Take the politics elsewhere. Being "civillized" happens at the personal level and it's easy to see where those failures are occuring.
If Ilford or Kodak or anyone else has to raise prices on film and paper, that's fine. We've already seen what happens when companies underprice -- we lose access to the materials we need to do our jobs and our art.
Simon, charge what you need to so you can keep Ilford in business and your employees in jobs and the rest of us shooting and printing. We're smart enough to read the commodities market reports and see that gas and oil and silver are at record highs.
How about that Ilford! Wow! What a company! They make great film, great paper, great chemicals and we are fortuneate enough to have our own personal company rep right here on APUG!!
Ilford is a British company. As a civilised place we have a national health service, free at the point of delivery. I understand that this is not the case in some more backward areas of the world, where people would rather pay hard cash to keep laywers, accountants, administrators etc. in work. Stange, but true.
Have you not noticed the absurd increases in National insurance contributions over the past 20 years? (for anyone in the US this is the way the National Health Service is funded in the UK, and is taken from the pay packet like income tax, and whilst it is not called a "tax", it is one)
Not only have employee contriubutions rises but also employer contributions.
And guess what - the NHS is one of the largest employers of "laywers, accountants, administrators"
The NHS has serious problems and has had for years which is why I pay for private health insurance - so I'm paying twice, but after a while you get used to being ripped off in the UK (apart from Ilford products of course!)
Back on the toipic - 1% sounds very reasonable.
If everyone wants to keep prices down keep buying the products and keep shooting!
The more things stay the same, the more things change, the price increase that Ilford has announced is nothing at all, very low considering the market now a days...it is pretty amazing how 0.10 cents in increase translates across the board when your in a large volume production company.