You are getting worse off - what's Dave going to do about it?
Gordon Brown’s party slipped to 27% – 16 points behind the Conservatives – amid growing concern about the government’s economic competence, a YouGov survey for The Sunday Times shows today.
Budget 2008 breaks Middle Britain - Telegraph
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The cost of living for the middle class is rising far faster than for anyone else. Inflation rates calculated by consultants at Capital Economics have consistently shown higher increases for goods and services typically consumed by middle-income families than the "hard-up", pensioners or "young single professionals".
The latest data for January show that this "middle-class" inflation rate is running at 5.7 per cent a year, compared with 1.8 per cent for pensioners; virtually nothing for the poor and falling prices for young adults still living at home. Wages and benefits, by contrast, are rising more slowly at about 4 per cent.
It is true. Life is getting harder for those working hardest. You are not imagining it. Even this is probably understating the case. The middle-class inflation research is based on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that groups broad categories of spending....
Moaning about taxes and bills used to be considered a selfish thing, but increasingly it looks like it might become a progressive political rallying call.
The more interesting question is why the middle-earners have allowed themselves to become so hard done by? Why, for example, after all Tony Blair's focus groups and emphasis on Mondeo man, has the Labour Party lost its instinctive feel for Middle Britain?
Why have the Tories allowed themselves to be painted into a corner on tax that makes it difficult for them to appeal to this natural constituency?
Why indeed has the Tory party not got back on track instead of being sidetracked with "nice" ideas. Is it as Sam Tarran asks that they "don't watch the news?"