Boris Johnson & Rishi Sunak must throw the kitchen sink at the economy to prevent recession

Sink or swim

WE HOPE the starkest economic warning yet by the CBI, predicting households will sink into recession this year, is enough to shake the Government out of its torpor.

In the Treasury’s defence it has the thankless task of repairing the damage wrought by a two-year pandemic.

And some of the few steps it HAS taken — such as Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s 5p cut in fuel duty — might in normal times be considered radical.

But these are not normal times, so the Government will find voter sympathy, as with so much else, in short supply

The CBI urges the Cabinet to shelve its internal squabbles and go on a war footing over the economy.

We couldn’t agree more.

Politically, not only are Tory donors running for the hills, but Red Wall MP Jake Berry warns the party faces “political annihilation” unless it cuts taxes.

For the PM and the Treasury — which at times appears to have repurposed itself as a glorified benefits office — we have a simple, urgent message:

Throw the kitchen sink at this now.

Bored to Keirs

BRACE yourselves for a shock: a new poll has found voters think Sir Keir Starmer is boring, bland, weak and useless.

That sounds a pretty fair appraisal of the Labour leader to us.

But hey, at least he’s honest, according to the survey results.

A strange adjective for someone caught out by his party’s own web of Beergate fibs, we’d argue.

Or for someone terrified to get off the fence when it comes to the misery being inflicted on the country by his union paymasters.

Voters are savvy enough to see through this spineless charade.

For all his problems, Boris Johnson must thank his lucky stars daily that he has an opponent as feeble as Starmer.

Mixed signals

OBNOXIOUS belligerence aside, no character trait is more necessary to leading a militant union than moral elasticity.

How else can these champions of the oppressed justify their grotesque paypackets, subsidised by members?

Even so, the latest example of doublethink by the RMT is astounding.

Today we reveal how, even while its swaggering chief Mick Lynch was calling for BP to be nationalised for its “obscene” profits, the rail union was itself benefiting from BP shares worth a quarter of a million pounds.

It has about £1million more invested in other oil and mining firms, which may come as a surprise to the eco charities whose green credentials the union has been only too happy to leech off.

We thought the RMT styled itself as an enemy of capitalism and a friend of the environment.

Can Mr Lynch reassure us we’ve got that the right way round?