Boris Johnson has rejected calls to provide struggling families with help paying their bills.
The cost-of-living crisis has left many households in Britain in a perilous position, with inflation at an all-time high and wages struggling to keep up.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has called for benefits to be immediately updated in line with inflation to provide a “shield” against the sting of mounting living costs.
He said rebates and discretionary funds represent “a step in the wrong direction for tackling poverty”, arguing it would be better to uplift Universal Credit (UC) as it “links benefits to work”.
But Johnson has shrugged off the pleas from his predecessor, saying that such help would be “shovelling” money to appease “bleeding hearts,” it has been reported.
The PM believes spending the proceeds of such a tax on immediate relief for families would be a short-term fix, and the cash would be “here today and gone tomorrow.”
The Sunday Times reported that Johnson’s press secretary Guto Harri compared immediate help to ease the cost of living to “pain relief”, arguing that “surgery” would be better to boost the economy.
One insider reportedly said: “Every pound we spend on pain relief is a pound less to spend on surgery, fixing the problem.
“Some younger people are hearing the screaming voices and think: ‘Let’s buy more nurofen or more morphine.”
“We do need to provide some more morphine but we really need to keep money to spend in the operating theatre.”
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