What happened on 20th March 2023

Monday started with a scandalous news by BBC that 'More than 100 Metropolitan Police officers being investigated for sexual misconduct are currently working without restrictions.'

Those heroes of January revelation that 'the Met has announced that a total of 1,633 cases of alleged sexual offenses or domestic violence involving 1,071 officers and other staff are also being assessed from the last ten years to ensure suitable judgements were made' have come back into focus. 

That undeniably is sad and vicious. And it leads to the following Tuesday news about the 363-page final report into the Metropolitan Police after a month-long review. But made after Jeremy Hunt's budget speech analysis by independent think-tank Resolution Foundation that 'Britons are £11,000 worse off per year due to 15 years of stalling wages which have failed to keep pace with rising prices, a leading think tank has warned' has become most painful statement of Monday.

 

"£11,000 worse off per year" is about 1/3 of average income that people are worse off. And that sounds outrageous. Torsten Bell, Resolution Foundation chief executive, described the wage stagnation of the past 15 years as “almost completely unprecedented”. 

“Nobody who’s alive and working in the British economy today has ever seen anything like this,” he told BBC Newsnight. “This is definitely not what normal looks like. This is what failure looks like.”

It is no surprise that social media has been raging with such sarcasm

"I am waiting for the Tory justification that people were just 30% 'too well off', previously."

"Just take up more hours or get a better paying job. It's like people are not even making an effort! We're theoretically £11,000 worse off under the Tories, yet we are still told that work will pay off eventually. It's pathetic and patronising."

“Have you tried not being poor?”

"but, you dont understand. if anyone other than hedge funds, corpo ngo or other party friends get money, it causes inflation. it magically doesnt for our select group, but does for you plebs!!!"

Even Labour opponents express righteous anger.

Energy bills have become another changeling issue of Monday. Yet, it just continued an old theme about energy bills to rise from April 1. Now, it's become overgrown with details. Ofgem has announced that its cap on the amount suppliers can charge for energy for average dual fuel, direct debit customers will fall by 23 per cent for the three months from 1 April to £3,280, from £4,279 for the January to March quarter. 

"Why not just get on with it and put it up so much that no one can pay anything." This most popular reaction says everything about feelings of British users.

Many agree with the TUC that Tories have presided over longest and deepest squeeze of family budgets.