UK’s PM on leave as economic crisis deepens
LONDON: A British cabinet member admitted Friday “I don’t know where Boris is” as the prime minister checked out on holiday, in a week that saw the Bank of England warn a year-long recession is coming. Boris Johnson has since Wednesday been on a belated honeymoon with wife Carrie, according to Downing Street.
Aides said he still remained at the helm, rather than handing over temporarily to Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, but refused to confirm the honeymoon destination. The UK embassy in Ljubljana confirmed that Johnson was on a private visit to Slovenia. Johnson will have a lot more time on his hands after September 6, when he is due to hand over to either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader, but decided to take a break sooner.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi is also on holiday this week, and the opposition Labour party accused the government’s two seniormost members of being “missing in action”.
“I don’t know where Boris is, but I’m in constant contact with him,” Business Secretary and Truss supporter Kwasi Kwarteng told Times Radio. He said he exchanges WhatsApp messages with both Johnson and Zahawi “all the time”, and insisted that criticism the government was doing nothing about the economic crisis was “false”. Zahawi said he had remained in touch with Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey on Thursday after the central bank hiked interest rates from 1.25 to 1.75 percent, the biggest rise in 27 years. The bank is trying to rein in surging inflation, which it warned could peak at 13.3 percent, as it forecast the UK economy would enter a recession in the fourth quarter that will last until late 2023.
“For me, like I’m sure lots of others, there is no such thing as a holiday and not working. I never had that in the private sector, not in government,” Zahawi said in a statement.
‘Magical solutions’
Foreign Secretary Truss and Sunak, Zahawi’s predecessor as chancellor, clashed anew over how to address the crisis in a televised debate late Thursday. “The reality is we’re facing a recession if we carry on with our business-as-usual policies,” Truss, who is leading in surveys of Tory members, told reporters on Friday. She plans an emergency budget to lower taxes immediately to combat the cost-of-living crisis, and to review the independent Bank of England’s inflation-fighting mandate.
But Sunak said tax cuts financed with more borrowing would force the bank to increase interest rates even more, insisting on the need to maintain fiscal rigor and tame the price pressures first.
Former cabinet minister Liam Fox, who supports Sunak, warned against “magical solutions” via debtfinanced tax cuts as proposed by Truss. The two candidates were due later Friday to host another hustings event in front of Tory members, who have until September 2 to vote. —AFP