Harry Cole

Labour’s ‘cost of living’ eggacy

Labour’s ‘cost of living’ eggacy
Text settings
Comments

‘Well the cost of living can’t be that high if people can waste eggs’, chortled many a wag today as silly season exploded all over Ed Miliband’s face and jacket. As reported, the shell-shocked Labour leader was in South London to talk about the rising cost of living under the Tories, but had his media appearance poached by a protester hurling a dozen eggs at him.

Giving Miliband the benefit of the doubt for a moment, how have living costs risen? Let's take a piece of random household expenditure, something that immediately springs to mind. Eggs, say.

Wholesale cost of eggs in the UK (pence per dozen)

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/egg-statistics

According to figures from Defra, under Labour, the wholesale price of a dozen eggs doubled from 35p to 70p – much faster than inflation – hitting families who are struggling on the egg-line. Awkwardly the figures also show that the price of eggs is actually falling under the Tories. I’m not sure Ed has cracked this one yet.