LONDON: The British opposition Labour Party's shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves on Thursday mounted a withering attack on the Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for allegedly allowing fraud during his tenure as Chancellor.
Reeves tore into Sunak in the House of Commons, while responding to Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt's "autumn statement", which was nothing but a full budget announcement, following the catastrophic impact of the previous Conservative government's economic policy pronouncements.
Reeves said: "The latest Prime Minister, spent so much time as Chancellor practicing his signature for his glossy Instagram graphics that he failed to put even the most simple checks on Covid support schemes."
She went on: "The Prime Minister left the doors to the vaults wide open to organised criminals and drugs gangs. They helped themselves to 6.7 billion pounds of public money. Money that this government is failing to retrieve."
She also attacked Hunt's statement, which had, it is widely believed, Sunak's direct imprint on it. "The current Prime Minister and Chancellor", she stated, "have given up on growth altogether".
Meanwhile, the BBC played a video clip from a debate between Sunak and Liz Truss in August during the summer's leadership contest between the two (which Sunak lost). Here he is heard promising tax cuts, if he became Prime Minister. There was no such relief in Hunt's statement. The Guardian reported that the "tax burden (is) set to reach (the) highest level since WW2".
On Wednesday, the British government's Office for National Statistics calculated that the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) "rose by 11.1 per cent in the 12 months to October 2022". This is the worst inflation in Britain since December 1980. The UK pound fell from $1.19 to below $1.18 after Hunt's statement. The FTSE index reflecting the London stock market was also down since Thursday morning.
Earlier, Sunak made a statement on the G20 summit in Indonesia, which he attended. "I met Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi, when we reviewed progress on our forthcoming free trade agreement," he confirmed. (IANS)
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