Martin's Blog

Complaints about smart meters are through the roof. Too many people tell me theirs are broken. Others refuse to have them and feel companies are forcing them. I'm generally in favour of the concept of smart meters, though I think the way they've been rolled out since the start has been dire. Things need to change, so today I sent this open letter to the new Labour Government's Energy Secretary of State, Ed Miliband...

There's a lot of nonsense spoken about student finance. Not only because its fundamentally misunderstood by millions, but also as the system has changed so often, even if you talk to someone in their second or third year at uni now, the way it works for them is different to you, never mind those who graduated a decade or two ago.

We have a new Government, and new Chancellor, in Rachel Reeves. I’ve written to her today to highlight some areas of financial injustice we were working on with the previous government before the election (see my letter to Jeremy Hunt), in the hopes of getting things done. Here is the letter sent today (with some added links for further info)… 

I've set out to find the nation's best cheese 'n' onion crisps, with a mass taste test of 44 different packs, sampled by 26 tasters. This is my second data-Crunch – it all started last year, with the glorious best salt 'n' vinegar crisps tasting. Yet some people, strangely (or perhaps more accurately), started to say it couldn't end there, and that I needed do the same with cheese 'n' onion.

If you're under 22 or on a low income, a pension is probably the furthest thing from your mind, but what if I were to tell you there's a totally legal way, that doesn't need any negotiation, to make your employer pay you more money – possibly £1,000s over the years? Hopefully that piques your interest, and means you'll forgive me for not mentioning pensions in the blog title – but I wanted to ensure you read this.

This is a warning for every worker in the UK. Have you turned down a pay rise without realising it? Millions have – around 10% of the workforce currently – and many others risk doing it, unaware of the consequences. It happens when your employer 'auto-enrols' you into a pension scheme, but you decide to opt out – in most cases, a huge mistake.

No one set out to make dealing with finances difficult for people with mental health issues, but rarely did they think about how to make it easy. So there weren't any 'bad actors', but lots of terrible systems. After having had my own 'dark days', I always vowed that when I could, I wanted to try and do something about it. So in 2016, I set up the Money & Mental Health Policy Institute charity. I'm still the chair of trustees today and provide the core funding as part of my charity fund.