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Supermarkets are the key to understanding what the cost of living feels like for millions of working people in this country. Everything is more expensive: bread, beer, even biscuits. With
the crisis now dragging previously comfortable voters into the struggle, it’s no wonder Rishi Sunak is floundering in the polls. Former Tory voters are switching from Morrisons to Aldi,
Tesco Finest to Tesco Value, M&S to Sainsbury. Value brands are doing better than ever and higher-range food is proving less and less popular. This is not just about the poorest in our
society. Yes, poverty is rising at shocking speed: millions of kids in Britain are going hungry every week. It’s no small proportion of Brits, either. The ONS recently found almost a quarter
of families are regularly running out of money for essentials like food. But even those with above-average salaries, who should be better off, are struggling. People are cutting back on the
one annual family holiday to Europe. Many are struggling to do the fun things - the things that make life worth living. Someone recently told me they have stopped going to the pub with
mates every Friday because it’s eating up cash they just don’t have. That is why the Tories sound so appallingly out of touch. When people like Andrea Leadsom claim the “cost-of-living
crisis has ended”, they reveal how different their lives are to the rest of us. For some reason, Number 10 thinks the economy is out of the woods and people are starting to feel it. Perhaps
it’s because Rishi Sunak and his billionaire wife probably haven’t bought a pint of milk in Morrisons in decades. That’s why Labour Together, the think tank I run, recently commissioned Blue
Marble, an independent social research agency, to conduct “listening” interviews with 21 pairs of swing voters across Britain. We wanted to know what the cost-of-living crisis feels like
for everyday shoppers, not just looking at numbers on a spreadsheet. Everyone was trading down to save cash. Many were switching to Aldi or Lidl. Most were stocking up in bulk. A number were
finding fresh fruit and vegetables too expensive and buying frozen instead. And whether it’s M&S or Tesco, shoppers were hanging round the “whoopsie aisle,” where supermarkets sell food
that is at its sell-by-date at a reduced price. They were rummaging through reduced vegetables, ready-meals, and nearly-off milk. All with a yellow price reduction sticker discreetly placed
on them. Many of these people voted for Boris Johnson. Most think they will not vote Conservative again next time. The cost of living crisis started well before the pandemic, too. For
decades, the middle classes have been squeezed just as the poorest have been. It’s not about Covid or Putin’s war against Ukraine. It is about twenty years of stagnant real wages and the
gradual increase in the cost of life. The anger these families are feeling is justified. The Government is seen as having no “long term plan”. The cost-of-living crisis is “on their watch”.
Parents no longer think their children will be better off than they are. The long shadow of George Osborne and David Cameron’s austerity still hangs over us. It might be fitting then that
the now-Foreign Secretary described Rishi Sunak this week as his “heir.” Politicians once thought the cost-of-living was a blip, something that only impacted the poorest. No one can say that
is true now. Everyone deserves better than relying on the yellow “reduced” stickers to feed their families. While the Conservatives are totally blind to people scrambling over bargains in
the supermarket, Labour are offering serious, long-term solutions to put money back in the pockets of working people. * _Josh Simons is director of Labour Together_