'In the 1970's vicious cycle, price inflation begat wage inflation that begat price inflation and in the end, working people suffered, and European unemployment soared as people were priced out of jobs' (Rodney Smith, 2001)

This scenario currently seems to be the governments/MPC's main concern... Yet have they not sown the very seeds of this cycle?
The products and services that the government have some control over have got significantly more expensive (houses and taxes are two examples).

So how can the government request that workers should not seek to increase their pay settlements when they have been instrumental in creating the very conditions that would create the need for more pay.

As our good chancellor is quoted on the BBC....
the chancellor said it would be "disastrous" for Britain if employers started making pay awards that fuelled inflationary pressures in the economy...... "I have made it very clear that we cannot get ourselves into a position where we allow inflation to take hold because we get into inflationary pay rises. That would be disastrous, not just for the country but for each and every one of us."

Alistair... your government/MPC encouraged a significant period of house price inflation and so the workers need to ask for more money to get on the housing ladder. It’s a bit late to ask us to be conservative but perhaps not to late for us to be Conservative.

The government want to sufficiently demoralise everyone by not encouraging inflationary pay rises, on top of this businesses themselves can't afford pay rises anyway as they are being squeezed too.

This means people are going to have to start living hand to mouth, perhaps just about affording the electricity and heating to stay in their homes- and they will be glad to still afford it as we will start hearing of the very poorest not being able to.