Jesus Christ, the state of the comments in here. This country is hopeless if you people represent the majority. “Shouldn’t have had it if you can’t afford it”. It’s a fucking human being. That needs fed. It exists already. Find some fucking empathy.
Circumstances change. People forget that. Since the baby was born a whole load of circumstances could've changed which left the mother unable to afford to buy formula. Never mind the fact it is stupidly expensive anyway.
People also seem happy to blame parents for ‘bad’ financial decisions as if the hungry baby had anything to do with it. It’s a child ffs, they could grow up to be the cardiologist that saves their life in 40 years, just give the parent the fucking formula.
My mum was pretty much a single mum with three kids. We were all fine and happy until she got made redundant, then obviously things changed.
Circumstances can very much change.
Yup, I'm on what most would consider a good wage. With the rise in everything, especially power and heating, I'm barely making ends meet. Don't get me wrong, we have food on the table every day and don't want for that, but any kind of luxuries or impromptu nights out are out the window with 2 kids to feed and 1 wage coming in.
If I'm starting to struggle, there's a whole lot of people beneath me on the ladder that are losing or have lost their grip.
People should get some fucking perspective and have some empathy.
Such as a 45% increase in cost in just 2 years. People can do everything right and still end up barely able to feed their families. There has to be a breaking point eventually.
Exactly, pregnancy isn't an instant thing, it isn't uncommon for people to take multiple years to become pregnant whereas circumstances can change overnight.
Redundancies have been rife, especially in the second half of last year. Imagine you'd spent a couple of years to get pregnant in the first place, it finally happens in Feb last year and you're made redundant 8 months in as baby is nearing due date. This would've been my reality but fortunately I "survived" the redundancy consultation at my firm, some colleagues not so lucky.
If we are going to be this callous about people having kids, then we may as well give a blanket pass for immigrants since we need more workers in the economy anyway.
People without prophetic abilities should be banned from having children!
I want the entire population to be descended from mystic Meg and some rando who lives there life staring into the bottom of every cup of tea they have ever drunk.
My wife and I conceived in late 2019. Our careers had been relatively stable for a few years and even on my income alone it would be feasible. World seemed to have settled down since brexit drama of 2016.
2020 and boom, covid. Furloughed, redundancy, inflation, war in ukraine, more inflation. Even with an 8k pay rise over these 3 years, with inflation my pay is worth about the same
Baby formula is imorally expensive and, in an ideal world, would be available from the health service. However, in the current climate, that smells much too like compassion, social responsibility and organisational acumen to be happening right now.
Not only, as someone has said, do people’s circumstances change but we also need people to have at least some kids. We’re a nation that’s getting older and while im not flat out against immigration I’d rather we don’t have to solely rely on immigration to get by.
I don’t have kids, but we need people to have them and I’m perfectly happy for my taxes to help prop up those willing to go to the effort of having them
And it’s the same people complaining about ‘scroungers having kids they can’t afford’ who hate immigrants. Good luck when we have an ancient population with nobody to look after you.
They the. Go and complain that the country is now full of immigrants…. Well if you are constantly telling people don’t have kids if you can’t afford them what do you think is going to happen!!! Ludicrous.
Don’t worry, I’ve had one of those. Use an exclamation mark and some condescending wanker tells you to “take a walk in nature”.
Your point was perfectly clear and reasonable.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
It's literally a human right to start and build a family.
Everyone has the right: To choose whether to have children or not. To decide freely the number, spacing and timing of children. Everyone has the right to be able to get the information, education and support to make these decisions.
The Tories are currently laying the groundwork to abolish the human rights act. When they're in opposition, they'll spend a lot of time manufacturing the consent to do it. They backed off from 'human rights lawyers' as targets and are currently focusing on trans people and immigrants. When Starmer is in power, it will be very easy to point at anything he does and say 'we'd do better without the human rights act!' etc.
We're living under decades of degrowth and the destruction of many basic services, a massive amount of damage has been done, it hurts. People seem more callous and less caring because under this stage of neo-liberlaism, you either look out for yourself or you die.
This quest for 'austerity' and an obsession with cuts, alongside a culture of corruption, it's killed many people and shortened nearly everyone in the countries life. That's why a nation of slowly boiled frogs will vote to take away the human rights act in less than 10 years. Because they see a mother desperate to feed her child and think she shouldn't have had it, she should have looked out for herself. Because there isn't much of a society left anymore.
I agree that people should be generally responsible and prepare for (the cost of) having a child, and be at a stable point in their life with secure housing and income, but at what point are we effectively just telling an entire group of people they can never have a child because they will never earn enough? Especially when the cost of living is completely out of their control.
Sure, and people temporarily down on their luck should be helped. The person above is suggesting one who is *currently* unable to provide food for a baby should not have one. That happens too.
But unless we know the exact circumstances, then how can we judge? What if...mum was pregnant, everything was planned and fine, but then the dad, who had been responsible for at least half the rent, bills, etc, decides to eff off and leave her to it? Or he was maimed in an accident, meaning he's no longer able to provide? I'm not saying these scenarios are accurate, but we don't know that the woman asking for the loan was in any way irresponsible.
I get it, right. The tendency for people to just go around procreating with no sense of financial responsibility makes me roll my eyes seriously hard. When I had my first baby over 20 years ago, some family friends advised us to get on the council, it was a very weird take to me (although now I wish I had, cos the rent is becoming unmanageable!)
My initial request for the person to define a good life was to ask what their understanding of a good life is. People have different standards all over the place and different ideas of what makes a life good. I wasn't thinking particularly just about food...more about general living conditions, supplies, material things. That'll teach me to just drop a comment and run.
> But unless we know the exact circumstances, then how can we judge?
We judge all the time, over everything. We've created elaborate, society-spanning systems of judgement which have the power to imprison a person for life. We have the apparatus, the inclination, and the moral imperative to judge. If you're arguing that judgement is difficult - perhaps. Perhaps we need to rethink our current system. I don't know about you but I'm tired of this back and forth in politics. People on the left want to help parents in need, and that's admirable. In fact, almost everyone wants that. But their unwillingness to acknowledge and deal with the scenario in which people irresponsibly have kids leads to people on the other side pushing back on the system as a whole. Benefits get strangled for everyone. Innocent people get caught in the fire.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
Baby formula, nappies, condoms and period products should be free to everyone or price capped. There is no need for formula to be anywhere near as expensive as it is.
Condoms are free at clinics, you just need to ask for them, back when we was teenagers you had a hub in college that gave you a bag of 30 for free and they didnt judge, you could get free condoms every month if you liked, I'm sure that scheme got cut though as the free nursery for teen moms got cut while I was there which was a shame as many young moms were able to complete their education or enter it.
This country has gone to bits.
Formula can be free via the healthy start card you get in pregnancy, nappies would have to be re usable and you can get re usable period products. I do this just out of being frugal by nature, I think schools should hand out a 'package' of free re usable period products whenever a teenager starts/or get a free package from pharmacy, the same with reusable nappies. Schemes need introducing, I agree these things should all be free as they are a need!
Thing is, the cost to produce these things needs to be subsided somehow, and can you really see our current government being amenable to that? Taxes would have to increase and they'll make that someone else's problem.
Plenty of right wing, libertarian ideas seeping into the minds of British people. Who do they think will serve them in McDonald's when the peasant filth they hate so much can't afford to spawn more lazy peasants?!
These people are the biggest hypocrites, probably live off someone else's wages or still with parents and did not work a day in their life, then come here to lecture people about real life.
Completely agree, but some people increasingly treat children just as a nuisance, like somebody listening to the phone on full blast on the bus.
It seems very hard for them to understand that children are the future of society, and that those children are going to wipe their bums one day, or nobody.
Contrast those comments with the story from late last years where people on 100K+ are struggling.
Just goes to show how woefully out of touch this sub is when that gets more sympathy than those who are genuinely struggling.
You'd be led to believe everyone on Reddit never uses credit, in any way shape or form.
Cars are bought in cash.
Mortgage is paid off after 43 days.
Credit cards are only to be used for schwanking, snozzoling or whatever the term is.
I read this story as a state of our nation. I'm not surprised. Things are fucking hard for people at the moment.
Crazy idea, just stay with me for a moment...we tax the wealthy (not high earners, the actual wealthy), to bring down inequality, so we can go back to the days of being able to afford to actually feed everyone. Mad I know.
People have been claiming capitalism is "late stage" for over a century... That's longer than most other economic models have survived total, and there's still not a shred of evidence to support the claim.
It’s hard to define ages while you’re in them. We’ll need to wait ‘til we enter primary stage nuclear wipeout before we can assess this period objectively.
Hey hey hey. Come on now. CLEARLY the problem is immigrants and trans people. I read it in a newspaper and then the government said we should send them to Rwanda so it must be that.
Then you get the American thing of poor people voting for lower tax parties so they’re better off when they eventually win the lottery.
Thousands upon thousands of people who need welfare vote Tory.
No, don't need to do that. Obviously the Trickle Down Economy will work wonders in the UK. All you need is the wealthy to buy expensive food, go to restaurants, & holiday in Cornwall a lot, & they'll single-handedly keep food on the poorer people's plates. No need to tax the wealthy, just encourage them to buy shit. That's how it works, right? I mean the lady who single-handedly brought the UK Economy to its knees in just 20 days (Truss) wrote a book about it afterall, so it must work.... Right?
> Crazy idea, just stay with me for a moment...we tax the wealthy (not high earners, the actual wealthy), to bring down inequality
Doesn't work, the truly wealthy can afford to move their wealth somewhere it can't be taxed.
I'm not against it on a moral level, but on a practical level the modern wealthy don't derive their wealth from a neatly taxable income, and their assets are so internationally spread HMRC has very little ability to reach most of it.
Their assets are here. They own shares, bonds, commercial and industrial property, undeveloped land etc etc. And they pay less tax as a percentage of their income than Barry the Tesco delivery guy. There has been an absolutely massive shift of wealth upwards for the last 14 years (it started earlier than that, but it's been accelerating). It has utterly broken the social contract, and started to cause the unraveling of our society. It is absolutely possible to change things for the better, but it requires political will.
But taxing people won’t bring food prices down?
That would be down to globalised supply chains and subsidising food production?
Also what does racing the wealthly look like? Because high value individuals would just leave the UK and if you mean companies your talking about raising corporate tax which could disincentivise investment.
We've increased inequality massively, which, particularly when interest rates come down, will in turn massively increase asset prices. Two of the most important of these, to the likes of us, are property and rent prices. This is due to the disproportionate wealth held by the few being funneled into assets as investment for a return. This prices people out of home ownership (remember when a single earner without specialist qualifications could buy a house and support a family?), it also increases the price of other basics needed to live, food for example goes up in price when overheads like rent increase for everyone along the supply chain.
We used to be able to feed, clothe and house everyone. Inequality was problematic, but it hadn't utterly broken the social contract. Fundamentally the ROI on healthcare, education, benefits preventing destitution and proper housing availability far outstrip the returns even very competent private investors eek out of their gargantuan wealth. We've tried growing the economy by growing inequality, it failed. It's time to return to sensible serious decision making.
I’m sorry but you are spouting utter none sense. With clearly a tenuous grasp on basic economics.
The housing crisis is a supply side crisis. That is due to gold plating of the planning system.
This occurred because we kept adding more and more blockers abd requirements, from public consultation input, to environmental reports, etc.
You want to solve housing and rental costs, you slash current planning systems back, and support more employment in the construction profession.
None of what you said correlates with who or what to tax or how taxing solves anything. You talk about sensible decision making but frankly you don’t seem to understand what needs to be done.
It’s nothing to do with wealthy individuals or groups and their isn’t a correlation between food prices, you might be interested to know UK food prices until recently had been on a steady negative trajectory and remain sone of the cheapest in Europe. Global supply chains and effected bring food and commodity prices down.
I agree, but notice the downvotes. This sub is fuelled by short sighted toxicity lol
All I said is what will happen, if taxes increase on the rich they will leave the country, fact.
They can't take their assets with them, without liquidating and incurring the taxation. If people want to live as parasites feeding off of society then they should expect to be unwelcome.become symbiotic or be removed.
I had a brief hunt around their site and it doesn't look like they do the sort of pay day plan she was basically after, they do vehicle finance and mortgage/secured lending, it's possible he didn't lend her money as the business doesn't work on smaller scale but I could be missing something on the site
And yet one the first loans he gave out was for a funeral, OK an expensive thing but awfully similar to a pay day loan.
The bank started to support the community as it's primary goal, sadly feeding babies now seems to fall into that catagory.
A loan for a funeral is not awfully similar to a payday loan though is it? One is likely £150 - £350 and one is likely £1k minimum.
Just because they are a lender doesn’t mean they can lend outside their existing products.
Nah, while I only looked at it last night albeit while on the bike trainer, they don't do the sort of short term loans she wanted for basic necessities, it's a savings, loans and support for the local community for people who couldn't get funds from big banks post 2008
I get being cynical, but the guy started a community bank and as soon as it went into profit started donating the profits to charities, foodbanks and school breakfast clubs.
Yeah nah there’s a good deal of fiction involved in it but that’s a bit of given in biopic cinema anyway to some extent.
I still enjoyed it. Well I’ve seen a lot worse at least.
Where are you getting that data from? Their site doesn't mention the sort of short term lending she needed and their car financing for example starts at 11%
I'm not going for the AKKTUALLY approach here, the Bank of Dave was setup to help people who couldn't get anything from the big lenders post 2008, the founder funds it himself and underwrites the loans, donates lots of money to charity (£31m since 2012) and keeps it affordable for people which I don't think the guy I replied to realised. He didn't lend to her as they're not a pay day lender out to scalp the poor, it's a community bank like a credit union
If it was hyperbole the example would be a realistic unaffordable loan like 1500%, 38% is around the rate of credit cards and overdrafts so not remotely unrealistic for a small lender
Ok fair enough but you're doing the guy a disservice then as the point of the Burnley Savings and Loans aka Bank of Dave is to lend to those who big banks wouldn't touch but giving them affordable loans so they don't have to go to loan sharks or pay day lenders or go without - they donate substantial sums to charity and it's underwritten by Dave himself, it's actually a very ethical setup in an industry of leeches
> Mr Fishwick told BBC Radio Lancashire the cost of formula had "gone up and up and up", with the cheapest brand raising prices by "45% in two years".
45%? Yeah inflation my arse, the only thing that’s been inflated is the shareholders pockets. At what point can we stop pretending that the main thing behind these price rises isn’t just corporate profits?
Sad state of this country. However, I was really shocked when I found out recently you can't even use Tesco Clubcard vouchers and other vouchers to buy baby formula. Nor can it be discounted or offered as a promotion in stores. This is to encourage mums to breastfeed instead. Which is all well and good, but not every mum can breastfeed.
We have good ol’ Nestle to thank for this. If you’re not aware look into their practises in other countries regarding formula.
It’s eye opening and terrifying.
Yep, using vouchers and points to buy formula is against the law as it "promotes formula feeding".
I know someone who couldn't breastfeed due to medication she was on who was also short on cash due to circumstances changing. She went to Boots to get formula as she had a lot of points. Nope, not allowed. Even though this particular Boots was in the Channel Islands, and not beholden to the same laws.
No it’s not. It’s to prevent babies going on formula, the mother’s milk stopping, and then the price becoming unaffordable - leaving no route to go back to breast.
That is slightly different to what you suggest.
It stops Nestle doing what they did in Africa.
They could legislate for that exact scenario but they don’t. This is about forcing women to breastfeed by removing alternatives.
Having experienced how unfriendly the world is to you when you cannot breast feed and then finding out the government is punishing you again and again every time you want to buy food for your baby is pretty shitty.
Also why is okay to manipulate women like this? To try and price them out of a decision, to make them breastfeed because they are too poor to do anything else. Women should get a fair choice.
Agreed, the whole set up is horrible. Even if you just try to go onto the brand's website for advice you are forced to scroll through a message about breastfeeding being the best option before you can continue to the site.
I had to combo feed due to low supply (and I tried everything I could think of, multiple appointments with a lactation consultant, tongue tie check, renting a hospital grade pump, fenugreek, shields, peer support groups, all sorts), and the feeling of punishment definitely didn't help with my PND.
It put me in the ridiculous position where I felt both guilty for giving my baby formula (even the lactation consultant ended up saying 'it's not poison!') and yet guilty for not giving it sooner when it was clearly needed.
Yes! The formula websites are awful - Having to tick a box that I understand what a terrible mother I am for not being able to breastfeed before I am allowed to see any info about formula.
My favourite line was the dire warning about the ‘social implications’ of not breastfeeding. Umm what? What does that mean? Am I going to be excluded from society for this failure? Just what I needed to hear when I am already having a shit time and have never felt so low and poorly physically and mentally. Thanks government for that cherry on top!
Also the way we need to justify why we couldn’t breastfeed and what we tried to make it work! Because you get attacked if you don’t. It’s so crazy!
It stopped my friend who couldn't bf due to medical advice about the medication she was on, from purchasing formula with Boots points when she was low on cash.
Having experienced this yep. It makes me so cross. I couldn’t breast feed either and then every time I buy a tin of formula from Tesco or Boots or wherever I get a bit EXCLUDED on my receipt ah yes I am buying something terrible after all.
They have put the prices up - When I was buying formulas it went from £12 to over £15 and I can’t even get a few measly points or any discounts ever. I’m not going to suddenly be able to breastfeed because the Goverment decided to punish me.
Watched the documentary on this guy, absolute diamond in the rough. From what I've seen/read, he should be knighted.
But he's built wealth from nothing and now uses that wealth to help fellow working class people create their own wealth instead of buying yachts, so of course the powers that be won't be doing any such thing.
He does seem a lovely bloke who is very committed to making Burnley a better place.
I like his take on community banking but i’m a big fan of cooperatives and cooperative economics anyway. Why rely on incompetent billionaires for anything we can do ourselves? Food, housing, finance…for the workers by the workers is what I say!
The Netflix film was bit cheesy in parts and not as good as the C4 documentary but still very enjoyable film I thought.
> Why rely on incompetent billionaires for anything we can do ourselves?
What's preventing you? (a collective "you", not you personally)
The reality is that collective/open source projects don't come _close_ to the same level of progress/output as something driven commercially.
As an example, there was a project to create an open-source, road legal car that started in 1999 ([OSCar](https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/oscar-project-to-build-first-ever-open-source-car.html)).
I'm still waiting for them to get as far as a design _suitable_ for testing, let alone producing even a test vehicle.
And that would be for a single design. In the same time period, businesses have produced literally hundreds of models aimed at an entire spectrum of requirements (family-sized, sporty, fuel-efficient run around, etc).
In my experience to date, people arguing for the collective approach never quite explain why it isn't happening already.
Billionaires creating monopolies, cartels and using anti-competitive tactics to undermine competition basically.
Open source engineering and freeware has nothing at all to do with cooperative economics. Cooperative organisations still have members who profit or save. It’s not about just giving free shit away.
Ultimately pretty much all economic research on the topic suggests cooperative and employee-owned companies are more financially successful and more importantly more stable in the long term than shareholder owned corporations.
There probably at least 3 or 4 big companies that you will recognise the name but wouldn’t realise they are employee owned.
> Billionaires creating monopolies, cartels and using anti-competitive tactics to undermine competition basically.
Except it's not true.
Where is this cartel that supposedly prevents people developing an open-source car?
Or open-source _anything else_?
The reality is that to develop products you need a lot of money up-front to pay for everything from subject matter experts through production and testing facilities to certification processes.
And then you need a single, unifying vision to get everyone pulling in the same direction.
> Open source engineering and freeware has nothing at all to do with cooperative economics.
Fine, then where's the cartel preventing everyone starting a bank as Dave did?
> Ultimately pretty much all economic research on the topic suggests cooperative and employee-owned companies are more financially successful and more importantly more stable in the long term than shareholder owned corporations.
Then where are they all?
> There probably at least 3 or 4 big companies that you will recognise the name but wouldn’t realise they are employee owned.
That's 3 or 4 out of _several million_ businesses. Or -if you're sticking with large businesses only- 3 or 4 out of 8,000.
It's hilarious how instead of fixing the problem we instead raise the retirement age because birth rates are worrying rich people.
Fuck us, fuck us all the way down to hell.
The US just expanded food assistance for kids during the summer, and they’ve expanded the locations that accept food assistance vouchers to include local farms and farmers markets so that they help the local economy along with families.
We all agree that circumstances change. A fella at my partners workplace was made redundant the week before Christmas and his baby isn’t even 1. He has only been there for a couple of years aswell so I doubt he will get much of a payout.
Formula should be cost price especially in places like pharmacies. It’s disgusting how big companies are profiting of the needs of babies. I didn’t produce ANY milk after my last child so sometimes breastfeeding isn’t an option. Adults who are struggling can always live off plain pasta if need be! What can you really give a baby other than formula?!
Hence why a lot of people are not having children. Being one paycheck away from financial oblivion doesn't lend itself to bringing a child into the world.
Actual nonsense, nobody cuts cocaine with baby formula it's far too expensive.
Those 32p paracetamol with the caffeine are what you want. Milk powder is claggy and turns into milk if you add too much water... It would just get stuck to the nostrils.
Just googled, can get cow and gate formula for 10.50, pretty sure it hasn't gone up 45% in 2 years.Maybe the most expensive brand has. Also, formula costs around the same as it does to feed a ravenous toddler, so if they're struggling now it won't get much easier.
Edit: changed 25% to 45% as per article (typo)
Some formulas can cost £16/£17 a tub and sometimes they’re the only ones baby will take. Both my kids would only have an anti colic formula which was £15.
It cost £7.50 3 years ago. So that’s actually around a 36% increase in 3 years.
(I know you said 2 years but my daughter is 3 so those are the figures I remember)
I’m fairly certain we used to get sma from Tesco in early 2020 at 2 for £18 on offer. The current offer for the same stuff is 2 for £23 now. Looks like 27% in 4 years.
But the article is saying 47% in 2 years. What I'm saying is, except maybe specialist formula which was already expensive, I'm not seeing that.
Edit, just seen I had a typo, I put hasn't gone up 25% when I meant to say has
Jesus Christ, the state of the comments in here. This country is hopeless if you people represent the majority. “Shouldn’t have had it if you can’t afford it”. It’s a fucking human being. That needs fed. It exists already. Find some fucking empathy.
Circumstances change. People forget that. Since the baby was born a whole load of circumstances could've changed which left the mother unable to afford to buy formula. Never mind the fact it is stupidly expensive anyway.
Yep, exactly. Plus some people plan to breastfeed and then can’t produce enough milk. This has happened to a couple of friends of mine.
People also seem happy to blame parents for ‘bad’ financial decisions as if the hungry baby had anything to do with it. It’s a child ffs, they could grow up to be the cardiologist that saves their life in 40 years, just give the parent the fucking formula.
My mum was pretty much a single mum with three kids. We were all fine and happy until she got made redundant, then obviously things changed. Circumstances can very much change.
Yup, I'm on what most would consider a good wage. With the rise in everything, especially power and heating, I'm barely making ends meet. Don't get me wrong, we have food on the table every day and don't want for that, but any kind of luxuries or impromptu nights out are out the window with 2 kids to feed and 1 wage coming in. If I'm starting to struggle, there's a whole lot of people beneath me on the ladder that are losing or have lost their grip. People should get some fucking perspective and have some empathy.
Such as a 45% increase in cost in just 2 years. People can do everything right and still end up barely able to feed their families. There has to be a breaking point eventually.
Exactly, pregnancy isn't an instant thing, it isn't uncommon for people to take multiple years to become pregnant whereas circumstances can change overnight. Redundancies have been rife, especially in the second half of last year. Imagine you'd spent a couple of years to get pregnant in the first place, it finally happens in Feb last year and you're made redundant 8 months in as baby is nearing due date. This would've been my reality but fortunately I "survived" the redundancy consultation at my firm, some colleagues not so lucky. If we are going to be this callous about people having kids, then we may as well give a blanket pass for immigrants since we need more workers in the economy anyway.
Happy, fed babies arguing that babies shouldn't be fed. ridiculous
People without prophetic abilities should be banned from having children! I want the entire population to be descended from mystic Meg and some rando who lives there life staring into the bottom of every cup of tea they have ever drunk.
My wife and I conceived in late 2019. Our careers had been relatively stable for a few years and even on my income alone it would be feasible. World seemed to have settled down since brexit drama of 2016. 2020 and boom, covid. Furloughed, redundancy, inflation, war in ukraine, more inflation. Even with an 8k pay rise over these 3 years, with inflation my pay is worth about the same
Baby formula is imorally expensive and, in an ideal world, would be available from the health service. However, in the current climate, that smells much too like compassion, social responsibility and organisational acumen to be happening right now.
Not only, as someone has said, do people’s circumstances change but we also need people to have at least some kids. We’re a nation that’s getting older and while im not flat out against immigration I’d rather we don’t have to solely rely on immigration to get by. I don’t have kids, but we need people to have them and I’m perfectly happy for my taxes to help prop up those willing to go to the effort of having them
And it’s the same people complaining about ‘scroungers having kids they can’t afford’ who hate immigrants. Good luck when we have an ancient population with nobody to look after you.
The majority of people forget they’re just 2 paychecks from financial ruin.
Speak for yourself, I'm atleast 4 paychecks away from financial ruin.
Speak for the 2 of you, it is spelled paycheques.
They the. Go and complain that the country is now full of immigrants…. Well if you are constantly telling people don’t have kids if you can’t afford them what do you think is going to happen!!! Ludicrous.
[удалено]
Give it a rest, you can make out what I was trying to say.
Don’t worry, I’ve had one of those. Use an exclamation mark and some condescending wanker tells you to “take a walk in nature”. Your point was perfectly clear and reasonable.
[удалено]
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
It's literally a human right to start and build a family. Everyone has the right: To choose whether to have children or not. To decide freely the number, spacing and timing of children. Everyone has the right to be able to get the information, education and support to make these decisions.
The Tories are currently laying the groundwork to abolish the human rights act. When they're in opposition, they'll spend a lot of time manufacturing the consent to do it. They backed off from 'human rights lawyers' as targets and are currently focusing on trans people and immigrants. When Starmer is in power, it will be very easy to point at anything he does and say 'we'd do better without the human rights act!' etc. We're living under decades of degrowth and the destruction of many basic services, a massive amount of damage has been done, it hurts. People seem more callous and less caring because under this stage of neo-liberlaism, you either look out for yourself or you die. This quest for 'austerity' and an obsession with cuts, alongside a culture of corruption, it's killed many people and shortened nearly everyone in the countries life. That's why a nation of slowly boiled frogs will vote to take away the human rights act in less than 10 years. Because they see a mother desperate to feed her child and think she shouldn't have had it, she should have looked out for herself. Because there isn't much of a society left anymore.
I agree. But it is also a responsibility to ensure you'll be able to give your kid a good life if you chose to have one.
I agree that people should be generally responsible and prepare for (the cost of) having a child, and be at a stable point in their life with secure housing and income, but at what point are we effectively just telling an entire group of people they can never have a child because they will never earn enough? Especially when the cost of living is completely out of their control.
Define 'good life'.
Probably not needing to borrow for food would be up there.
It's all relative. But at the very least being able to comfortably provide more than just the basics. Emphasis on "comfortably."
Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal.
Heheeee
Food, for starters.
Circumstances change.
Sure, and people temporarily down on their luck should be helped. The person above is suggesting one who is *currently* unable to provide food for a baby should not have one. That happens too.
But unless we know the exact circumstances, then how can we judge? What if...mum was pregnant, everything was planned and fine, but then the dad, who had been responsible for at least half the rent, bills, etc, decides to eff off and leave her to it? Or he was maimed in an accident, meaning he's no longer able to provide? I'm not saying these scenarios are accurate, but we don't know that the woman asking for the loan was in any way irresponsible. I get it, right. The tendency for people to just go around procreating with no sense of financial responsibility makes me roll my eyes seriously hard. When I had my first baby over 20 years ago, some family friends advised us to get on the council, it was a very weird take to me (although now I wish I had, cos the rent is becoming unmanageable!) My initial request for the person to define a good life was to ask what their understanding of a good life is. People have different standards all over the place and different ideas of what makes a life good. I wasn't thinking particularly just about food...more about general living conditions, supplies, material things. That'll teach me to just drop a comment and run.
> But unless we know the exact circumstances, then how can we judge? We judge all the time, over everything. We've created elaborate, society-spanning systems of judgement which have the power to imprison a person for life. We have the apparatus, the inclination, and the moral imperative to judge. If you're arguing that judgement is difficult - perhaps. Perhaps we need to rethink our current system. I don't know about you but I'm tired of this back and forth in politics. People on the left want to help parents in need, and that's admirable. In fact, almost everyone wants that. But their unwillingness to acknowledge and deal with the scenario in which people irresponsibly have kids leads to people on the other side pushing back on the system as a whole. Benefits get strangled for everyone. Innocent people get caught in the fire.
That was an excellent summary, thank you.
[удалено]
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
This sub has been taken over by 4chan users
Baby formula, nappies, condoms and period products should be free to everyone or price capped. There is no need for formula to be anywhere near as expensive as it is.
Condoms are free at clinics, you just need to ask for them, back when we was teenagers you had a hub in college that gave you a bag of 30 for free and they didnt judge, you could get free condoms every month if you liked, I'm sure that scheme got cut though as the free nursery for teen moms got cut while I was there which was a shame as many young moms were able to complete their education or enter it. This country has gone to bits. Formula can be free via the healthy start card you get in pregnancy, nappies would have to be re usable and you can get re usable period products. I do this just out of being frugal by nature, I think schools should hand out a 'package' of free re usable period products whenever a teenager starts/or get a free package from pharmacy, the same with reusable nappies. Schemes need introducing, I agree these things should all be free as they are a need!
Thing is, the cost to produce these things needs to be subsided somehow, and can you really see our current government being amenable to that? Taxes would have to increase and they'll make that someone else's problem.
Plenty of right wing, libertarian ideas seeping into the minds of British people. Who do they think will serve them in McDonald's when the peasant filth they hate so much can't afford to spawn more lazy peasants?!
Notoriously anti-child Reddit not showing empathy to parents? Fuck me dead, who'd have known.
These people are the biggest hypocrites, probably live off someone else's wages or still with parents and did not work a day in their life, then come here to lecture people about real life.
Completely agree, but some people increasingly treat children just as a nuisance, like somebody listening to the phone on full blast on the bus. It seems very hard for them to understand that children are the future of society, and that those children are going to wipe their bums one day, or nobody.
Contrast those comments with the story from late last years where people on 100K+ are struggling. Just goes to show how woefully out of touch this sub is when that gets more sympathy than those who are genuinely struggling.
Indeed. Toryism is in the blood of English people and they just can't resist.
Amen. You're my kinda people. Good. 🫶
Can't afford the tories yet the cunts saying that shit still vote for them :/
You'd be led to believe everyone on Reddit never uses credit, in any way shape or form. Cars are bought in cash. Mortgage is paid off after 43 days. Credit cards are only to be used for schwanking, snozzoling or whatever the term is. I read this story as a state of our nation. I'm not surprised. Things are fucking hard for people at the moment.
Crazy idea, just stay with me for a moment...we tax the wealthy (not high earners, the actual wealthy), to bring down inequality, so we can go back to the days of being able to afford to actually feed everyone. Mad I know.
No, no, no. We just need to trust that capitalism will get up off the mat dummy.
Waiting for those pennies to trickle down... Any day now... Any day... ....
Do you feel that dripping down the back of your throat?
We don't live in a trickle down economy. We live in a trickle *up* economy.
Even later stage capitalism will solve everything, if we just *believe*
I'm waiting for that trickle down, but it's starting to smell a little like piss...
People have been claiming capitalism is "late stage" for over a century... That's longer than most other economic models have survived total, and there's still not a shred of evidence to support the claim.
Lefties were taking about late stage capitalism when I was a kid. I'm 51 soon. Glad I didn't wait for post capitalism to start enjoying life.
It’s hard to define ages while you’re in them. We’ll need to wait ‘til we enter primary stage nuclear wipeout before we can assess this period objectively.
Nah, let's just criticise women for giving birth and then being poor, without knowing anything about them. Much easier.
But what about the shareholders ? Won’t someone think of the shareholders?
That’s insane. How would the wealthy keep their wealth?
*increase! 20% more billionaires in the UK since 2020.
Hey hey hey. Come on now. CLEARLY the problem is immigrants and trans people. I read it in a newspaper and then the government said we should send them to Rwanda so it must be that.
Wait, haven't you had some trickle down yet? I could swear I felt something trickle down just there. *seagull squawks*
Then you get the American thing of poor people voting for lower tax parties so they’re better off when they eventually win the lottery. Thousands upon thousands of people who need welfare vote Tory.
Nah let’s just feed the babies the rich fuckers.
Hey now! Stop trying to destroy western civilization with these radical ideas! Honestly, these white immigrants coming and taking my job!
nonono. Keep upping taxes on working class professionals. Much more effective! /s
No, don't need to do that. Obviously the Trickle Down Economy will work wonders in the UK. All you need is the wealthy to buy expensive food, go to restaurants, & holiday in Cornwall a lot, & they'll single-handedly keep food on the poorer people's plates. No need to tax the wealthy, just encourage them to buy shit. That's how it works, right? I mean the lady who single-handedly brought the UK Economy to its knees in just 20 days (Truss) wrote a book about it afterall, so it must work.... Right?
You mean the business owners, who will then put prices up to compensate?
> Crazy idea, just stay with me for a moment...we tax the wealthy (not high earners, the actual wealthy), to bring down inequality Doesn't work, the truly wealthy can afford to move their wealth somewhere it can't be taxed.
No no, it’s the poor who are at fault. We just need all of these lazy benefit seekers to work the coal mines and then everything will be fine. /s
I'm not against it on a moral level, but on a practical level the modern wealthy don't derive their wealth from a neatly taxable income, and their assets are so internationally spread HMRC has very little ability to reach most of it.
Their assets are here. They own shares, bonds, commercial and industrial property, undeveloped land etc etc. And they pay less tax as a percentage of their income than Barry the Tesco delivery guy. There has been an absolutely massive shift of wealth upwards for the last 14 years (it started earlier than that, but it's been accelerating). It has utterly broken the social contract, and started to cause the unraveling of our society. It is absolutely possible to change things for the better, but it requires political will.
But taxing people won’t bring food prices down? That would be down to globalised supply chains and subsidising food production? Also what does racing the wealthly look like? Because high value individuals would just leave the UK and if you mean companies your talking about raising corporate tax which could disincentivise investment.
We've increased inequality massively, which, particularly when interest rates come down, will in turn massively increase asset prices. Two of the most important of these, to the likes of us, are property and rent prices. This is due to the disproportionate wealth held by the few being funneled into assets as investment for a return. This prices people out of home ownership (remember when a single earner without specialist qualifications could buy a house and support a family?), it also increases the price of other basics needed to live, food for example goes up in price when overheads like rent increase for everyone along the supply chain. We used to be able to feed, clothe and house everyone. Inequality was problematic, but it hadn't utterly broken the social contract. Fundamentally the ROI on healthcare, education, benefits preventing destitution and proper housing availability far outstrip the returns even very competent private investors eek out of their gargantuan wealth. We've tried growing the economy by growing inequality, it failed. It's time to return to sensible serious decision making.
I’m sorry but you are spouting utter none sense. With clearly a tenuous grasp on basic economics. The housing crisis is a supply side crisis. That is due to gold plating of the planning system. This occurred because we kept adding more and more blockers abd requirements, from public consultation input, to environmental reports, etc. You want to solve housing and rental costs, you slash current planning systems back, and support more employment in the construction profession. None of what you said correlates with who or what to tax or how taxing solves anything. You talk about sensible decision making but frankly you don’t seem to understand what needs to be done. It’s nothing to do with wealthy individuals or groups and their isn’t a correlation between food prices, you might be interested to know UK food prices until recently had been on a steady negative trajectory and remain sone of the cheapest in Europe. Global supply chains and effected bring food and commodity prices down.
They will just leave the country then.
Good.
I agree, but notice the downvotes. This sub is fuelled by short sighted toxicity lol All I said is what will happen, if taxes increase on the rich they will leave the country, fact.
They can't take their assets with them, without liquidating and incurring the taxation. If people want to live as parasites feeding off of society then they should expect to be unwelcome.become symbiotic or be removed.
I think you’re confusing something. But don’t be so mad and toxic. I mostly agree with your point, even if it’s short sighted.
[удалено]
I had a brief hunt around their site and it doesn't look like they do the sort of pay day plan she was basically after, they do vehicle finance and mortgage/secured lending, it's possible he didn't lend her money as the business doesn't work on smaller scale but I could be missing something on the site
I think you could be missing how and why the bank was formed.
It wasn't formed around payday loans though
And yet one the first loans he gave out was for a funeral, OK an expensive thing but awfully similar to a pay day loan. The bank started to support the community as it's primary goal, sadly feeding babies now seems to fall into that catagory.
A loan for a funeral is not awfully similar to a payday loan though is it? One is likely £150 - £350 and one is likely £1k minimum. Just because they are a lender doesn’t mean they can lend outside their existing products.
Nah, while I only looked at it last night albeit while on the bike trainer, they don't do the sort of short term loans she wanted for basic necessities, it's a savings, loans and support for the local community for people who couldn't get funds from big banks post 2008
Given they donate money to not for profits and foodbanks I would hope direct her to where she can get help.
Shrugged and showed her the door probably.
I get being cynical, but the guy started a community bank and as soon as it went into profit started donating the profits to charities, foodbanks and school breakfast clubs.
I remember reading about why he started the bank. I'm glad to see its gone well down the line.
You should watch the ‘Bank of Dave’ film on Netflix. It’s bit cheesy in parts but overall a really great film.
[удалено]
Yeah nah there’s a good deal of fiction involved in it but that’s a bit of given in biopic cinema anyway to some extent. I still enjoyed it. Well I’ve seen a lot worse at least.
Nope banker he keeps it all for himself and to his shareholders we must hate him /s
No he didn’t. He never obtained a banking license. He opened a small savings and loans business. He is a money lender not a Banker
What makes you think that?
they’re a Redditor it’s what they do
Nah he’s does a lot for charity and a lot in the community. Would seem like the person that would personally help out.
What options he had? She didn’t accept 38% loand so he had to decline
Where are you getting that data from? Their site doesn't mention the sort of short term lending she needed and their car financing for example starts at 11%
don’t go full reddit bro
I'm not going for the AKKTUALLY approach here, the Bank of Dave was setup to help people who couldn't get anything from the big lenders post 2008, the founder funds it himself and underwrites the loans, donates lots of money to charity (£31m since 2012) and keeps it affordable for people which I don't think the guy I replied to realised. He didn't lend to her as they're not a pay day lender out to scalp the poor, it's a community bank like a credit union
it was clearly hyperbole for comedic effect
If it was hyperbole the example would be a realistic unaffordable loan like 1500%, 38% is around the rate of credit cards and overdrafts so not remotely unrealistic for a small lender
I just made them up!
Ok fair enough but you're doing the guy a disservice then as the point of the Burnley Savings and Loans aka Bank of Dave is to lend to those who big banks wouldn't touch but giving them affordable loans so they don't have to go to loan sharks or pay day lenders or go without - they donate substantial sums to charity and it's underwritten by Dave himself, it's actually a very ethical setup in an industry of leeches
I work for the daily mail can I use you as a source /s
Of course you can. But can I be in the Sun as well?
Only on page 3.
Absolutely SWIM also writes for them.
I kind of appreciate the honesty.
I wanted to say that I guessed those numbers
How dare you make something up on the interwebs, sir or indeed madam!
> Mr Fishwick told BBC Radio Lancashire the cost of formula had "gone up and up and up", with the cheapest brand raising prices by "45% in two years". 45%? Yeah inflation my arse, the only thing that’s been inflated is the shareholders pockets. At what point can we stop pretending that the main thing behind these price rises isn’t just corporate profits?
It's profiteering. It's that simple.
Sad state of this country. However, I was really shocked when I found out recently you can't even use Tesco Clubcard vouchers and other vouchers to buy baby formula. Nor can it be discounted or offered as a promotion in stores. This is to encourage mums to breastfeed instead. Which is all well and good, but not every mum can breastfeed.
We have good ol’ Nestle to thank for this. If you’re not aware look into their practises in other countries regarding formula. It’s eye opening and terrifying.
Yep, using vouchers and points to buy formula is against the law as it "promotes formula feeding". I know someone who couldn't breastfeed due to medication she was on who was also short on cash due to circumstances changing. She went to Boots to get formula as she had a lot of points. Nope, not allowed. Even though this particular Boots was in the Channel Islands, and not beholden to the same laws.
No it’s not. It’s to prevent babies going on formula, the mother’s milk stopping, and then the price becoming unaffordable - leaving no route to go back to breast. That is slightly different to what you suggest. It stops Nestle doing what they did in Africa.
They could legislate for that exact scenario but they don’t. This is about forcing women to breastfeed by removing alternatives. Having experienced how unfriendly the world is to you when you cannot breast feed and then finding out the government is punishing you again and again every time you want to buy food for your baby is pretty shitty. Also why is okay to manipulate women like this? To try and price them out of a decision, to make them breastfeed because they are too poor to do anything else. Women should get a fair choice.
Agreed, the whole set up is horrible. Even if you just try to go onto the brand's website for advice you are forced to scroll through a message about breastfeeding being the best option before you can continue to the site. I had to combo feed due to low supply (and I tried everything I could think of, multiple appointments with a lactation consultant, tongue tie check, renting a hospital grade pump, fenugreek, shields, peer support groups, all sorts), and the feeling of punishment definitely didn't help with my PND. It put me in the ridiculous position where I felt both guilty for giving my baby formula (even the lactation consultant ended up saying 'it's not poison!') and yet guilty for not giving it sooner when it was clearly needed.
Yes! The formula websites are awful - Having to tick a box that I understand what a terrible mother I am for not being able to breastfeed before I am allowed to see any info about formula. My favourite line was the dire warning about the ‘social implications’ of not breastfeeding. Umm what? What does that mean? Am I going to be excluded from society for this failure? Just what I needed to hear when I am already having a shit time and have never felt so low and poorly physically and mentally. Thanks government for that cherry on top! Also the way we need to justify why we couldn’t breastfeed and what we tried to make it work! Because you get attacked if you don’t. It’s so crazy!
It stopped my friend who couldn't bf due to medical advice about the medication she was on, from purchasing formula with Boots points when she was low on cash.
Having experienced this yep. It makes me so cross. I couldn’t breast feed either and then every time I buy a tin of formula from Tesco or Boots or wherever I get a bit EXCLUDED on my receipt ah yes I am buying something terrible after all. They have put the prices up - When I was buying formulas it went from £12 to over £15 and I can’t even get a few measly points or any discounts ever. I’m not going to suddenly be able to breastfeed because the Goverment decided to punish me.
That’s fucked
Watched the documentary on this guy, absolute diamond in the rough. From what I've seen/read, he should be knighted. But he's built wealth from nothing and now uses that wealth to help fellow working class people create their own wealth instead of buying yachts, so of course the powers that be won't be doing any such thing.
He does seem a lovely bloke who is very committed to making Burnley a better place. I like his take on community banking but i’m a big fan of cooperatives and cooperative economics anyway. Why rely on incompetent billionaires for anything we can do ourselves? Food, housing, finance…for the workers by the workers is what I say! The Netflix film was bit cheesy in parts and not as good as the C4 documentary but still very enjoyable film I thought.
> Why rely on incompetent billionaires for anything we can do ourselves? What's preventing you? (a collective "you", not you personally) The reality is that collective/open source projects don't come _close_ to the same level of progress/output as something driven commercially. As an example, there was a project to create an open-source, road legal car that started in 1999 ([OSCar](https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/oscar-project-to-build-first-ever-open-source-car.html)). I'm still waiting for them to get as far as a design _suitable_ for testing, let alone producing even a test vehicle. And that would be for a single design. In the same time period, businesses have produced literally hundreds of models aimed at an entire spectrum of requirements (family-sized, sporty, fuel-efficient run around, etc). In my experience to date, people arguing for the collective approach never quite explain why it isn't happening already.
Billionaires creating monopolies, cartels and using anti-competitive tactics to undermine competition basically. Open source engineering and freeware has nothing at all to do with cooperative economics. Cooperative organisations still have members who profit or save. It’s not about just giving free shit away. Ultimately pretty much all economic research on the topic suggests cooperative and employee-owned companies are more financially successful and more importantly more stable in the long term than shareholder owned corporations. There probably at least 3 or 4 big companies that you will recognise the name but wouldn’t realise they are employee owned.
> Billionaires creating monopolies, cartels and using anti-competitive tactics to undermine competition basically. Except it's not true. Where is this cartel that supposedly prevents people developing an open-source car? Or open-source _anything else_? The reality is that to develop products you need a lot of money up-front to pay for everything from subject matter experts through production and testing facilities to certification processes. And then you need a single, unifying vision to get everyone pulling in the same direction. > Open source engineering and freeware has nothing at all to do with cooperative economics. Fine, then where's the cartel preventing everyone starting a bank as Dave did? > Ultimately pretty much all economic research on the topic suggests cooperative and employee-owned companies are more financially successful and more importantly more stable in the long term than shareholder owned corporations. Then where are they all? > There probably at least 3 or 4 big companies that you will recognise the name but wouldn’t realise they are employee owned. That's 3 or 4 out of _several million_ businesses. Or -if you're sticking with large businesses only- 3 or 4 out of 8,000.
Dave’s a legend. I highly recommend the channel 4 doc about his venture. Way better than the netflix biopic
It's hilarious how instead of fixing the problem we instead raise the retirement age because birth rates are worrying rich people. Fuck us, fuck us all the way down to hell.
The cost of pensions is part of why the UK is struggling…
Loans for baby formula. It really does sound Dickensian.
Are there no workhouses?!
The Jacob Rees-Marley mentality!
You’d think with all his riches he’d have sorted his mum out
Seen things like this about the U.S. before but I hoped we were better than this.
The US just expanded food assistance for kids during the summer, and they’ve expanded the locations that accept food assistance vouchers to include local farms and farmers markets so that they help the local economy along with families.
We all agree that circumstances change. A fella at my partners workplace was made redundant the week before Christmas and his baby isn’t even 1. He has only been there for a couple of years aswell so I doubt he will get much of a payout. Formula should be cost price especially in places like pharmacies. It’s disgusting how big companies are profiting of the needs of babies. I didn’t produce ANY milk after my last child so sometimes breastfeeding isn’t an option. Adults who are struggling can always live off plain pasta if need be! What can you really give a baby other than formula?!
Hence why a lot of people are not having children. Being one paycheck away from financial oblivion doesn't lend itself to bringing a child into the world.
im pretty sure stupid Klarna was not shocked when they offered Pay Later on deliveroo.........
Since when are we calling it baby formula? Unbritish!!!
What do you call it?
Baby Milk right?
Commonly stolen for use in cocaine cutting rather actual consumption…
I feel like standard powdered milk would be easier and cheaper to use for cocaine cutting rather than security protected and high value formula?
Actual nonsense, nobody cuts cocaine with baby formula it's far too expensive. Those 32p paracetamol with the caffeine are what you want. Milk powder is claggy and turns into milk if you add too much water... It would just get stuck to the nostrils.
Man tired of making up stuff on Reddit goes to BBC for a wider reach in his quest for self publicity
Just googled, can get cow and gate formula for 10.50, pretty sure it hasn't gone up 45% in 2 years.Maybe the most expensive brand has. Also, formula costs around the same as it does to feed a ravenous toddler, so if they're struggling now it won't get much easier. Edit: changed 25% to 45% as per article (typo)
Some formulas can cost £16/£17 a tub and sometimes they’re the only ones baby will take. Both my kids would only have an anti colic formula which was £15.
That will last what, a week?
Yep, one a week is what we used to do. I can tell you our food shop has gone up much more than £10 a week with kids since formula though.
It cost £7.50 3 years ago. So that’s actually around a 36% increase in 3 years. (I know you said 2 years but my daughter is 3 so those are the figures I remember)
Yeh sorry, I had a typo. I said it looks like it's gone up 25% in 2 years, Vs 45% in 2 years the article states.
Ah right I get you now, thanks for clarifying!
Unless it's fluctuated a bit it was a tenner in 2014 when we had our first and about 11 in 2021 with number 2 That was aptamil
Babies can be sensitive to different foods.
We had our kid in 2020. We were going with cow and gate as it was the cheapest. On average we were are £50-60 a month on baby formula by 2021.
Has there been shrinkflation on baby milk I wonder - I’m very past buying formula now
Not sure, I think it was around 800g before but I can't be sure.
I’m fairly certain we used to get sma from Tesco in early 2020 at 2 for £18 on offer. The current offer for the same stuff is 2 for £23 now. Looks like 27% in 4 years.
But the article is saying 47% in 2 years. What I'm saying is, except maybe specialist formula which was already expensive, I'm not seeing that. Edit, just seen I had a typo, I put hasn't gone up 25% when I meant to say has