Money saving expert Martin Lewis warns of ‘civil unrest’ as costs soar
Money saving expert Martin Lewis has warned the UK faces ‘civil unrest’ as the cost of living crisis worsens.
Brits were hit by a 54 per cent hike to the energy price cap at the start of April, pushing up annual energy bills to almost £2,000 a year for 22m households. With inflation running at 6.2 per cent, its highest level for 30 years, Lewis said that he is more “scared for people” than at any other point in his career.
“We need to keep people fed. We need to keep them warm. If we get this wrong right now, then we get to the point where we start to risk civil unrest,” Martin Lewis warned in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph.
“When breadwinners cannot provide, anger brews and civil unrest brews – and I do not think we are very far off,” Lewis said.
Lewis made a name for himself through launching the popular website Money Saving Expert in 2003. The site sold for £84m less than a decade later.
While Lewis, 49, has helped people to manage their finances for more than two decades, including amid the chaos of the 2008 financial crash, he warned that the current cost of living crisis is “the worst since I started.” This is “the time I’m most scared for people,” he told the Sunday Telegraph.
Lewis thinks that real inflation will hit between 10 and 12 per cent by October, with the impact felt more acutely by those on lower incomes affected by fuel and food price hikes which will be “nearer 20 per cent.”
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