 Around 12 million households in the United Kingdom may be pushed into fuel poverty by October. Fuel poverty is defined as the condition of being unable to keep one's home adequately heated. It currently affects 6.5 million people in the country. This is the consequence of the rising energy price cap, which the United Kingdom has been witnessing for a while now. According to the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets CEO Jonathan Brealy, the energy price cap is likely to soar to £2,800 in October, the highest ever cost. Off-Germ is the government regulator for the electricity and natural gas markets. The energy price cap is the maximum price which suppliers can charge customers for their energy costs. The price cap protects customers from short-term changes in prices and is calculated every six months. At the beginning of April, the energy price cap increased from £1,277 to £1,971 per year. Approximately 22 million people saw an annual increase on their energy bills of almost £700 as a result of the price cap rise. Meanwhile, the UK government has promised a £400 discount on their fuel bills in October. But considering the drastic rise in the energy price cap, this won't amount to much. So in October we're told that we're going to see another price rise in the cost of fuel. Looks as though it's going to go up by another nearly £1,000. This is on top of £700 price rise that we saw in April. At the same time, we have inflation at a 40-year high. We have that looking as though it's going to go even further, probably topping double digits by the autumn as well. We see wages falling way behind again. So this in effect is the perfect storm for working-class people at the same time. We see energy companies saying that they are making record profits. We see the heads of those companies raking in massive bonuses. We have a government that really refuses, has refused for months to do anything serious about this. We have an opposition, a Labour opposition that said it needed to have, that the country needed to have a windfall tax on the energy company profits. Well, the Tories did that last week and it's really unclear now what Labour's policy is. The general cost of food and services covered in the consumer price index rate has gone up by 20% in April. Under the Health and Social Care levy, national insurance was also increased in price by 1.25% on April 6th of this year. I'm leaving London. The cost of living in London has always been ridiculous for like the last 10, 15 years if you consider property prices. Inflation in property prices has been well above what the stated RPI measure of inflation has been. It's been kind of 20, 30%. For poorer people it's been 20, 30%. It's been absolutely, it's an absolute crime. It's an economic crime that it's been allowed to happen and the reason it's been allowed to happen is because the people in charge are highly capitalised and so have benefited from it while people who don't have houses have obviously been put at a massive disadvantage and are effectively becoming enslaved to this economic system. Rents have gone up an estimated 35%. Average house prices have gone up close to 50% and food banks have been witnessing huge lines. We will see the new people are coming, even the people in the jobs, people are still working and they're working full time and they still need to use the food banks because of the cost of living. I would say because everything is gone up. We're finding it difficult to buy stuff because everything, we don't have a modulation to cope with the demand. Meanwhile, the Boris Johnson led Tory government is attempting to place the entire owners of the cost of living crisis on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. This is a cover-up of the disastrous implementation of neoliberal economic policies characterised by austerity measures and profiteering even amidst the pandemic and wars. Various groups including the People's Assembly, Unite the Union and the Communist Party of Britain have already registered strong protests against the cost of living crisis. So what is to be done about all of this? Well, frankly, a wingful tax was okay as far as it went, but it's nothing like what's needed. What is actually needed is nationalisation of the energy companies. We also need to see wealth tax to halt the profiteering that's going on by the bosses of the energy companies and the energy companies themselves. So we need a two-pronged attack. We need nationalisation and we need a wealth tax, but also importantly, we need an immediate and massive rising pay for working-class people. Now, we know that this isn't something that the government or business is just going to turn around and do. This means that the trade union movement really needs to step up to the mark and go out and win big pay rises for their members. It's the only way of being able to make sure that people can afford to put bread on the table and keep a roof over their heads. No one's going to do this for us. We have to do it ourselves. We can rely on legislation only so far, but in the end, it's going to require working-class people to stand up and organise and do something to bring about a real fundamental change.