Among the controversial measures is the withdrawal of a subsidy to help better-off pensioners pay their energy bills during the winter.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned on Tuesday that the next general budget, due to be published on October 31, will be “painful” due to the “unpopular” decisions the government will have to take to get the economy moving.
In a speech delivered on Tuesday in the gardens of Downing Street, the seat of the executive, Starmer has promised to focus on wealth creation and national economic growth.However, to do so, he will have to take “tough measures.”
The Labour leader said his government would take “unpopular decisions if it is in the long-term interest of the country”.
Among the controversial measures is the withdrawal of a subsidy to help better-off pensioners pay their energy bills during the winter.a decision that, according to Starmer, “had to be taken” and which he justified with the fact that “it was costing the country a fortune” and was unviable for economic growth.
“We have no other choice, given the situation we find ourselves in: those with the strongest shoulders will have to bear the heaviest burden,” he stressed, highlighting cuts in public spending or increases in certain taxes.
Labour campaigned on a call for economic reorientation and a promise of rigorous management of public spending, with drastic options.
But the government is now warning it will have to go even further than expected, with Finance Minister Rachel Reeves accusing the Conservatives in July of “covering up” a £22bn budget hole.
“The situation is worse than we ever imagined,” Keir Starmer added in the same speech.
The politician blamed the conservatives for the “chaos and ruin” they left in the public coffers and for which there are no quick solutions.
“We inherited not only a huge economic black hole, but also a social black hole and so we took steps to do things differently,” he said.
The government official also said that change would not happen “overnight”, although he stressed that the Labour Party “achieved more in seven weeks than the last government achieved in seven years”.
In his speech, Starmer also referred to the recent riots in the country, saying that those who participated in them had managed to “exploit the fractures in society after 14 years of populism and failure.”
These riots “exposed the state of the country” and revealed “a deeply unhealthy society,” he noted.
The violence erupted after a knife attack in Southport, north-west England, on 29 July killed three girls, including a 9-year-old Portuguese girl, during a dance class.
The riots were fuelled by far-right agitators amid rumours falsely describing the suspect as a Muslim asylum seeker.
“That is why we have to act and do things differently. This means being honest with people (…) and, frankly, things will get worse before they get better,” he admitted.
Source: Observadora
