A cost of living crisis, war and Partygate – if you’re exhausted, you’re not alone

One thing we can all do is give out kindness to each other in the face of so much stress and suffering, writes Harriet Williamson

We are facing the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s (Getty/iStock)

You’d be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed at the moment. We are facing the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s. Energy bills are shooting up by around £700, with a household using a typical amount of gas and electricity now paying an average of £1,971 per year.

The energy price cap has been allowed to rise by 54 per cent, unlike in France, for example, where the government has capped energy price rises at 4 per cent. Help from our chancellor, Rishi Sunak, comes in the form of a £200 loan.

Our digital editor Alice Murphy wrote a blistering article for Voices yesterday about “Britain’s collapse into state-sanctioned poverty”.

On Saturday, people came together across the UK to protest, urging the government to pass energy costs onto providers rather than low-paid workers. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, taking part in the demonstration outside Downing Street, said: “I was in a food bank this morning talking to people there that don’t want food that they have to cook because they can’t afford to turn the gas and electricity on to cook it.”

People turning down food – like root vegetables – because they just can’t afford the fuel needed to prepare it has also been reported by Iceland boss Malcolm Walker.

The devastating conflict in Ukraine continues, with reports of the half-burned bodies of executed civilians heaped in mass graves. Twenty fixed penalty notices have been issued to persons unknown over the illegal parties that took place in Downing Street and Whitehall during lockdown. The prime minister’s strategy now appears to be to laugh the whole thing off.

If you feel horrified, frightened or angry, you’re not alone. If you’re experiencing exhaustion and numbness from what feels like double, triple, quadruple helpings of uncertainty and anxiety – that’s an entirely normal response too. Those of us who have chosen careers in news media are not immune to this, particularly when regularly exposed to distressing images and testimonies.

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Advocacy, campaigning, protest and making a difference through charity engagement are avenues still open to us in Britain, although they are often dependent on our personal circumstances, energy, health and ability. One thing we can all do is give out kindness to each other in the face of so much stress and suffering.

As always, we strive to provide our readers with incisive and passionate opinion writing on Voices. We endeavour to lift up the voices of those who are marginalised and encourage thoughtful discourse. Our coverage of the cost of living crisis as it snowballs, affecting households across the UK, will follow this same ethos.

Yours,

Harriet Williamson

Voices commissioning editor