Boris Johnson has been told to “get on with his job” and stop blaming everyone else for the poor state of the economy and the looming prospect of more strikes this summer.
Ahead of two crucial Westminster by-elections in England, Labour’s Keir Starmer tried to turn the tables on Johnson for signalling big pay rises for city bankers while calling on public sector workers to accept below inflation salary rises.
At the regular Prime Minister’s Questions Starmer said Johnson was once again trying to shift the blame for the rail strikes onto others.
The Labour leader asked: “Can’t he hear the country screaming at him, get on with your job? Whilst he blames everyone and anyone, working people are paying the price.”
“The Prime Minister of this country and his Transport Secretary haven’t attended a single meeting, held a conversation or lifted a finger to stop these strikes.
“But I did note that on Monday they did find time to go to a lavish ball where the Prime Minister sold a meeting with himself for £120,000… If there’s money coming his way, he’s there.
“So rather than blame everyone else why doesn’t he do his job, get round the table and get the trains running?”
Johnson responded by referring to Labour’s financial support from trade unions.
He said: “We know why he won’t condemn the strikes, we know why even now he hasn’t got the gumption to call out his MPs for going out to support the pickets.”
The reason his authority is on the line in this matter is that they take £10 million… that’s the fee the learned gentleman opposite is receiving for the case he is failing to make.”
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford fared little better when he asked the Prime Minister if he “bears any blame” for the fact that the United Kingdom has much higher inflation than “European neighbours”.
Blackford told the Commons UK inflation is now at a “40-year high”, adding: “After 12 years in Government, the Tories have left the UK economy in the doldrums and pushed millions of people into poverty.
Johnson replied that inflation was a global problem, but the UK Government had the fiscal firepower to deal with it.
He added: “And that is, I think, a benefit to the whole of the United Kingdom, including Scotland as we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, and I think it’s a matter of fact that taxes are actually highest of all in Scotland.”
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