Cost of living crisis

Dear Poor People,

I’m sorry that I have not been able to help you at all in my budget. I’m afraid I cannot help everyone and I have my work cut out giving large sums to the wealthy. There simply isn’t enough left over.

But I can support you by giving you some advice that will see you through these hard times. Hard times for all of us! Gosh, I know those dastardly energy bills are going to hit all my homes! So I’ve got together with my colleague Mr Rees-Mogg to see if we can’t help you all out a little.

Firstly, it is important to live within one’s means. I know the temptations all too well. It’s jolly difficult. But it must be done. To spend more than you earn would be disastrous. Jacob and I take great care to stay inside the limits. Jacob was only telling me the other day that if things get really bad he might have to let one of his nannies go! Heavens. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!

Here are a few tips to throttle back on expenditure. You could cut the hours and wages of both your gardener and cleaner. I think if you explain that their jobs are in great jeopardy you could induce them to do the same amount of work for a fraction of the pay! That would certainly help. Works for all domestics!

With fuel prices being what they are you could see if you could manage with just two cars and no chauffeur! I know, running the children round to polo and lacrosse might be tricky. And you might need to trade that petroleum guzzling Bentley for something smaller and more efficient. Golly – perhaps even a second-hand one!

Now energy prices have gone through the roof – like most of the heat through those badly insulated roofs – ha – that’s a joke! Get it? But seriously, it means taking radical steps to cut energy use. Remember the small things make all the difference! Take care not to leave the sauna and hot tub on when you’re not using them! Don’t leave the lights for the tennis and squash courts on when you’re not playing. Things like that. It soon mounts up!

Now shopping. A difficult one. Phhhheeewww! Try not making so many trips to Fortnum and Mason and Harrods. I’m not sure but someone told me that they are more expensive compared to some other retail outlets. I’m afraid that during these trying times we may have to make some sacrifices. That means visiting some of those supermarketty places. I know! Who would have thought?

As for eating out. Well, that’s jolly expensive. At least try to limit the number of times you go to the restaurant to just once or twice a week.

Now we come to those annoying taxes. I know – but I had to do them. Without raising the income tax and National Insurance for you poor people we couldn’t pay for Brexit and all those multimillion-pound contracts we gave to wealthy people during the pandemic!

I know you are going to find them crippling so Jacob and I thought that we’d give you some tips on how to deal with them.

Firstly the income tax – your first port of call should be your jolly accountant. He should be able to carve off a lot of expenses and make suggestions on how to reduce your taxes. Jacob has managed to get his completely written off simply by moving his companies abroad. There are lots of perfectly reasonable tax avoidance schemes out there. Works for us. We earn lots and hardly pay any tax. Well worth the initial outlay.

Then you could try working from home and claiming home expenses! I know, that’s pretty hard if you’re meant to be emptying bins, cleaning offices or working with sewage. You certainly wouldn’t be wanting to take that stuff home, would you? I’d say not!

Then it’s worth having a word in your employer’s ear. You never know, he might be in a Mason’s Lodge near you! He might be able to help out by putting a few hundred more in your pay packet or giving you some guvy work – you know – directly into the hand. Don’t tell them I told you though! Wouldn’t do for everyone to do that. I’d have to start chasing the wealthy for a contribution if they did!

Not too much to be done for the hike in National Insurance, I’m afraid. Even the wealthy can’t completely avoid that. Mind you, if you put half your salary into a pension plan you can certainly cut down on your contributions.

That’s it for now! Next time I’ll give you some advice on what you can do about Dividend tax, Capital gains and how to avoid those massive inheritance taxes.

Remember, poor people, that we’re all in this together! If we tighten our belts and make those small cuts we will all come through this!

So do you best and keep voting Tory! You know it makes sense.