Sir Keir has a funny way of helping working people

Food prices are escalating before our very eyes, says Christine Grahame (Picture: Yui Mok/PA Wire)

These have always proved popular as folk don’t need to turn up at some gloomy church hall but can on the spur of the moment just stop by with something they want to bring to my attention.

Before settling down at the end of the checkout I always get my main week’s shop. Now I am the most fortunate of pensioners as I am still working but frankly if I was not, then I have calculated my own state pension would just be above the limit to claim pension credit, so I am well aware of the pressures on purses these days.

I also came from a working class household which knew what not having coal in the bunker was like. For the lack of coal she could make dross and brickettes (remember those) eaking out what little coal was left ‘til Thursday pay day. Mum was an ace too at working wonders with the humble potato. One favourite was potato fritters and little did we realise as children that was because she was running low on potatoes. That perspective on poverty and the cost of food and fuel has stayed with me.

Back to my trolley and I confess I have a habit of sometimes speaking my thoughts out loud, especially when it comes to prices. I refer first to the price of soft butter, bread, milk, even of the not-so-humble cauliflower. Yes, you can shop around, an art in itself but most of us stick to old routines, old shopping habits. And so prices escalate before our very eyes and it’s often only when you reach the checkout the bill hits home. Credit cards are a mischief in that the reality of the cost at that moment is relatively painless. Contactless has obscured the cost even more.

Recently I used cash and started with £50 and in no time at all I was wondering where all the money went. Against this and the energy prices set to rise again, I look at pensioners, hard-pressed families, and those with disabilities and wonder what on earth is going through Rachel Reeves’ head. She, and of course Sir Keir, talk of helping working people. Well they’ve a funny way of showing it. Some of the food inflation they inherited, yes, but increasing employers’ National Insurance contributions, as I have written before, will mean those additional costs, right from food production to delivery and so on, will end up in your trolley. As for energy, Labour promised to cut our bills by £300 a year. Breaking news, just like Labour’s broken promises, bills are on the way up and from April 1, rising again with most pensioners having kissed goodbye to the Winter Fuel Allowance.

Next in line are those on benefits – most of whom are actually in work. It was bad enough a Labour government doing the dirty on pensioners but next it was the disabled. For “helping them into work” substitute “saving money”, not the rich, but those on fixed incomes and the vulnerable. Finally, apart from failing to behave like a Labour government and not Tories reborn, please will Sir Keir Starmer get off his knees when dealing with Trump? It’s embarrassing and pointless.

​Christine Grahame is SNP MSP for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale​