Want to know what’s really going on in Britain? Take a look at the cookies that no longer contain chocolate | Zoe Williams

WAge increases finally began to outpace price increases in June 2023, so that we can technically classify the previous month as the peak of the cost-of-living crisis. Sure enough, May of that year was when headlines about butter peaked. Lurpak and Anchor, which are owned by the same dairy co-operative, Arla, have reduced the size of their standard butter packs from 250g to 200g. The price was reduced accordingly, in time, but for a while, some supermarkets were still charging half-pound prices for “what would we even call 200g?” attic.

The problem was that butter units were universal. A pound of butter always weighs the same amount in your hand, regardless of the brand. Seeing the mini version in the supermarket feels like science fiction, like a quirky little detail that alerts you to the fact that you’ve been abducted by aliens to a simulated world. They would have gotten away with it, had it not been for this little flaw. The brand, which was forced by protests to issue a statement, said it was trying to make prices “more accessible” for consumers. One almost feels embarrassed by this, as he resorts to the comfortable language of equality that does not explain its microcosms at all.

The collapse of butter was caused by the sharp rise in prices that began with the Russian invasion of Ukraine the previous year. By the start of 2023, the cost of a tin of Lurpak in some places had risen by 37%, and people on social media were posting photos of the butter with its safety mark on it. What’s next: Will they have to sell them like shoes, keep crackers on display and spreads out the back?

At its peak, which was 2023, it was grocery inflation reached 17.5%which sounds less bad than it felt, because that was a total of all the food items, and there were one or two items that dropped in price. In fact, this was the highest basket hike since records began in 2008, costing the average household an extra £683 per year on food if they bought the same goods as the previous year. Prices were rising very quickly and no one really understood what “average family” meant anymore: Before, you might have been average if you bought eggs, chips and beans without so much as a glance but thought twice about steak. If you’re standing in a Tesco Metro, holding a Heinz four-pack, whispering, “Oh my God, what hell,” Seven pounds“What did that make you? Someone who still has above-average means, but below-average comprehension speed? Or are we all, To the opposite of Michael Gove Long ago when he was Minister of Education, below average now?

The cost of living has continued to rise over this year, although political attention has shifted towards household bills, away from subsistence basics, which are still very high (wait, council tax, and certainly water also count as a ‘pension’ – perhaps a better qualifier would be ‘goods besides those you can eat straight away’). Food prices fell completely off the political and media agenda, although prices did not fall simply because inflation declined. Some companies are at the mercy of global prices themselves; Others manipulate prices. All have seen their production costs increase, with energy prices rising; Some have dedicated challenges related to Brexit. It’s a complex picture, but not so complex that we need to collectively avert our eyes.

Penguins and Clubs has been hit so hard by the cost of cocoa that it dropped its chocolate content and, two weeks ago, could no longer be classified as a chocolate biscuit. It’s a big moment for the “If you like a lot of chocolate on your cookies, join our club” generation, who are now made homeless by cookies. Overall, it’s been a quiet slide towards smaller things with the same cost – toothpaste, coffee, Gafscon, celebrations – whether you can’t live without them or should be able to, the trend is the same. It is neither discretionary, in other words, nor market-sensitive, but is governed instead by the principle of activation, which has not yet been transferred to the unit of business studies: whatever can get worse, will get worse.

For average households, consumers, and food producers (although supermarkets are still doing well), the situation remains dire, yet the conversation continues. any? The magazine does a brave job of insisting on old values ​​– that unit pricing must be “conspicuous, legible, and consistent” – but there is no drumbeat demanding basic answers: How much is price gouging, how necessary is it, how much is I following my leader, has anyone ever tried to cap prices, and will we return to the old normal? These are the questions a Labor government would have asked, had it not been afraid to alienate business. This fear forces them to remain silent as well, given the fact that the cost of living crisis is far from over.

At the same time, people are constantly polled on contemporary national issues, and increasingly say immigration. However, when they are asked what affects them personally the most, Immigration isn’t even in the top three problems. The media appears to have had enough of the cost of toothpaste and moved to small boats, as have all the major political parties. Who influenced whom? PMQs and the media, whether print or audio, are like the brain and the gut, connected by a nerve that runs in both directions. This in turn shows what people feel they should say, if they want to seem like they’re paying attention. However, people still, overwhelmingly, put the cost of living crisis first on their list of concerns. This is particularly evident among renters (91%), parents of a dependent child (91%), 16 to 29 year olds (89%), 30 to 49 year olds (90%) and women (89%). If you’re thinking, ‘Wait, isn’t that like everyone else?’, no – over-70s are more likely to worry about the NHS (86%) and people educated to university level worry about ‘the economy’, because that’s how you say ‘why does everything cost so much?’, when you’re imaginative.

What looks like a low-interest media environment is actually “omerta” — a refusal to mention the thing that almost all adults spend almost all of their time worrying about. “Gaslighting” is an overused term, but we can’t stop using it until everyone stops doing it.