The Labour government’s first budget in the United Kingdom, due to be presented at the end of October, promises to be “painful”, Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned on Tuesday, denouncing the “economic black hole” left by the Conservatives.
“I’ll be honest: the budget that comes in October will be painful,” admitted the head of government, largely elected at the beginning of July after 14 years of Conservative power, during a speech in the gardens of Downing Street before the start of the elections. the parliamentary term.
Labour campaigned on a push for economic reorientation and promised to manage public spending rigorously, imposing drastic options. But the government now warns it will have to go even further than planned, with Finance Minister Rachel Reeves accusing the Conservatives in July of having “masked” a budget hole of £22 billion (or around €26 billion).
“We have inherited a black hole”
“The situation is worse than we ever imagined,” Keir Starmer said on Tuesday, claiming that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR, equivalent to the French Court of Auditors) “was not aware of it.”
They erupted after a knife attack that killed three girls during a dance class on 29 July in Southport, north-west England. They were fuelled by far-right agitators amid rumours falsely portraying the suspect as a Muslim asylum seeker.
This xenophobic and Islamophobic violence, which targeted mosques and hotels hosting asylum seekers in particular, “exposed the cracks in our foundations, weakened by a decade of division and decay” under the Conservative government, denounced Keir Starmer.
“That’s why we have to act and do things differently. That means being honest with people (…) and honestly, things are going to get worse before they get better,” he admitted.
Source: BFM TV
