Boris Johnson has told ITV News “there is no alternative” to the risk that higher wages will fuel inflation and lead to rises in interest rates, because of the imperative of transforming the economy from a low wage one to a high wage economy.
The phrase “there is no alternative” is closely associated with Margaret Thatcher and her determination in the 1980s to drive through economic reforms that brought significant immediate costs to business and people.
The prime minister said he appreciates that “many people find the going tough at the moment”.
It was put him that many in the UK are “suffering, they’re wondering how they’re going to heat their homes and buy food - and this is happening at a time when you have cut their income by reducing the Universal Credit uplift, you’re increasing National Insurance, you’ve frozen tax allowances”.
The PM hit back: “What we’re seeing actually over more than a year or so is an increase in wages - and it’s high time that it happened frankly because I think we’ve had an environment in the UK where we’ve accepted a low wage, low skill, low productivity approach, and that needs to change.”
He was also asked about the UK’s inflation rate, which at 3.2% is the highest in almost a decade, and the risk of interest rates rising.
Asked if he’s worried, Mr Johnson said: "Let’s see where we get to. People have talked for a long time about these issues and we’ve seen inflationary pressures come and go and I think that we’ve got fantastically effective supply chains that will enable supply to match demand. He added: “We have a great deal - a massive amount of resilience and imagination in this economy and we’re going to get through it very, very well.”
In a bid to provide Britons with hope as they look to the winter months ahead, Mr Johnson said he “confidently” predicts “this Christmas will be considerably better than last”. Peston replied: "It can’t be worse. That’s not a fair comparison.
Did you listen to his speech, talked much but said nothing?
Nothing on the shortage of workers across the board.
Keeps talking about wages rising even though the ONS has told him this is really not the case.
He says there “may” be tough times ahead? Seriously, what planet is he on…people dying, losing their jobs, furlough stopped, Universal Credit cut down, food shortages…Oh. My. Goodness.
What I don’t understand is, traditionally, it was the top of the companies trees that ultimately sanctioned imported cheap labor and out sourced manufacturing, the very people of the Tory Backbone, so, the speech seems to me to have gone against the grain somewhat.
It’s just BJ talking the talk for the media - of course, he’s got no intention of forcing his business cronies to pay higher wages and complete a tax return …
People have always died, that’s nature. This isn’t the first pandemic we’ve seen and it won’t be the last, and nobody can logically blame any individual for the effects of nature.
There’s a record number of job vacancies for anyone losing their job, and I hear that there are many well-paid opportunities in abattoirs and haulage just now.
Anyone wanting a change in career now furlough has ended shouldn’t have a problem, with one million jobs listed to choose from.
A temporary uplift in Universal Credit was only temporary - well who would ever have thought it! But don’t fret too much because those genuinely in need can clain from a new £500 million pot of benefits.
Food shortages? Where? There’s plenty of choice and availability, so despite the suggestion of food shortages nobody need go hungry.
This is not directed against any one individual, but …
I don’t much care about Boris or about Carrie, but the sheer hatred evinced by some people who have never met either of them and is based purely upon what they see in the media surely says far more about those haters than it does about Carrie or about Boris.
Still, I suppose while they’re busy venting their spleens at Carrie or Boris they’re leaving some other potential target alone.
Ones that really could be described as being more deserving of such hatred too like Putin who is sending gas prices so high or Xi Jinping who is stoking tensions & building up the Chinese military while half his factories are having problems because of power cuts, or Kim Jong-Un or Ebrahim Raisi or any one of dozens if not hundreds of others.
But haters have got to hate, I suppose.
You can be as contrary as you like, Zaphod…you are as entitled to your opinion just like everyone else However, the “haters have to got to hate” bit, I do not agree with.
Everyone slates BJ, but he is the one who will laugh all the way to bank when he draws his cast iron PM’s pension, not to mention all the yard upon yard column inches he will be paid for after he leaves office. A buffoon he may be, but a very well paid one and I’d like a pension as bolstered as his will be:grin:
A good many folks, and not just on this forum, might think that but, me, on the other hand, just think that this is a persona he applies in public. I suggest that, in private and away from the media glare, he is as sharp as a razor.
However, the “haters have to got to hate” bit, I do not agree with.
)
