Politics: There's a chill in the air that's not to do with the weather
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It’s autumn now and last week I felt a real chill in the air: a cold comfort of a fiscal statement from the UK Chancellor and a package of reckless measures the new Prime Minister has gambled the financial security of the UK with.
I won’t mince my words, the new budget Tories is designed to line the pockets of the already very rich and rob the not just the poor, but middle income earners who make up most of the population.
Not that long ago did the UK have one of the strongest economies in Europe, now we’re navigating inflation that’s double that of France - our post-Brexit landscape is in economic peril.
Directly after the Chancellor’s new plans emerged, the Pound has dropped to its lowest level in 37 years, making it the worst market response to a budget we’ve ever witnessed.
Middle income and poor people are punished by this budget, in which the Chancellor’s priorities are clear: to prop up the mega-rich, the banks, and corporations, enabling them to profit majorly whilst many will struggle to heat their
homes and feed their families.
Through his mini-budget, the Chancellor hands a tax cut worth £55,000 to people who earn over £1 million a year - that’s more than many take home to begin with.
The package of tax cuts as you’ll know is worth £45 billion.
That’s £45 billion less in the public purse to help ease the pain of the economic tumbling down we’re in the direct line of.
This will have a severe knock-on effect on the Scottish Government’s ability to pay for our public services, like the NHS, the Police and our councils as our Block Grant will be reduced.
In a time when our hospitals and GP services are still struggling to recover from Covid, the last thing they can take is more strain on their funding.
The Scottish Government is at the mercy of Liz Truss’s reckless decisions.
That coldness I mentioned, the chill in the air, will be felt by you too I imagine thanks to the UK Government’s Energy Plan. It fully abandons rural Scotland.
In the past two years, the cost of home heating oil has increased by more than 230%, rising from £0.31 a litre to £1.05 a litre.
For a home in rural Scotland £100 would buy less than 100 litres of heating oil, which provides only two to three weeks of heating.
Despite that, the UK government has announced it will offer only £100 in total to households across the UK.
The current cap £2500 price cap will force an estimated 150,000 more Scottish households into extreme fuel poverty. Yet Scotland generates the equivalent of 100% of its electricity needs from renewable sources which should make us secure.
We have a strong energy mix of oil, gas, and renewables at our doorstep.
So the question we must ask ourselves, is why are our energy costs so high?
Look no further than the UK Government’s hold on energy policy for your answer.
