How can anyone afford to go on holiday?

The cost of essentials has been eating further and further into household budgets for years, leaving little or no money for anything else. This cost of living crisis is sucking the joy out of life for millions of families, with small treats and presents – let alone holidays and foreign travel – a distant dream.

Despite comments to the contrary across the media this week, those at the sharpest end of the crisis really do have no money at all to spare. Almost half of Brits have less than £25 a week left after the essentials, and two thirds have been cutting back on life’s necessities such as heating or food, according to polling by the Cost of Living Action coalition. The reality across the country is that the bare minimum is a struggle. In this context, a caravan, cottage or sunbed by the pool feels like an alternative universe.

This is certainly not the reality for everyone. For many things are fine, and for the lucky few things are better than ever. That this is true for them does not diminish the experiences of those for whom this economy is not working, for whom the essentials are barely in reach and therefore for whom a holiday is a pipe dream.

The new Prime Minister Andy Burnham appears to have understood this. He has started his premiership with a week of cost of living announcements that promise to take what some would consider to be an insignificant chunk off the cost of essentials.

But for those at the sharpest end of the cost of living crisis, £45 a year off energy bills (through Tuesday’s VAT cut), or a few quid off your weekly commuting costs (through Wednesday’s national £2 bus fare cap) can make a world of difference, and perhaps even allow you to loosen the purse strings once in a while for something that brings more joy than the bare minimum.

Needless to say, these ‘small’ things will not reverse what many see as the interminable decline in living standards, life prospects and therefore hope that this cost of living crisis has brought about. To truly lead the ‘cost of living government’ that the Prime Minister proclaimed, he needs to tackle the causes as well as the symptoms of our broken economy.

Big-ticket policies such as the social housebuilding programme, bringing essential services into public control, and fairer taxation (including a wealth tax) are apparently under discussion. These sorts of interventions are vital to addressing the root causes of why some people continue to count pennies around the kitchen table at the end of each week, or have to decide which essential to go without, rather than get out the sunny brochures or check flight times.

While this summer will be yet another struggle for millions, we must hope that the new government’s awareness that people really cannot afford the basics, and its promises to reverse that reality, mean that at some point soon there will be a break in the gloom and everyone in this country can afford to treat themselves to the getaway their hard work deserves.

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Conor O'Shea is the Campaign Coordinator of Cost of Living Action, a coalition of 41 unions, civil society organisations and grassroots groups calling for structural policy changes to our economy to address the cost of living crisis in the round.

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