By: Chris Ye

London, June 18, 2022. Communities marched through central London because of the soaring costs of common needs in life.

The citizens were flooding the city, waving their posters, and chanting for the government to lower prices and pay bills for British citizens.

Because of inflation in the European economy, partly caused by stimulus checks from the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of people lost their jobs, leaving lots of poor families with unstable incomes. The rising prices started before the pandemic, which made matters worse. The war between Ukraine and Russia also has led to soaring prices of normal life uses like oil and cotton.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been criticized for his slowness in changing the trajectory of the British economy through federal policy.

Leaders of the crowds had boards with messages such as “Cut war not welfare.” They booed and chanted when they passed by 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s residence.

Ben Robinson, who works for a housing charity in south London’s Brixton neighborhood, said the government doesn’t realize how bad things are going to be for the poor. “We’ve got residents who are coming into our offices who are choosing between feeding their kids, not themselves, their kids, and paying rent and heating,” he said. “That is just not a choice that anyone should have to face, you know, in the fourth biggest economy in the world.”

TUC, a union umbrella group that organizes the protesters, said its research showed workers had lost nearly £20,000 ($24,450) in total since 2008 because wages hadn’t kept pace with inflation.

Johnson’s administration is under pressure to help Britain cope with soaring fuel， food prices, and domestic energy bills. In one example of a household financial crunch, a data company said the average cost of filling a typical family car was more than £100 ($125).