Ed Miliband went on and on about the cost of living crisis in 2015, but he lost that election because the public could see his sums on spending didn’t add up. Cuts, not tax rises, are the only way to avert a crisis, says John O’Connell

We are in a cost of living crisis. Aren’t we always? When Ed Miliband was leader of the Labour Party, he hammered this theme aggressively in the run up to the 2015 election. Fast forward 10 years and things haven’t got any better. We all know the cost of getting a round in for your colleagues; rent is punchy, to put it mildly, and energy bills eat up a decent portion of post-tax income.

But instead of sticking plaster ‘solutions’, we should ask why things are so expensive. A cursory analysis shows we actually have a severe cost of government crisis – we spend too much money,........

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