Financial expert Martin Lewis stunned TV viewers when he admitted he had no answers to the financial crisis facing the country.
The broadcaster, who runs the MoneySaving Expert website, was asked on ITV’s This Morning about the “ticking timebomb” homeowners face with mortgage repayments are set to rise.
He told the show “I don’t know” and shrugged his shoulders when asked about the situation which could see interest rates rise to 6%.
He said: “The situation now is bad and if those interest rates go up as has been discussed.
“And it’s not certain that they will but that is what the markets are predicting then we are going to have millions of people in that and we are sitting on a mortgage ticking time bomb.”
One viewer on Twitter said: “You know it’s bad when Martin Lewis has no answer.”
You know it’s bad when Martin Lewis has no answer. pic.twitter.com/tePqRJ6dvB
— Phantom Power (@PhantomPower14) September 28, 2022
Mr Lewis said government borrowing was pushing inflation up and affecting the price of the pound.
‘It will cost more to borrow than before and this is the turmoil we are in,’ he added. ‘It’s scary and it’s uncertain and it’s changing by the hour. It’s yet again uncertain times.’
Mortgage borrowers have been hit by a record overnight drop in the choice of home loan products as the economic fallout from Friday’s mini-budget continues.
Moneyfacts.co.uk said 935 fewer residential mortgage products were on the market on Wednesday compared with Tuesday – the highest since its records began – amid uncertainty over interest rates.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his own mortgage has leaped up by “hundreds of pounds” and that his care worker sister is among those being made very anxious by the cost-of-living crisis.
He told ITV News: “My mortgage has gone up because we’re on a variable rate. It’s gone up by a number of hundreds of pounds.
“But I’m not pleading a special case on my behalf, I’m thinking of the millions of people who are really up against it with their mortgage, their prices going up, with their pensions, with their energy bills.
“I was speaking to my sister last night who is a care worker. Because of her rising prices, she was really, really anxious about the situation. She’s not alone.”
Crossbench peer and former Treasury minister Lord O’Neill of Gatley said investors and companies “all over the world” were “wondering what on earth is going on in the UK”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “This is a breathing room for the Government, in my view, to seriously think what on earth is it really trying to do and … this idea that you can just magically quadruple productivity by a tiny corporate tax policy reversal is at the core of why investors and companies all over the world, never mind here at home, are wondering what on earth is going on in the UK.”
