(Telestock) – October’s budget maneuver will be “painful” and the government will have to make “big demands” on the public, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has warned. Speaking from the Downing Street garden, the prime minister said people would have to “accept short-term pain for the long-term good”. The BBC reports that the prime minister, while not going into detail, said those with “the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden”.
The Prime Minister said he inherited “not just an economic black hole, mto a “social black hole” by the previous Conservative government. Conservative leader and former PM Rishi Sunak responded that the speech was “the clearest indication yet of what Labour has been planning to do all along: raise taxes”.
Since he came to power in July, the Labour hsought to highlight the challenges he faces in government and blame Conservative ministers for failing to address those problems before the election. In his speech, Starmer said things were “worse than we ever imagined” and accused the Conservatives of creating a £22bn black hole in the public finances, something the Tories vehemently deny.
Starmer also said the previous government “failed to be honest”, adding: “They offered the snake oil of populism that led to more failures, over and over again.”