Something I've been trying recently is to get a letter published in The Guardian online. I haven't been very successful so far. But as they say, if you want to write, you've got to keep going - no matter how many times you've been proverbially defecated on by the entire industry. In this sense, it really is their silence that's the killer. Nevertheless, I thought I'd share my letter anyway.
Dear The Guardian,
I couldn’t help but spy a gloomy article on The Guardian’s website: on ‘Beyond Unprecedented’, Economist Huw Pill advised the braying crowds of bitter public sector workers - as well as the private sector workers grumbling below the surface – to just accept that they’re poorer. It’s clear who Pill is talking about; teachers, medical staff, airport security staff, to name a few. Everyone is striking – no one seems willing to exercise Pill’s fabled ‘acceptance’. Pill says that ‘that pass the parcel game that’s going on here… that game is generating inflation’. I’m sure he’s right; he knows much more about the economy than me. However, I can’t be alone in thinking that it’s a bitter ‘pill’ to swallow. Arguably, those in what is politely referred to as ‘the squeezed middle’ need to gain a bit of perspective when it comes to the rising costs of living. However, his comments are an affront to the 3% of the UK population that had accessed a food bank in the year up to March 2022. We all know that that number has only increased since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. To suggest that the solution is for the poorest to simply ‘suck it up’ (the less polite version of what Pill is saying) seems more than a little tone-deaf. And furthermore, for those in ‘the squeezed middle’, who are working quite hard for the moderate salaries they enjoy, to accept their relative penury is far-fetched when the world’s 10 richest men saw their wealth double during the Covid-19 pandemic. I know that there are complex fiscal forces at work here, but can’t the buck stop with them, even a little bit? Perhaps they could only buy two superyachts this year instead of the usual obligatory three. Written by Rebecca Clayton in response to Graeme Wearden's article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/25/britons-need-to-accept-theyre-poorer-says-bank-of-england-economist.
I hope you enjoyed my pun on Huw Pill's name there, almost as much as I enjoyed myself when I came up with it.
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