Boris Johnson has admitted the Government is failing to help families struggling with the cost of living as he was told of a pensioner who rides the buses all day to keep warm.
In a car crash television interview, the Prime Minister struggled to set out what extra help 77-year-old Elsie was entitled to so she could afford to eat more than once a day.
His jarring response to the London pensioner’s plight was that he brought in the freedom bus pass when he was the capital’s Mayor so she could ride around for free.
“The 24-hour freedom bus pass was something I actually introduced,” he claimed.
Yet even that was a lie as the pensioners’ travel scheme has existed since 1973 and has always been run and funded by London boroughs.
With voters going to the polls on Thursday, the PM repeatedly faced questions from Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid over rising energy bills, inflation and tax hikes on his watch.
His Government is blamed for the biggest drop in living standards since the time of rationing and Labour claims he has no answers to the crisis.
Mr Johnson admitted that £9 billion in Government support for struggling households introduced by Rishi Sunak was “not going to be enough” to help everyone.
He suggested more could be done - but refused to say how or when - as he made his first appearance on the show since he took over at No 10.
“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,” he said.
“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 rejected a Labour proposal for a windfall tax on oil and gas companies - hinted at by his Chancellor last week - after BP’s profits soared to £5 billion.
He said the Government wanted to energy companies to invest to bring down energy costs instead.
Ministers have been criticised for the 3.1% rise in the state pension and other benefits that are not keeping pace with inflation.
Inflation is at a 30-year high of 7%, driven upwards by surging food and energy prices, and is expected to hit as much as 10% later this year.
The PM claimed that increasing benefits in line with inflation could push it even higher.
“I’m sorry to say this, but we have to be prudent in our approach,” he added.
Later, Mr Johnson told the BBC he would take a “compassionate” approach to helping households through the crisis.
But he insisted there was no “magic solution” for every family overnight and the country was “going to have a tough period for a while”.
The Government has announced a council tax rebate and loan to help pay energy bills, but is facing calls to go further now to help with costs.
Downing Street promised that there would “more help coming” to help struggling families - but gave no further details.
The local elections are a crunch point for Mr Johnson’s premiership that could see the Tories lose hundreds of seats and flagship boroughs like Wandsworth in London.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said the cost-of-living crisis was the “number one issue” for voters ahead of this week’s local elections.
He told the BBC: “It’s the single most pressing issue keeping people up at night, and political parties have to have an answer to that problem because not only have bills gone up but the Government has chosen to impose more tax on people in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.”
Mr Johnson has been trying desperately to get onto the front foot amid fall-out over the Partygate scandal.
In the bruising GMB interview, he claimed he was an “honest” politician who had “inadvertently” got things wrong - despite polls showing a majority of voters think he has lied over Partygate.
He said he would refuse to resign over the scandal because he was getting on with the job.
“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,” he said.
He said he had “no idea” whether he would be fined again for lockdown breaches although allies have claimed he is confident he can avoid further penalties.
The PM later told Times Radio that he had not yet received a questionnaire from the Met Police about lockdown leaving drinks for ex-spin chief Lee Cain.
“The answer to that is no, not so far, or certainly not to my knowledge,” he said.
“All of this will become clear at the end of the investigation.”
In an embarrassing gaffe, the out of touch PM asked Susanna Reid “Who’s Lorraine?” as he appeared on the programme for the first time in nearly five years.
The GMB host, clearly surprised the PM was unaware of her fellow ITV presenter - whose show was up next - replied: “Who’s Lorraine? Lorraine is a legend.”
The PM’s spokesman later explained: “I think, as was clear, the Prime Minister was not fully across the ITV daytime lineup this morning.”
