h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It has apparently just come to light that our lords and masters in government (uk but it could apply else where) dont know how much it costs to live day to day.
I would think this would be problematic when it is your job to decide how much money people need to live on.
Minimum wage went up I think it was 11p or something like that. How can you make that choice when you dont know how much it costs for milk?
how can you decide how much the unemployed deserve if you have no idea what a weekly shop for the average family costs? it boggles.

So I ask you good people of h2g2 ukians and others,
Do you have any idea?

Harold "The pound in your pocket" Wilson was probably the last politician who could communicate with people in this way.

Mind you, in those days £1 could buy you a top of the range Ford Anglia, a detached 4-bed house in Welwyn, a 2-week holiday in Torremolinos, 3 stone of monkey nuts, ...

Apparently, his descendants are still working on the last two-and-a-half pounds of those nuts...

B

Bread is ten to twenty pence cheaper, at the independant bakerys near here, than it is from Greg's, or the supermarkets, and far far better. or about a quid more, from the market, if you buy the realy* fancy stuff or, about the same as half way between independant bakery and market prices, if I make my own, by the time I take into account all* the costs (Mind, I use organic flour now) Mind, same price as one takeaway buys me enough meat for the week from the butchers But prices vary on all, from town to town

Not unusual for our masters to have no grip on reality. Most these days went to public school, probably on to uni, and then as an 'advisor' to an MP. As Mummy and Daddy were rich how can they know how we live (Survive more like)

Bread from Morrisons can be as cheap as a £1 a loaf if on special offer (Allison's bread). One pint costs 49p (skimmed milk) Tesco's

I know this is a but some of Thatcher's staying power might be put down to the fact that she was the girl from the grocery shop and claimed always to have an eye on the price of a pint of milk, a loaf, or a dozen eggs. Of which we were reminded at the beginning of the Meryl Streep film, where she buys a pint of milk in the first scene.

Not having lived in the UK in the 80s, I can't join in any discussions on the lady herself, or whether the above had any bearings on her politics.

When I met her (ahem) Mrs T talked about the importance of being able to get a vacuum cleaner under the coffee table (a matter to which I'd not previously given much thought, being a 17 year old girl with a mum to do all that). So, based on that single encounter, I would tend to agree that she kept an eye on the 'ordinary'.

There's currently a 'how much do things cost' quiz on bbc.co.uk - I'm right peeved because *I got the bread one wrong* - but only because 'budget' brands of bread don't apparently count towards the average. Which I think they should have told us in the question, not with the answer. I was spot on with the pint of milk though - quite pleased about that given that we pay for ours fortnightly.

Mol

Here's a link for that cost of living quiz: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24345784

I got 5 out of 7. Including the price of a pint of beer, and as I've never bought or drunk one in my life, that was complete guesswork.


Geggs

The leader of any organisation will rarely get involved in minutae like this. That's why they have people working under them to do micromanagement, do research and prepare reports on what level these things should be set at. The directors are there to steer policy, set and allocate department budgets and oversee everything make sure the ship runs true and straight.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the minister should not know the price of a loaf of bread but I can certainly see that he has more important things to worry about. Perhaps even get someone else to do the shopping since they have a country to run. As long as someone in an appropriate position *does* and he/she is advised accordingly I don't see it as a problem.

Questions like this from journalists are little more than a stunt to try and show them up in my opinion. I amused by the fact that Paxman didn't know either, and it did render him speechless for just a moment

About £1.35 for a loaf of Warbuton's toastie by the way

I got 6/7 in that quiz. Guess that show's how much of a dogsbody I am That and I know far too much about the price of beer and not mushrooms.

I have no idea what anything costs, except as a genral rule of thumb Ferraris cost a lot and bread is a bit cheaper. I just buy stuff from the supermarket each week and when I come to the till I always have just enough to pay for it.

So when you are on your way home from the pub one night and a strange fat bird in a ballet tutu and a sparkly wand tells you that you have got three magic wishes, go with it.

I am not telling you the other two.

What bothers me more than him not knowing the price of a loaf (as Orcus says, he has people to know that stuff) but that he priced it as over a pound, but is still hell bent on cutting welfare payments (which he must know are not something north of generous)

the thing is he was right most loaves of bread are more than a pound, where they found one for under fifty pence is anyone's guess so I dont know why that headline was so important,
but I do believe if you are telling "shirkers" they get too much money you should know how much a weekly shop for the average family is from one of the main supermarkets

Tesco value range. But I agree. It was a point very well made in the book 'Number Ten' by Sue Townsend, in which the PM goes around the country incognito for a bit and finds out what life's *really* like for most people.

Mol

I'm an American that doesn't know the current exchange rate and I still got a 4/7 on the quiz via educated guessing.

2/7

Don't the politicians just rubber stamp the recommendations of experts like the Low Pay Commission?

I suspect that there isn't much of what most of us would regard as bread in a 'value' loaf.

Politicians not being able to name the price of anything blows a hole in my argument that they tend to know the price of everything and he value of nothing.

It looks as though they know the price of nothing and don't know the value of it either.

Whatever the price of 2 legs home made loaf, that would be hugely outstripped by it's value.

PP.

>>Whatever the price of 2 legs home made loaf, that would be hugely outstripped by it's value.

42p?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-24352660


Geggs

Funnily when 500, 000 people petitioned Ian Duncan Smith (who is responsible for setting the levels of benefit people recieve) to spend a week living on benifs he declined - you would think as an ex-army officer he would have heard of the principle of not ordering others to do something you would not do yourself. Former Tory MP did so for a week in the 1980s and by Friday he was begging for drinks in a bar he had fled to because he had no money left for heating or lights,

Personally I think our elected representives should be complellled to spend their long parlimentary recesses living on benefits, working as assistants in care homes, failing schools and hospital A&E units with stints clearing IEDs in the latest place they have sent young people to kill and die; instead of going on junkets and troughing down on corporate hospitality