As we approach the new year, I am cheered up by the Resolution Foundation’s predictions. You can’t help laughing. What I get from them I would sum up as follows: if we face higher energy bills, higher council tax, higher rents and higher prices in Tesco’s and all of this begins to affect our health, we should feel better off because it will be easier to get into hospital than it was before. This shows that Starmer and Reeves (despite her stony look) have not lost their sense of humour, and for that I am grateful.
In my case, their humour is particularly subtle, and I momentarily failed to see the joke. But it’s there: after finally granting me pension credit, and restoring my winter fuel payment as a result, I find that they have calculated my level of pension credit to be £11.29 per week. “Money in”, announces my bank app every week. And every week I have a good laugh!
Thanks Rachel.

Living standards 2025 outlook ‘hardly cause for celebration’, says UK thinktank https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/dec/27/living-standards-outlook-2025-uk-resolution-foundation-ifs?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other