Punganūru Our country is in the grip of a cost of living crisis.
While our Prime Minister is more occupied with trying to keep his own job than with leading our country, millions of families in our country are struggling to make ends meet. Energy bills are rising, the tax burden on millions of working people is increasing, and the price of the weekly shop is climbing further by the day.
In a nation as rich as ours, this is simply not good enough.
From the Tories it’s been a case of too little too late. The support they’ve offered has in most cases been insufficient and poorly targetted. Not to mention that the government’s unfair National Insurance hike, disastrous Brexit deal and countless other blunders, have all made this crisis even worse!
The Liberal Democrats have to provide an alternative, and our party has already started leading on the big issues such as energy and tax. But there’s even more we could do, and that’s why over the next few months, Liberal Reform will be campaigning on the cost of living crisis!
Read on to find out more…
Our Priorities
The cost of living crisis is a multi-faceted issue, and to truly tackle it we must consider a wide range of policy issues. Here are some of the areas we’ll be focusing on in the coming months…
1. Energy
Energy bills are already astronomical, and with the price cap going up again, millions will have to decide between heating and eating this winter.
We need immediate action to help with bills, and to invest NOW in our long term energy security to ensure this never happens again.
2. Miserabilism
The Cost of Living crisis has further highlighted that lots of small interventionist policies, like minimum unit pricing and banning 2 for 1 food offers, can have a big impact on household budgets when all added together.
Liberal Reform has long opposed policies like this, because of their disproportionate affect on the poor. So we’re calling on the party to reject “miserabilism“, and support free choice!
3. Taxes
Under the Tories your National Insurance has gone up, your council tax is higher (as a result of local government funding being cut to the bone), and the tax burden on the poorest in society is increasing.
We must oppose the unfair NI hike, and support tax cuts where possible, particularly on the lowest paid!
4. Food
The cost of basic household groceries is becoming out of control, with everyday products like milk and pasta going up by more than 10%.
The government’s botched Brexit deal is a huge contributing factor to this, so it’s vital that we bring down trade barriers to reduce the price of food!
5. Welfare
Removing the Universal Credit uplift was a direct attack on the most vulnerable. Our welfare system is cruel, inefficient, and still not enough on live on in many cases.
We want to see a proper safety net for all that need it.
6. Housing
And last but most certainly not least, housing is the largest single cost most households have! Our housing crisis and the cost of living crisis are linked, we simply CANNOT tackle one without dealing with the other.
Last September we passed our Building Communities policy motion focusing exclusively on this issue, including national building target of 380k (with 150k for social rent), and other reforms that will allow our local councils to take the lead in delivering homes instead of Westminster.
When conference debates housing again this year, it’s vital that we maintain these policies, to deliver the homes we desperately need!
Let us know which of these issues are most important to you, and if there’s anything else we should consider!
Our Priorities
Our approach this time will be a little different than it was with housing. In that case, we essentially needed to build (pun intended) our policy proposals from the ground up. But with cost of living of crisis party is already offering some promising proposals in some of these areas, such as the emergency VAT cut and investments in renewable energy.
As of this month: some of our 6 priorities are already being tackled by the party, some require slight improvement, and a couple still need quite a bit of work!
So in the lead up to Autumn Conference we’ll assess the Liberal Democrat policy platform based on these priorities, using our checklist below:
If we’re doing enough on that issue, great!
If not, well we may have to submit our own alternative proposals…
The cost of living crisis is THE political issue at the moment. These issues matter to everyone, and will almost certainly define the next general election.
And as Liberal Democrats, we have a moral duty to stick up for the most vulnerable and to try and put this right.
So stay tuned to our social media channels for plenty of campaigning, events and potential policy submissions based around the cost of living crisis!
How to get involved:
http://childpsychiatryassociates.com/treatment-team/diane_palmer-200/ Follow the campaign on social media
If you don’t already, please follow Liberal Reform on Facebook and Twitter, and feel free to join in the discussion in our Facebook group. We’ll be providing regular updates on the campaign across all 3!
Join Liberal Reform
If you aren’t a member of Liberal Reform yet, please consider joining! Members get access to the membership section of our website, and your membership fee goes towards running our campaigns and supporting the other work that we do.
If you’d like to join us, you can so do here!
