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THE FUTURE OF two British government ministers’ jobs are in the balance after the value of the pound fell, public borrowing rates increased and family ties to the fallen regime in Bangladesh were highlighted.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, in change of the UK’s finances, is under intense pressure after prime minister Keir Starmer commended her work in the role but refused to guarantee her future in his cabinet.
Meanwhile, junior anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq is also under pressure to respond to claims that she had resided in properties belonging to the fallen leader of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, who is her aunt.
Opposition members have called on Starmer to sack both ministers, claiming their positions are untenable.
Speaking to reporters today, Starmer said he had total confidence in Reeves but declined to say if she would remain in her position for the duration of the government’s term. He conceded that it will take time to turn the economy around.
Reeves faces the prospect of increasing borrowing rates, which will force the Labour government to slash spending or hike taxes to balance the books. Meanwhile, the pound slumped to a 14-month low this morning.
While Starmer was keen stress that the current government will meet its fiscal rules and goals – keeping them from further decreasing the value of the currency – he said his cabinet will be “ruthless” on public spending.
He said it was necessary to make cuts in order to make up the difference left in the public finances by the previous Conservative party government, which spent and borrowed much more than what was publicly known according to Labour.
“We never pretended, nor would anybody sensibly argue, that after 14 years of failure, you can turn around our economy and our public services before Christmas,” Starmer said.
“Before the election, I said it’s not going to be possible to do this in six months. It’s going to take time,” he added.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Reeves was “hanging on by her fingernails”.
She said: “The Prime Minister just refused to back his Chancellor staying in her job. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have driven Britain’s economy into the ground.”
Meanwhile, members of the opposition are also calling for anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq to be sacked following details that emerged in The Sunday Times yesterday.
Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commision named Siddiq in a report about the alleged embezzlement of $5 billion (€4.9 billion) by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s and her family.
Hasina, Siddiq’s aunt, fled Bangladesh last August after a student-led uprising against her decades-spanning tenure as prime minister. Money laundering investigators there ordered the country’s big banks to hand over details of transactions relating to Siddiq.
Siddiq is an MP for a north London seat who is part of the finance ministry and responsible for the UK’s financial services sector as well as anti-corruption measures.
Over the weekend, a Sunday Times investigation revealed details about the claims that Siddiq spent years living in a London flat bought by an offshore company connected to two Bangladeshi businessmen.
The flat was eventually transferred as a gift to a Bangladeshi barrister with links to Hasina, her family and her ousted government, according to the newspaper.
It also reported Siddiq and her family were given or used several other London properties bought by members or associates of the Awami League party, Hasina’s ruthless, and now ousted, party.
Bangladesh’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Prize-winning microfinance pioneer who heads a caretaker government, demanded a detailed probe in light of the allegations.
He told the newspaper the properties could be linked to wider corruption claims against Hasina’s toppled government, which he said amounted to the “plain robbery” of billions of dollars from Bangladesh’s coffers.
Contains reporting from © AFP 2024 and Press Association
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Like our lot here they’ll do anything to stay in power.
@Dave O Neill: “Our lot” have maintained a successful economy
@Argus Romsworth: They have. But where they have failed is they have now adopted the UK’s policy of mass immigration to try and chase the value of money that continues to drop year on year. House prices will go up indefinitely, because software engineers and Deliveroo drivers won’t be building houses. Our young tradees are hitting for Australia and NZ. The Irish, Romanians, Georgians and Moldovans who currently dominate the construction workforce can’t keep up with 100,000 + coming here every year. How much has people’s wages gone up in the past 10 years? Maybe 10-15%. Housing has gone up almost 80%. But let’s keep supply low and the demand high, that will surely fix the problem.
@Joe Willis: housing a big issue. No doubt about that. it’s the same in Australia. When Irish go over there as they rarely buy a property.
@Argus Romsworth: Yes because mass immigration doesn’t benefit the economy. Just ask the Australian government why they have had mass immigration for over two decades, yet they skill shortage is at the highest it has ever been right now.
@Joe Willis: the highest value skills are not in construction atm. ICT and financial sectors where all the big money is. Make hay while the sun shines. Just a part of the cycle we are in.
@Joe Willis: Garbage. We follow the EU policy according to our commitments, no relation whatsoever to UK situation. The majority of our immigrants in areas such as health care and construction are badly needed and add hugely to our economy and our culture. Next time one of your family members is ill thank your lucky stars we have very well qualified immigrants looking after them.l because there is not enough Irish to fulfill our needs.
@M Fahy: Just keep bringing them in. Last year we had 100,000 immigrants. This year let’s make it 200,000. The solution to our housing crisis is surely to just keep bringing in 100s of thousands of people who all need to be housed. Just keep em coming. All people are anyways are interchangeable economic units. As long as our GDP rises by 0.2%, that’s all that matters. As for culture, I don’t care about that. Values is more important to me. I don’t agree with how a lot of these people value certain members of our society.
@Argus Romsworth: they’ve also maintained the homeless crisis
@Argus Romsworth: successful for who?
@Joe Willis: 90,000 people came here from Ukraine which obviously skews the figures.
For anyone who thinks Ireland should leave the EU, take a look at what is happening in the UK right now. This is our future if we were to leave the EU
@Ger Whelan: Switzerland, Norway and Iceland are all doing grand
They are lucky like us that they don’t have SF in power either.
@Trump24: How could SF be ‘in power’ in Britain?
@Trump24: not this munt again. Go to bed mate nobody wants to hear what you have to say about anything.
@Brendan O’Brien: The Trump supporter political I.Q. level.
@Robert: So mute him and all the other trolls
Great to see the empire falling apart.
@Jb Walshe: The empire is long gone.
@Jb Walshe: the British Empire fell directly after WW2, just like the rest of Europe. The real winners were the USA and Israel.
@Joe Willis: unfortunately they are still heavily involved in many countries
@Jb Walshe: US giant Meta has 3.3 Billion users worldwide everyday on their platforms. That’s at least half of the worlds adult population. They have mastered data collection of all these users. If Chinese company ByteDance doesn’t sell TikTok to an American company by January 19th 2025, TikTok will be banned the the US. The likelihood is that ByteDance will sell TikTok for a huge sum of money to the US. Just shows that if the US doesn’t control what people use/see on their phones, they will throw toys out of their pram until they get their own way.
Britain have billions for bombing innocent Palestinians but no money for pensioners fuel allowance
@Kevin O Brien: Keir Starmer is the Prime Minster of the UK. His wife, Victoria, is a jew with UK-Israeli citizenships. Do things start to make a bit more sense now?
Incredible how ministers hedge their bets and rely on the global economy to come right and sound bites to appeal to voters. UK needs higher taxes on the rich, and a good dose of re-privatisation. Then suck it up for a few years.
Great Britain is now little Britain and looks like it’s getting littler,
@Ned: Yeah, Luke Littler.
Labour and the Tories are just as bad as each other. Both repeatedly lied to the British public about not raising taxes and then they proceeded to do so. The Tories were responsible for hiking taxes up to the highest amount in nearly 50 years and then Labour continued the pile on once they entered office despite running on the promise not to raise a single tax and using the National Insurance, corporate tax and income tax increases as a stick to beat the Tories with. The elephant in the room that neither Labour nor the Tories want to talk about is the NHS and how it’s the biggest drain on government finances. Funding has nearly doubled since 2015 yet 40% of people waited longer than 12 hours in A&E and the surgery waiting list stands at 7.8 million people. It needs to be privatised.
@William Jennings: do you work for Boris?
Lived in London in the 90s . Seemed like we’d never have it as good here as they had it then . The place was ransacked by city bank speculators , war mongers, and anti eu sentiment . A good honest people brought to their knees by that collective shower. Hope for better times for them again soon
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