Sorry, I can’t ‘accept being poor’ like the Bank of England’s top economist wants me to

Even if you can’t improve your lot in any meaningful way, you have to fight like hell to. Because if you don’t, what’s the alternative?

Sometimes it’s easy to look at the state of the world and get really pessimistic. It’s easy to see your money not stretching quite as far as it once did, your food shop not quite lasting for as many weeks, and your thermostat being turned lower and lower to conserve energy, and think to yourself “things are never going to get better”.

We can’t give into that way of thinking, though. If there’s one thing I know about being British, it’s that we can weather any storm, and that given enough time the dawn breaks on even the darkest days. With strong leadership and a clear vision, we’ll come through just as well – nay, better off – than we were when the bad days started.

What’s that? I’m receiving word that the Bank of England’s chief economist Huw Pill has said that people need to “stop trying” to keep up with the spiralling cost of living and “accept they are worse off”?

Ah. Well then. Nevertheless.

When I first saw it yesterday, I really had to dig deep to make sure I could believe what I was reading, as it felt so shocking. So callous. It’s not just that it’s a PR nightmare waiting to happen. It’s that it’s a complete refutation of our leadership, and specifically of people like Pill himself. It’s one thing to say that things are bad; it’s another thing entirely to say that you’ve caused such a huge mess that the only option available to us is to roll over and accept defeat.

Of course, when people like Pill say that we need to accept that we’re going to be poorer, they’re really saying that you’re going to be poorer. You, the average person, who works a job that already doesn’t pay what you deserve, and wakes up every day to a version of your life that’s a little harder than the one that came before. It’s unlikely to affect Pill personally. And it’s easy to tell people to accept poverty when poverty is just numbers on a spreadsheet.

I grew up on a council estate in one of the most deprived (and roughest) areas of the UK. The year I began secondary school, they merged two rival comprehensives without building the infrastructure or hiring the staff to look after what was essentially a double-wide school, and of the five years I spent there we spent four at the bottom of every league table, as the official “worst school in England”.

I was raised by a single mother, who still works all night for just above minimum wage. We don’t talk as much as I like because her job means that her sleep schedule is pretty messed up, but hey, there aren’t many jobs where she lives, so I guess we should be grateful for what she can get.

For me, for my family, and for the people I grew up around, “accepting” that we’re poor has never been an option. Throwing our hands up and saying “you got me Huw, I guess this is just my life now” is unacceptable. Even if you can’t improve your lot in any meaningful way, you have to fight like hell to. Because if you don’t, what’s the alternative?

That’s doubly true for the people in this country who find themselves in positions of power. When one of the guys in charge of the money turns around and tells you that there’s nothing we can do about the economy, that doesn’t make me think that things are hopeless. It makes me think that he shouldn’t be in charge of the money.

This country has a real problem when it comes to “pragmatism” vs “pessimism”. It’s one thing to be realistic about your situation, but it’s another thing entirely to just roll over and die.

We have to expect better, and more importantly, we need to make sure that our halls of power aren’t populated by people who are going to tell us to “accept” the messes that they keep getting us in.