💸The UK is currently in the midst of a severe cost of living crisis - a situation in which necessities like groceries and energy bills are rising in price faster than wages, squeezing people’s finances: bigissue.com/news/politics/…@jrf_uk
🔨💷Shortages of goods and staff, high demand for oil and gas and pandemic-related financial support schemes ending have all pushed up prices, while tax rises due in April will squeeze finances further. Here’s where you’ll see the biggest differences 👉
1.🌡️ Energy costs are set to rocket this year, with an end to the price cap in April pushing bills from an average of £1,277 per year to as much as £2,000 and an extra 1m households with kids pushed into fuel poverty bigissue.com/news/politics/…@CPAGUK@NEA_UKCharity@EndFuelPoverty
2.🏘️ Housing costs are rising fast, with recent data showing that rents rose by an average of 8.6% in the year up to September 2021. Thousands will also face council tax hikes of 2.99 per cent in April as energy costs bite: bigissue.com/news/politics/…@genrentuk@PricedOutUK
3.🛍️You may have noticed your weekly shop creeping up in price too, thanks to the price of the average grocery basket rising by around 6% in a year. The average person is now paying £25 more per month on shopping than last year: bigissue.com/news/politics/…
4.🚂 Travel costs will - yet again - rise in 2022. From March, rail fares will be rising by 3.8 per cent, heaping even greater pressure on the public’s finances bigissue.com/news/politics/…@CBTransport
5.💳And if all these price increases weren’t enough, from April national insurance will be hiked by 1.25 per cent, taking around £251 more per year from someone with a salary of £30,000. Opponents say it’ll hit young people hardest: bigissue.com/news/politics/…
❌So how much worse-off will you be this year? Everything depends on personal circumstances, of course, but the @resfoundation has estimated the average household will be £1,200 worse-off in 2022: bigissue.com/news/politics/…
👉If you’re already struggling with finances, there’s plenty of help available to you - from government schemes to food banks and council assistance. @CitizensAdvice has a comprehensive guide you can use at this link to help: citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/help-…
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🏭 A new report from the @CommonsEAC has laid bare the shocking extent of pollution in England’s rivers and the harm it’s doing to humans, animals and the environment. So why are our rivers so polluted - and what can you do about it? bigissue.com/news/environme…@theriverstrust
🚽 One primary pollution source is sewage, which was discharged into English rivers by water companies at least 400,000 times in 2020 alone. This waste contains all kinds of dangerous pollutants - from narcotics to e-coli and microplastics.
🐓Agriculture is one of the most significant sources of pollution, with fertiliser, waste from livestock and chemicals running into rivers and depleting oxygen levels in the water - killing fish and plants across the country. @RiverActionUK@NFFNUKbigissue.com/news/environme…
The #NationalityandBordersBill would redefine who can claim asylum in the UK. It marks certain routes as legal, and others - like small boat crossings - illegal. Priti Patel says controlling our borders is what British people voted for... bigissue.com/news/politics/…
On December 18, Downing Street officials allegedly held a Christmas party in breach of Covid rules. @Bigissue spoke to frontline workers about what they were doing on the same evening as they battled to protect others: bigissue.com/news/politics/…#PartyGate
Bonnie Milnes was working in care on December 18, and was forced to stay away from her family to keep her client safe. “The party at number 10 highlights how much of a joke Boris makes of looking after the British public,” she says. bigissue.com/news/politics/…#downingstreetparty
@merseyview says it's clear the government “care very little” about people if they “can so brazenly flout the rules they put in place and then sneer about it”. On December 18, she was working in overstretched adult social care services: bigissue.com/news/politics/…
When Downing St held a Christmas party last year, most of the UK was facing another strict lockdown. Just a day after the party was reportedly held, Boris Johnson announced new measures which the media touted as ‘cancelling Christmas’. bigissue.com/news/politics/…
Days before the party, then-health secretary Matt Hancock briefed MPs on the discovery of a more transmissible new Covid variant which was growing exponentially around England.
On December 17 – one day before the party – 35,383 positive cases were recorded across the UK as the latest coronavirus wave hammered the country. It was the most seen in one day since the beginning of the pandemic.