A British cabinet minister admitted on Friday “I don’t know where Boris is” as the Prime Minister checked out on holiday, in a week when the Bank of England warned of a year-long recession.
Boris Johnson has been on a belated honeymoon with his wife Carrie since Wednesday. Downing Street has declined to say where, but The Times newspaper said the couple are in Slovenia.
Johnson will have much more time after September 6 when he is handed to either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader, but decided to take a break sooner.
The opposition Labor Party has accused the government’s two most senior ministers of “being absent from action” – with Finance Minister Nadhim Zahawi also on holiday this week.
“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 exchanged WhatsApp messages “all the time” with both Johnson and Zahawi and insisted criticism that the government was doing nothing about the economic crisis was “wrong”.
Zahawi said he stayed in touch with Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on Thursday after the central bank hiked interest rates to 1.75 percent from 1.25 percent, the biggest hike in 27 years.
The bank is trying to stem rising inflation, which it warned could peak at 13.3 per cent as it forecast the UK economy would enter a recession in the fourth quarter that will last until the end of 2023.
“For me, as I am sure for many others, there is no vacation and no work. I’ve never had that in the private sector, not in government,” Zahawi said in a statement.
– ‘Magical Solutions’ –
Secretary of State Truss and Sunak, Zahawi’s predecessor as chancellor, again toasted the issue of how to deal with the crisis in a televised debate late Thursday.
“The reality is that if we continue with our business-as-usual policy, we face a recession,” Truss, who heads the polls of Tory members, told reporters on Friday.
She is planning an emergency budget to cut taxes immediately to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and to review the independent Bank of England’s inflation-fighting mandate.
But Sunak said tax cuts funded by more borrowing would force the bank to raise interest rates even more, stressing the need to maintain fiscal tightness and tame price pressures first.
Former Cabinet Secretary Liam Fox, who supports Sunak, warned of “magic fixes” through debt-financed tax cuts like those proposed by Truss.
The two candidates were due to host another Hustings event later on Friday in front of Tory members who have until September 2 to vote.
On Thursday’s Sky News debate, Truss was sidelined after the presenter highlighted her changing positions over the years, including a major policy reversal this week on public sector pay.
But Sunak was also embarrassed after a video surfaced of him telling grassroots Tories in prosperous Kent last week that as chancellor he had diverted government money from “deprived urban areas”.
His campaign said that in the video made available to New Statesman magazine on Friday, Sunak merely emphasized the need to shift the focus of state aid to other cities and rural areas.
But senior Labor MP Lisa Nandy said: “This race for leadership is showing the true colors of the Conservatives.
“It is scandalous that Rishi Sunak openly boasts that he set the rules to funnel taxpayers’ money into prosperous Tory shires.”
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