I guess there is never an easy answer. The current one seems not that focused to me. I don't want to live in a country where people use food banks & can't afford basic heating. I don't see this fixing that.
I agree, it's a sad state of affairs. Mind you none of this is new, remember the decades of low state pension and regular annual headlines of pensioners dying from hyperthermia. Unfortunately, you see too many instances of the basic cost of living having to encompass the new necessities of life eg monthly phone contracts, wide screen TV's, the latest pedigree 'dog' status symbol, plus increased drug use and so on......plus a myriad of changes to domestic life eg having food delivered etc rather than cooking it, that pushes the basic cost of living envelope forever upwards.
There is no easy fix, as higher taxation generally result in a lower tax take as the wealthy employ mechanisms to avoid it or simply just leave as France found when they introduced a higher tax rate that many wealthy Parisians moved to London.
