Poor relation

One in three Britons have spent time below the poverty line. With inflation increasing and with wages and benefits falling this can only get worse.

Food prices are going up (eating now costs £2 a week more than last year) as the pound falls. Petrol is up by 17%. Car insurance is rocketing upwards - up 8% in just three months, with young drivers being charged an average of £1650. Rent has been increasing at three times the rate of wage increases (eight times in London), and unaffordability is now the main reason for homelessness (33%). Understandably, families are becoming pessimistic about their finances and are starting to rein in their spending.

Increasing productivity would help to boost wages - and we have a lot of space there, being 18% less productive than the G7 average (and 35% behind Germany). Sadly recent figures show our productivity is actually going down. Alternatively we could work longer hours, if our employers can afford to pay overtime. 73% of employees expect to delay their retirement - one in ten fear that they will have to keep working until they are 85.

Meanwhile saving is down, going negative in the first quarter of this year as people dig into their nest egg. The last five years has seen strong growth in credit card debt, personal loans and overdrafts. This spending is what has driven the recent GDP growth. Clearly that can only continue while there are pennies left in people's piggy banks. After that economy will slow, jobs will be lost - and people will have no safety net left. They will have to take what they can.

Meanwhile, when Mrs May discovered that she didn't have a majority she gave her magic money tree a shake and £1 billion showered down on the DUP - not to mention the £20,000 ticket to fly the DUP leader back to Ulster.

Mrs May needs to realise that she is meant to be looking after the people in this country, not feeding her political ambitions. She needs to lay out her plans and make promises that she means to keep. That way we will at least know what to prepare for, and may even inject some much needed confidence into businesses and investors.