The cost of living and reasons to be sceptical

Shimeon Lee has a topical TPA piece on defects in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s “cost of living tracker.”


A closer look at "JRF's cost of living tracker"

Active users of X may have seen a viral clip last week of LBC host Nick Ferrari pushing back on the claim that 7 million households supposedly cannot afford a 50p toothbrush. The figure comes from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s “cost of living tracker” which claims that 7.4 million low income families are going without essentials in 2026.

This has been uncritically repeated by outlets like the BBC who featured a 77 year old woman claiming she cannot even afford to turn on her oven - more dramatic than anything actually measured in the JRF survey. The same woman has appeared in many similar articles before, making outlandish claims like only having seven hot meals a year. Stories and reports like these are used to build the case for ever more government spending, with the JRF calling for the universal credit standard allowance to rise by as much as 68 per cent, for example.

Yet there is reason to be sceptical. In the BBC article, the same woman who cannot afford to use her oven reported spending £50 a week on petrol - enough to drive 300 miles. Exactly why a pensioner is driving the equivalent of London to Newcastle every week is unclear, especially considering she couldn’t afford a car in 2024.


No surprises but the whole piece is well worth reading.


Ultimately, the problem with measuring hardship in this way is that going without some things does not necessarily mean lacking the money for it. People make different choices about how to allocate their resources. In the same 2023 JRF survey, 15 per cent of those who were “going without essentials” also said they did not intend to reduce socialising due to cost, with 15 per cent also economically inactive. More welfare should not be the default answer, and when extraordinary claims and common sense contradict, common sense should prevail.

Shameless cherry-picking

Nigel Farage is now even less popular than Starmer just before his resignation

Nigel Farage’s popularity among the public has plummeted to its lowest level in the past ten years, a new YouGov survey has found, placing him below Keir Starmer just before the PM resigned.

The pollster found just 22% have a favourable view of the Reform UK leader, while 68% are unfavourable – including 56% who say they are very unfavourable.

That 46% gap between his negative and positive rating is bigger than the 45% recorded by Starmer before he announced he was stepping down.


A chap does not have to support Farage in order to notice that this is shameless cherry-picking. The story is correct if you choose a YouGov poll and ignore polls from Deltapoll, Opinium, More in Common, Survation, Freshwater Strategy and Ipsos.

The variation in results is very large too, that would be worth mentioning, but of course data uncertainties are not what the story is about.

Easily checked too.

A barefoot protest would be more convincing

Approval of new drilling in North Sea ‘would break Labour’s manifesto’

Protesters, who were dressed as firefighters in front of a banner reading ‘world on fire’, gathered in London.

 

Source

Could be wrong, but from what I see those people are wearing shoes mostly made from oil-derived products such as polyurethane, nylon and EVA.

A barefoot protest would be more convincing. Not much more convincing in summer though.

The Price of 5 A Day

In early July, Shimeon Lee had a useful TPA piece on a Zack Polanski claim about food prices in 2050. 

To the surprise of nobody but Green voters, the claim turns out to be worthless. Worth reading but yet again it does raise an example of the perennial issue - why is rational voting such a forlorn hope? 


A closer look at "The Price of 5 A Day?

Green Party leader Zack Polanski recently made the alarming claim that the price of fresh fruits and vegetables is set to rise 170 per cent by 2050, making them “unaffordable” for many households. This figure comes from a report by the Autonomy Institute, a progressive research organisation, and has already been used to support calls for more climate spending, a higher minimum wage, increased welfare and unprecedented interventions like price caps.

But what is actually behind the 170 per cent figure, and does it really show that fruits and vegetables are about to move beyond the reach of ordinary families? Unsurprisingly, the claim does not stand up to scrutiny. This edition of a closer look examines how this figure has been calculated and what’s wrong with it.

Mass sleep deprivation event

Heatwave leaves the UK in grip of a ‘mass sleep deprivation event’

As Britain endures its third heatwave of the summer, up to two thirds of people say they are struggling to sleep during sweltering ‘tropical’ nights.

The latest spell of hot weather could bring highs of up to 35C (95F) by the end of the week and today's temperatures are set to climb above 30C (86F) in southern England.

Amber heat health alerts apply between tomorrow morning and Saturday evening covering all of southern England, East Anglia and the Midlands.

Now a poll by environmental group Greenpeace suggests the country is not only struggling to cope by day but also suffering ‘mass sleep deprivation’ from extremely warm nights.


Ah - it's Greenpeace, enthusiastic promoters of mass reason deprivation events.

How very Lib Dem

Liz Jarvis MP slams Tories and Reform over climate vote

Rising temperatures have sparked fresh debate over climate policy and action.

Eastleigh MP Liz Jarvis criticised Reform and Conservative MPs for voting against the Carbon Budget Order, a parliamentary measure aimed at addressing climate change.

She said: "Time and time again, Reform and Tory politicians have failed to put the planet first.

"With temperatures soaring here in Eastleigh, it is farcical that those two parties are continuing to ignore the brutal impact of climate change."

How very Lib Dem, the careless emission of fading middle-class formulae and casual evasion of sceptical effort. Scott Fitzgerald described it so well over a century ago and the problem is still with us. It is a problem too, probably bigger than it was in Fitzgerald's day.

She would talk the language she had talked for many years — her line — made up of the current expressions, bits of journalese and college slang strung together into an intrinsic whole, careless, faintly provocative, delicately sentimental.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)

Ed Miliband has announced.

Government commits to 87% cut in UK’s climate emissions by 2040

The Government has signed up to a legal target to cut the UK’s planet-heating emissions by 87% by 2040, Ed Miliband has announced.

The commitment will see heat pumps, electric cars and renewables rolled out across the country in a move the Government says will bring down bills and “upgrade lifestyles”.

The reduction in greenhouse gases on 1990 levels – on the way to cutting climate pollution to zero overall by 2050, known as “net zero” – is in line with official advice from the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) on deliverable and cost-effective cuts.

But the Government’s commitment to the “seventh carbon budget” emissions target for the period 2038-2042 comes amid increasing political division over climate action, with Reform UK and the Tories promising to ditch net zero policies and back oil and gas drilling.


It's made up numbers time again, but it would be interesting to know what "climate pollution" is supposed to be. Presumably it is not the pollution of science and rational debate by political twaddle, because on the face of it there is a firm intention to increase that kind of pollution.

As even Ed Miliband knows, nobody will remember this twaddle by 2040 anyway. By then we will have lots of different twaddle to contend with and probably some real problems which turn out to be rather more serious than Ed's fantasies.

Bad weather in Kenya is our fault, nasty tea is too

Warning climate change could threaten Britain’s beloved cup of tea

The familiar comfort of a British cuppa is under threat, with campaigners warning that climate change could soon deliver a more bitter flavour to the nation’s beloved brew.

A new report from aid agency Christian Aid reveals that rising global temperatures and increasingly extreme weather patterns are set to fundamentally alter the taste of tea.

Key tea-producing regions, including Kenya, India, and Sri Lanka, are experiencing conditions that could lead to harsher, less consistent flavours.


Without wishing to suggest that Christian Aid has merely climbed on a bandwagon here, it does have a "climate adaptation and resilience lead". 


Claire Nasike Akello, climate adaptation and resilience lead at Christian Aid, said: “For generations, consumers have taken for granted that a cup of tea will taste the same, day in, day out."

Hope is contagious and science is our serf

Hope is contagious and science is king: 10 big lessons on ending the fossil fuel era

Liberation lifts the spirits

The single most important thing to come from the first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels conference, in Santa Marta, has been a change of mood. Whereas the UN’s annual climate summits, or Cops, can often feel stuck and frustrating, with countries circling the same topics without resolution, nearly every delegate in Colombia felt liberated.

“The mood here in Santa Marta is euphoric,” said Tzeporah Berman, the founder and chair of the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty initiative. “After years stuck in endless debates about whether to phase out fossil fuels, finally we are focusing on the how. We are no longer fighting for recognition of the problem, but creating solutions. It’s like watching a dam break – all that pent-up experience, knowledge and passion suddenly flowing into concrete ways to phase out dirty fuels. The hope is contagious.”

Science has to come first

In a world of climate denial and misinformation, Santa Marta was a shining example of science-led decision making. Hundreds of experts, academics and scientists inspired and informed the launch of three major initiatives on the energy transition.

The emotional language is fascinating. 

Liberation lifts the spirits

mood

frustrating 

every delegate in Colombia felt liberated 

euphoric 

fighting for recognition 

like watching a dam break
all that pent-up experience, knowledge and passion 

The hope is contagious. 

a shining example

Hundreds of experts, academics and scientists inspired and informed the launch

This has no connection with the scientific method, technical feasibility or economics, it is wholly political and wholly emotional. Remarkably evil too, in its barely covert ambition to dominate everyone and everything all over the world.

As ever, follow the money.

Inside Europe’s propaganda apparatus

Luca Steinmann has a very interesting Brussels Signal piece on Italian journalist Thomas Fazi and his investigations into the EU propaganda apparatus. A familiar issue but well worth reading, particularly in the context of what USAID has been doing in the US.

Inside Europe’s propaganda apparatus: Thomas Fazi exposes how the EU influences media, NGOs, and universities

“The European Union is facing a geopolitical crisis that is difficult to reverse. In response, it has developed a wide-ranging propaganda apparatus to promote narratives favourable to its institutions and policies. This system operates through funding directed towards NGOs, newspapers, news agencies, and think tanks that produce narratives and analyses broadly aligned with the EU’s policy framework”.

This is the view of Thomas Fazi, an Italian journalist, writer and political commentator. He is the author of several books that critically examine the economic and political structure of the European Union. His latest essay, recently published in Italy, is titled The European Propaganda Machine. The Dark Side of NGOs, Media and Universities, in which he analyses the system of funding and relationships through which EU institutions support NGOs, media, and universities in order to build consensus around their policies.

The whole piece is a useful reminder of how far the EU goes and how much it spends to undermine democratically elected governments.

“Since the European Commission is not directly elected by national electorates, this amounts to an attempt to use foreign funding to pressure or weaken democratically elected governments.”

This, Fazi argues, resembles in some respects what USAID has done for decades, where formally independent organisations often pursue political agendas aligned with the interests of their funders. From this perspective, the issue is not simply the promotion of European integration, but the use of public funds to influence domestic political processes and public debate within member states. “From this perspective, the objective is not neutrality but influence over public opinion, particularly in countries with strong eurosceptic political forces”.

Ed's Wind-Powered Moral Compass

'Profiting from crisis morally wrong', says Miliband as BP announces huge rise in earnings

The oil and gas producing giant BP has recorded a more than doubling of profits as it benefits from high prices from the Iran war...

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said, "Profiting from a crisis is morally and economically wrong."

But Ed isn't the only one with a windy moral compass.

Environmental groups have reacted angrily to the results

"The oil industry's capacity to profiteer from human misery is almost limitless," said Greenpeace climate campaigner Maja Darlington.

Oil companies, "destroy the climate, push up the cost of living, and rake in billions in profit while innocent civilians die", said Patrick Galey, the head of news investigations at NGO Global Witness.

Replica Activists

Greenpeace installs 'wind farm' at Trump's golf resort

Environmental campaigners have staged a renewable energy demonstration at Donald Trump's golf resort in Scotland, installing mock wind turbines on a green to protest his stance on fossil fuels.

Greenpeace confirmed that three activists set up six small, replica wind turbines on the fourth hole green at Trump Turnberry Golf Club in South Ayrshire at approximately 6.30am on Monday.

The demonstrators later removed the turbine models as golfers approached, ensuring their round was not disrupted.


At least we don't have to subsidise them.

Warning Booster

Warning lights for a coming war are flashing red – and Britain is not prepared

Almost all warnings and indicators that a wider war is coming are flashing red and it is "breathtaking" that the UK government is failing to better prepare, a top academic has warned.

Dr Rob Johnson, director of the Changing Character of Conflict Centre at Oxford University, said China is taking the steps that would be expected to have the ability to attack Taiwan, while Russia could well be readying to launch military operations against a NATO country.

This comes on top of Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is in its fifth year, and the US and Israeli war against Iran.

Mr Johnson has compiled a list of 80 "indicators of conflict preparation and coming armed attack" by drawing on the lessons of history, including the run up to the Second World War.


That's odd. Only last month it was climate indicators flashing red. 


'Every indicator is flashing red,' says UN as it warns of record 'climate imbalance'

The Earth is close to breaching the key warming threshold of 1.5C - beyond which increasingly severe and compounding climate impacts are triggered.

The answer of course is startlingly simple. What we need is a warning light warning light. This special warning light would be one which flashes red when the next warning light is about to start flashing red, thus giving us a double dose of warning. 

The European Commission and fact-checking experts

Mercosur, climate and immigration: the hoaxes targeting rural Europe

The European Commission and fact-checking experts have identified a growing wave of disinformation targeting rural areas and the agri-food sector across the continent, with campaigns exploiting the controversy surrounding the EU-Mercosur trade deal, climate skepticism and anti-immigration sentiment.

Sources from the Iberian Digital Media Observatory (Iberifier) and the European Commission's services confirmed to EFE the existence of coordinated campaigns aimed at rural populations. Russia is cited as one of the identified sources, though not the only one, and the motivations remain difficult to pinpoint.

The European Commission and fact-checking experts eh? Can't they do better than telling us it was the Russians what done it? 

Something none of us believe

M&S boss issues stark warning over worsening crime

Retail director Thinus Keeve has demanded action after groups of young people wreaked havoc in south London over the past week...

He also questioned claims that crime rates are falling in the capital.

He said: "I keep hearing crime is falling, especially in London - something none of us believe, and very few people working in retail would see."

It's the problem with politically important statistics, to believe them is to invite deception. 

Propaganda Works

Large crowds attend 'No Kings' rallies against Trump across US

More than 3,200 events ‌were planned in all 50 states, and organisers hoped it would be the largest single-day protest in US history.

Tens of thousands of anti-Trump protesters have been attending "No Kings" rallies on Saturday across the US.

More than 3,200 events ‌were planned in all 50 states, and organisers hoped it would be the biggest single-day protest in US history.

The words provide the unmissable clues - 'planned in all 50 states' and 'organisers'. 

The weird but too familiar aspect is that supposedly intelligent and independent people are willing to be organised in this way and are prepared to rally round an infantile slogan as such as 'No Kings'.

'No Kings' is broad-brush, virtue-signalling, fashionable and effortless. It is propaganda, obviously so, but it works. Are demonstrators generally uneasy about the effect such crude propaganda has on them? No, the slogan is not aimed at people who might be uneasy about succumbing to it. It selects them and we may assume that they don't know they have been selected.

It's propaganda and clearly about generating headlines, but it works well enough to do that, as the organisers knew it would. 

Unbalanced

'Every indicator is flashing red,' says UN as it warns of record 'climate imbalance'

The Earth is close to breaching the key warming threshold of 1.5C - beyond which increasingly severe and compounding climate impacts are triggered.

The Earth's climate is in a "state of emergency", according to the United Nations which has warned it is more out of balance than at any other time in observed history.

Forget wars, death, destruction and grotesque political incompetence, the real threat is made up numbers.

To live a normal life again

‘To live a normal life again, it’s a dream come true’: UK’s first climate evacuees can cast off their homes and trauma

Forty-odd residents of Clydach Terrace in Ynysybwl, south Wales, relieved by council buyout after years in fear of fast flooding...

Of the 18 houses on the street, only 6a and 6b – newer builds set back from the road, and up a slope – will remain. One woman living there said she would not be moving, but her son, a little further down the road, will be...


It took some chutzpah to work the notion of 'climate evacuees' into the headline of a story which could have been a more analytical example of the various natural, self-imposed and civil engineering challenges of flood defence. 

The Grauniad manages it but - 

In some ways, the street is uniquely unlucky. The classic mining community row of early 20th-century stone houses was built on a natural floodplain, and its narrowness means there is no room for flood waters to dissipate. Crucially, the terrace is in a basin, meaning that a rise of just a centimetre over the retaining wall can almost instantly turn into 2 metres of water, engulfing nearby houses within minutes.

Two Headlines

PM lands in Beijing after China trip will make UK richer and safer

Sir Keir Starmer has landed in China for a controversial three-day visit, which he has claimed will make the UK safer and richer – despite stark concerns over the threat the country poses to Britain’s national security.


England’s most deprived areas to get worse by next election, report for No 10 finds

Exclusive: the 613 most deprived areas will see higher crime rates and worse unemployment under current funding schemes, report says

Inconvenient Failures

Kevin Killough has a useful Just the News reminder of Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" and the catalogue of failed predictions mainstream media and activist politicians prefer to forget. 

Well worth reading, as here in the UK we are still stuck with Ed Miliband.

 
Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ turns 20, and critics say biggest disaster is its failed predictions

Twenty years ago "An Inconvenient Truth" received a standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival. Though it was full of predictions that never came to pass, it was a key catalyst of the climate activist movement...

Predictions of cataclysm stemming from climate change regularly get reported in the media, but there’s little reporting when the predictions fail. In 2022, NBC News was one of many outlets reporting that California and the American West were in the midst of a “megadrought,” which was the worst the region had seen in over 1,000 years.

Earlier this month, NBC reported that California is drought free for the first time in 25 years. The article makes no mention of the previously predicted “megadrought,” nor does it mention climate change.