A major squeeze on family incomes is gathering pace, likely to affect almost everybody – but the poorest most. Boris Johnson’s government does not see that as a reason to change its priorities. Instead it is pouring petrol on the flames. The cost of living crisis, it says, is caused by factors beyond its control, such as the surge in international energy prices and the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Therefore living standards are likely to drop by two or more per cent overall because of circumstances beyond anyone’s control, and the public just has to grin and bear it.

That is simply not true. For instance, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s spring statement on the government’s finances revealed what is called a “fiscal windfall” – tax revenues over and above what was forecast – amounting to some £30bn. Rishi Sunak could have handed the whole of that back to the taxpayer, for instance by cutting VAT, postponing or cancelling the planned rise in National Insurance, restoring the £1,000 a year he removed last year from Universal Credit, removing VAT on household energy bills, and protecting state pensioners from inflation.