjoy yet another wretched holiday under capitalism—the system they chose to perpetuate when they voted for the Labour and Tory parties last October. That man of the people, the sanctimonious Harold Wilson, has gone on record as talking of “our quest for the Kingdom of God on earth”. After one year of Labour government the conclusion in inevitable; God and Mr. Wilson are forced to administer capitalism in the interests of the ruling class as ever. But then Mr. Wilson is not a socialist—and neither is God.

Each international conference keeps pledging funds for the poorer nations of the world to cope with climate change. Often the money fails to materialise.

Biden has promised $11.4bn each year for developing countries to ease climate impacts and help them shift to renewable energy but the vast $1.7tn spending bill to keep the US government running, passed by the Senate on Thursday, includes less than $1bn in climate assistance for these countries.

The failure to so far meet Biden’s pledge risks undermining America’s insistence that it is committed to helping deal with the fallout of a climate crisis that it is a leading instigator of, through its huge historical and ongoing greenhouse gas emissions. Developing countries will need anything from $340bn to $2tn a year by 2030, according to various studies, to cope with the cascading impacts of global warming.

Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, based in Bangladesh, said “So one billion is really an insult to the developing countries. The paltry allocation of only $1bn to support the developing countries is extremely disappointing.”

“Funding levels for international climate aid are woefully inadequate to meet our global commitments or do our fair share to support under-resourced countries bearing the brunt of climate impacts,” said Sara Chieffo, at the League of Conservation Voters.

US fails to give money promised for developing countries to ease climate impacts | Climate crisis | The Guardian

 Consumers in the UK have slashed spending on Christmas gifts this year as household incomes across the country have suffered amid the biggest jump in prices in 40 years, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing a survey published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Six in ten adults surveyed admitted they were planning to cut the amount they spend during this festive season by buying fewer and less expensive presents. Meanwhile, British charities have reported booming sales as cash-strapped shoppers are looking for second-hand Christmas gifts.

With disposable income hit by skyrocketing inflation, people are tightening their belts and expect to eat out and socialize less, the public opinion and social trends survey showed. Inflation in the UK reached 11.1% in October, more than five times the Bank of England’s 2% target.

About 18% of respondents told the ONS they had no savings to shield themselves from surging costs and 7% reported they had missed a bill payment in the past month. Households were facing the highest financial pressure from energy bills, as well as mortgage and rent payments, the ONS said.

Nearly half of UK adults reported they were hardly able to heat their homes and three-quarters were alarmed about the cost of living.

RT 24\12\22

Dave C.

  In its search for ever-greater profits, Big Pharma is strangling healthcare,

 The rate of food inflation in the UK has reached its maximum since 1977, with consumers in poorer areas reporting they are buying less food, a survey by the Office for National Statistics published on Thursday shows.

Lower-income households appear to be the hardest hit by spiraling inflation, with 61% of consumers living in the most deprived areas buying less when food shopping compared to last year, as opposed to 44% in the least deprived areas.

Although overall inflation in the UK – including housing costs – slightly decreased from 9.6% in October 2022 to 9.3% in November, food and non-alcoholic drink prices jumped by 16.5% year-on-year last month in the highest increase since September 1977 (17.6%), according to the ONS.

Concerns are mounting that unprecedented food inflation may affect the health of the population. The ONS reported that 23% of people surveyed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said they skipped or reduced the size of a meal because they could not afford to buy food.

Four in five adults – or 81% – of those polled by the FSA said they were concerned about the cost of food during Christmas and New Year, up from 62% a year ago.

The cost of essentials such as bread and cereal saw the largest price increases last month, surging by 1.9% and contributing towards an increase of 16.6% in the year to November 2022.

The annual inflation gap between low-income and high-income households was the largest in October since March 2009 and stood at 10.5% for less wealthy consumers versus 9.1% for better-off families.

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Dave C