Britain’s in a full-blown financial crisis – we need an emergency budget NOW

Britain in peril

WHO is running the country at this moment of acute economic, political and societal danger? Anyone?

The Bank of England now warns of an apocalyptic recession a year and a quarter long, with inflation hitting 13 per cent and energy bills tripling. 

It will be a shock millions have never experienced. Yet no one is around to help. No one is at the helm.

Boris Johnson, booted from office at the worst possible time, is on a sun-lounger.

His replacement is nearly five weeks from taking office — and the contest between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss looks blind to the monstrous scale and urgency of the nation’s problems.

Even Labour is AWOL. Keir Starmer is on holiday. His underlings haven’t a constructive thought between them.

We ought to derive a shred of comfort from the Bank raising interest rates in a belated bid to control rampant inflation.

 But it has been serially incompetent.

The Sun was among many warning last year about surging inflation, the predictable after-effect of two years of lavish Covid bailouts.

Why didn’t the Bank, tasked solely with keeping it down to two per cent, raise rates then?

It cannot just blame Putin’s war. Inflation was nearly six per cent already by then.

It’s the Bank’s reckless complacency which has proved ruinous.

Hellish winter

It wouldn’t be so bad if some public body was looking out for us all against rapacious oil giants.

That is Ofgem’s role. Instead this exceptionally useless industry “watchdog” decides to increase the price cap twice as often, inflicting new misery every three months.

Whose side is it on? Customers? Or oil giants and energy suppliers?

We are facing a hellish winter even before we consider the state the NHS is in. Who will help? 

While Rishi and Liz trade blows over who is most likely to bring on a recession we now know is inevitable, firms like Shell and BP take us for fools, bunging bonuses to staff for their “success” cashing in on Putin’s butchery.

We are in a full-blown crisis. The nation is despairing of unaffordable bills and political chaos.

It is angry too. Some are even warning of social unrest. Ministers must not underestimate the mood. 

We do not have weeks or months to spare. We need an emergency Budget now, with new measures to protect millions from hardship.

Water racket

SPEAKING of toothless watchdogs, when will Ofwat get tough on water firms?

It wants leaks cut by half . . . by 2050. What good is that? Millions of gallons a day are wasted NOW, while half the country faces drought curbs.

A quarter of suppliers don’t meet leak reduction targets. Is anyone held to account? No. Executives instead get mind-boggling salaries, with bonuses.

Rot has set in.