What was winter of discontent

The price and wage increases are producing higher inflation data. If people begin to expect more rises, as they did in the s, it will change their behaviour. Firms will raise prices and more workers will want higher wages, causing an inflation spiral. To keep the economy buoyant in recent years, the Bank of England has cut interest rates to record lows and put huge amounts of money into the economy in the form of quantitative easing.

If it has to change direction because of higher inflation, this could have a big effect on asset prices, ranging from shares to houses, since they have all been bid up by cheap money. Higher interest rates would also have repercussions for the public finances, which Chancellor Rishi Sunak is clearly very worried about already.

It would mean that future government debt becomes more expensive, which could put a further squeeze on public spending. We are already seeing signs of the government taking steps to try and improve the public finances ahead of the critical three-year spending review and budget on October These decisions will push more people into poverty, as could the end of the furlough scheme. And the chancellor has already announced tax rises for businesses from Overall, almost every section of the community is facing either tax rises or benefit cuts, although the super rich seem to have escaped largely unscathed.

Dr James Moher had direct experience as a union insider and is also a historian. How far does the union discontent of the 21st century compare with that of the s? Unions were very different bodies then. In effect, this means that their traditional social rationale of counter-balancing the power of employers has been eroded, perhaps too far.

How far has the traditional strike gone out of fashion or become legally impossible? JM: Certainly, statistics show that the number of days lost due to industrial action has plummeted since the s. So collective bargaining is no longer the main way in which pay and other conditions are determined in most of the private sector.

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Tanker drivers had also gone on strike in some areas in the December, causing some homeowners to struggle to keep their homes heated amid limited petrol supplies. As countries recover from the Covid pandemic and reopen their economies, the global demand for gas has risen. Several consumer energy companies have gone bust as a result. The Government has said that it does not anticipate any increased risk of supply emergencies this winter. But it is working with gas suppliers to monitor the issue and is looking into providing state-backed loans to energy companies to help them survive.

Similarly, consumer price inflation in the UK rose by 3. The effect of post-Brexit immigration rules has led to supply disruption and labour shortages — notably the numbers of HGV drivers.