Boris Johnson admitted the government is failing to help families struggling with Britain's cost of living crisis in a car crash interview with ITV's Susannah Reid.
The Prime Minister repeatedly faced questions over rising energy bills, inflation and tax hikes as the Tory government is blamed for the biggest drop in living standards since the time of rationing.
He admitted the £9bn in government help introduced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak was “not going to be enough to immediately cover everyone’s costs”.
He said: said: “I accept that those contributions from the taxpayer – because that’s what it is, taxpayers’ money – isn’t going to be enough immediately to cover everybody’s costs.”
Put to him that that means the Government is not doing everything it can, Mr Johnson admitted: “There is more that we can do.
“But the crucial thing is to make sure we deal with the prices over the medium and long term.”
Mr Johnson was also pressed repeatedly on the circumstances of a pensioner called Elsie, who is so poor that she can only eat once a day and is losing weight.
Susannah Reid told the PM that Elsie rides buses all day to keep warm as she cannot heat her home, to which the PM replied: “The 24-hour freedom bus pass was something I actually introduced."
Elsie, 77, has seen her energy bill increase from £17 to £85 a month.
The Prime Minister said: “I don’t want Elsie to cut back on anything.”
He said there are “plenty of things more that we are doing”, adding: “What we want to do is make sure that we have people who are in particular hardship looked after by their councils, so we are putting much more money into local councils.
“We have the particular payments to help elderly people in particular with the cost of heating.”
He was also accused of being out of touch as the presenter forced him to admit he did not know how much the carers' allowance was.
The PM went on to warn that increasing state support beyond its current levels could drive inflation even higher.
There is a “global context” caused by a surge in energy prices which is hitting all aspects of the economy including food, he said, adding: “The cost of chickens is crazy.”
On energy, Mr Johnson said: “This country is in the insane position of having to take in, pipe in, electricity from France and elsewhere because we haven’t done enough to invest in our own security of energy and electricity.”
Separately, the PM has drawn anger after he claimed he was an "honest" politician. Mr Johnson faces accusations of lying to the Commons over the Partygate scandal.
The PM admitted being “inadvertently” wrong in his comments to Parliament.
Asked whether he is honest, the Prime Minister said: “Yes. I think the best way to judge that is to look at what this Government says it’s going to do and what it does.”
He added: “I do my best to represent faithfully and accurately what I believe, and sometimes it’s controversial and sometimes it offends people, but that’s what I do.”
In response to a suggestion that some people believe he is a liar, Mr Johnson said: “If you are talking about the statements I’ve made in the House of Commons, I was inadvertently… I was wrong and I’ve apologised for that.”
Boris Johnson warned that a windfall tax on energy companies would deter investment, and set out why taxpayer support for households has to be managed to avoid fuelling inflation.
The Prime Minister told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “If you put a windfall tax on the energy companies, what that means is that you discourage them from making the investments that we want to see that will, in the end, keep energy price prices lower for everybody.”
Challenged about benefits failing to keep pace with rising inflation, he said: “We have a short-term hit caused by the spike in energy prices across the world.
“If we respond by driving up prices and costs across the board in this country, responding by the Government stepping in and driving up inflation, that will hit everybody.
“And that will mean that people’s interest rates on their mortgages go up, the cost of borrowing goes up, and we face an even worse problem.”
