A country this strong shouldn't be this expensive to live in.
Groceries, housing, childcare - families are working harder and keeping less. Here's where I believe we must start.
I want to start by saying the unglamorous thing: there is no single lever. Anyone who tells you they can fix the cost of living with one dramatic announcement is either new to this or hoping you are.
The cost of living here is the sum of many small permissions, protections and delays, each of which made sense to somebody at the time. That's why it's hard. It's also why it's solvable - because a problem built one decision at a time can be taken apart the same way, if the pressure is sustained past the news cycle.
Where I'd start
- Imports and competition. Where a product is cheaper everywhere else in the developed world, the burden of proof should sit with whoever is blocking it from arriving here - not with the family paying the difference.
- Housing supply and the queue. The bottleneck is rarely the will to build. It's the years between a plan and a key. Shortening that queue is less exciting than announcing a new neighbourhood, and it matters more.
- Childcare hours. When care ends hours before work does, a second income becomes a net loss. That is a policy choice, and it is quietly deciding how many children families feel they can afford.
- Small business bureaucracy. The person opening a shop should not need a consultant to understand what the state requires of them. Every hour spent on that is an hour not spent earning.
Working families are not asking for a handout. They're asking why a strong economy still leaves them counting at the end of the month.
The honest part
Some of this creates losers. Opening a market means somebody who was protected stops being protected. Shortening a planning queue means somebody loses a veto they've enjoyed for years. If I stood here and told you all of it was painless, you'd be right not to believe me.
What I'll commit to is this: I'll say who bears the cost before the decision, not after. And I'll keep saying it when the people affected are in the room, which is the only test that counts.
Tomorrow I'll write about security, and about the reservists and families carrying a burden most of the country only reads about.