CONTROVERSY over senior ministerial appointments shows Rishi Sunak’s position as Prime Minister is “very weak”, according to Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Ashworth.
He told GB News: “Dominic Raab has been appointed by Rishi Sunak. Last week we had the Gavin Williamson furore.The week before, there were serious question marks about [Home Secretary] Suella Braverman as well.
“In the end this comes down to Rishi Sunak’s judgement and his weakness in that he has to pander to certain factions within amongst Conservative MPs.
“I think the worry is that when we’re facing the international crisis in Ukraine, when we’re facing the global economic issue, we have a very weak Prime Minister. This is exemplified by the way in which he’s made these appointments of people for whom now there are serious question marks.”
Asked about today’s inflation figures in an interview during Breakfast with Paul Hawkins and Isabel Webster, he said: “We’re in a very difficult economic climate and of course, that’s the headline figure when you look into the details, food and drink has risen 60% year on year, inflation hurts the poor.
“It diminishes the purchasing power of wages, it undermines the the value of pensions, and we are less able to weather these economic storms because of 12 years of lacklustre economic performance under the Conservatives. And that absolutely disastrous budget from the Conservatives eight weeks ago led to a huge spike in borrowing costs.
“It led to a run on pension funds and people’s mortgages increasing. I hope in the budget tomorrow that we see the value of the pension increase on it, the triple lock for pensioners, should be honoured.
“I hope we don’t see further cuts to universal credit payments for working people and disabled people, because they should not pay the price because of the disastrous decisions and the economic mismanagement of the conservatives.”
On defence spending, he said: “For the past 12 years, the Conservatives have actually cut the numbers in our armed forces. We will make our spending commitments for the next Labour government in our manifesto. As we get closer to a general election, the general election could be two years away, but we would always say our first priority is defence of the realm.
“We are the party that will stand up for national security in this country, and we would never do anything to undermine our national security. We want to strengthen our national security, but we’ll make our specific recommendations or our specific policy commitments on expenditure closest to a general election.”
