Outwage

After the credit crunch, it's the packet punch

By Ian Kirby

MILLIONS of voters have seen their wages FALL under Labour, according to new research.

Mortgage costs, food and fuel prices are going through the roof.

But pay is stagnating or going DOWN in areas where costs are rising fastest, says the Centre for Policy Studies.

It has looked at wage figures from every town and city in the country. These show average earnings have risen by £7.60 a week in the past six years—just over a £1 a week each year.

Over the same time the average weekly cost of running a home with a mortgage has shot up from £130 in 2002 to £230 now.

The study explains why the public's confidence in the government's ability to run the economy has plummeted and is a new nightmare for Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The outcome of the next election is likely to be determined in 150 marginal constituencies and most of those are scattered across the South-East and the Midlands, which have been badly hit.

Earnings across south-east England have fallen by £4.80 a week. People in suburban Rushcliffe, Notts, have seen wages drop by an astonishing £101.20.

In the Cotswolds they have gone down by £48.60. And in Ellesmere Port and Neston, an area where the Tories hope to make inroads in the North-West, they have plunged by £62.

In South Oxfordshire they have gone down by £89.10. Bedfordshire by £81.90 and in St Albans by £97.10. Last night Charles Elphicke, from CPS, said: "Pay packets have not kept pace. This is why the government's claim that we are better off is nonsense.

"We need urgently to unfreeze the mortgage market. Mass immigration has kept pay rises down."

He called for greater investment in the transport system and a revolution in skills and training.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "We need a governmentthat isonpeople's sides notontheir backs,asGordonBrown is."