Leader's Column September: Extreme Times Need Radical Solutions, Neither the Tories nor Labour are Providing Them

Following the funeral of HM Queen Elizabeth II on Monday, Southwark Liberal Democrats would like to reiterate our heartfelt thanks to the Queen for a lifetime of service to Southwark and our country.

Our thoughts are with HM King Charles III and the entire Royal Family, in this difficult time.

It was an honour to have signed Southwark Council’s book of condolence and to have attended the historic Proclamation of the Accession for the King at Southwark Cathedral.

Please do consider finding time to sign one of the books of condolence across Southwark: www.bit.ly/3dhHd31

We wish the new King all the best in his future reign.

The historic events of the last few weeks have overshadowed the change of Prime Minister and Government.

Our new PM, Liz Truss, has spent the summer infighting with other Tories. All the while Southwark residents are worrying about how they are going to get through the winter.

We are still in the midst of a cost-of-living emergency and we need urgent action to help people right now.

Liz Truss’s energy plan is a loan not a freeze. We should be making the energy giants who are making billions in profits pay to freeze our bills. Instead, we are passing on the borrowing to future generations.

We need to scrap the October energy price hike to keep bills at their current rate and we need to provide direct support to small and medium businesses to help them through this crisis.

The new prime minister, in her first week in office, already failed our residents by tabling a cost-of-living support package that will, bizarrely, not stop energy bills going up.

By setting the ‘cap’ for the next two years at £2,500 for the typical household annually, bills will still rise by £500 from previous levels. 

Truss’s measly proposals mean our struggling families and pensioners will face energy costs this winter that are double what they were last year.

It is utterly baffling that a Tory response to the cost-of-living emergency would end up doing little for anyone choosing between eating or heating in the coming months.

It proves, again, that this out-of-touch government does not care about people dealing with one of the biggest catastrophes this country has ever faced.

Their poor response to the cost-of-living emergency was absolutely avoidable.

Liberal Democrats have been banging the drum for months about how seriously this incapable government must take the cost-of-living emergency.

It was our national party that first proposed to help the vulnerable by cancelling the October energy price cap increase by taxing fossil fuel companies.

But, it would be a mistake to believe the Tories would ever want to make these polluters pay.

Liz Truss showed who she sides with when she lifted the ban on fracking for gas, which is an unpopular and potentially environmentally damaging way of extracting fuel. This will do nothing for the high cost of energy.

The government should instead be focussing on solar and wind power, which are cheap, sustainable and popular, to bring down our soaring energy prices.

I would like to pretend that inept leadership stops at Westminster, but it is not much better in Southwark town hall.

Our borough is feeling the pressure with our food banks giving out over 9,000 parcels between March 2021 and April 2022, which was a 37% increase over pre-covid levels.

When we presented our own package of radical policies at the July council assembly, which included a commitment to a council tax freeze, Labour voted it down.

A Labour councillor at the meeting even agreed with our proposal to extend free secondary school meals provision.

I am sure she is disappointed that her party has refused our calls to declare a cost-of-living emergency that would make the crisis the council’s top priority.

Both Labour and the Tories are failing to get a grasp on this cost-of-living emergency.

These extreme times need radical solutions and the Liberal Democrats have proven repeatedly that they are the only party anywhere that demands better for Britain.