UK Labour seeks to thwart Sunak over living-standards comeback

LONDON: Britain’s opposition Labour Party on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government of being out of touch with reality by signalling that voters will soon feel the benefit from the end of a recession likely to be confirmed by data this week.

With Labour far ahead of Sunak’s Conservatives in opinion polls before an election later this year, its finance chief Rachel Reeves used a speech on Tuesday to try to derail attempts by the government to rebuild its reputation on the economy.

“When the prime minister and chancellor say: ‘we’ve turned the corner, the plan is working, look out for the feel-good factor’, I think that’s deluded, and it’s really out of touch with the realities that people are facing,” Reeves said.

Sunak and finance minister Jeremy Hunt have argued that the drop in inflation and improving economic data show that the economy is emerging from the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.