Just been reading about some of the day-to-day rises in average prices for various items , in the U.K. , since 2003 :------
Gas----64%
Electricity----45%
Council Tax---16%
Water-----24%
Petrol------28%
Mortgage Interest Repayments---50%
Apparently , U.K. residents now spend on average 71% of their income on , what could be called , basics or essential living expenditure .
However , there is absolutely no need to feel down-hearted about this !! Goodness , no need at all .
You will be re-assured to know that our hard-working , incorruptible M.P's ' incomes have kept pace with all this .
They only have YOUR interests at heart , remember .We know that they ,and our wonderful state employees , retire pretty early and have inflation-proof pensions but they obviously deserve that , after slogging away for years , wiping the sweat from their brows as another day of co-ordination draws to a close .
Our state employees work so hard in fact that there are 800,000 MORE of them than in 1997 [ " Gordon's little army " ?] but you wont mind paying for them , will you , when you know that what they are doing is for your own good .
Three Cheers , then , for Our Glorious Leaders !

I like it how you make it sound so interesting to live here... lol.
Remind me again, where exactly are you at this moment in time ? :P

Fair question , Bago ; I found it almost impossible to get a teaching job in the U.K. in the area where I lived because I was over sixty . Therefore , decided to come abroad , once again , and am in China and enjoying it tremendously -------the lot -----the weather , the students , the accommodation and colleagues.
I MIGHT have been able to get a job in London at some psycopathic-type comprehensive [ I think they're so desperate you could almost walk off the street in some places and get a job ; but I want to teach , not take up martial arts ] but the upheavel of moving and the expense was too much .
I keep trying the U.K and I'm more or less obliged to keep returning now and then , for personal reasons , but each time , the place seems to have sunk a few more notches . Hopefully , by the time I do feel like retiring I'll be too old to care where I am or even if the U.K. has gurgled to the bottom of the North Sea or not .

It's all to do with "Peak Oil" and the China is escalating the problem but not enough of you guys n gals take me serious. Instead you probably keep adding to the problem by buying cheap Chinese imports and installing air-conditioners etc.

Just look at how the price of energy as been rising well above inflation rates for the last 4 years - this is because of Peak Oil. Once oil reaches peak then we hit depletion and meeting demand becomes more difficult and expensive. There is also a knock on effect on all over energy supplies and products because they require oil in some form or another.

It's all to do with "Peak Oil"

I think it is more to do with profiteering (both business & government):(.

Money grabbing .........