The UK treasury chief and health secretary have announced their resignations. The reason was a string of scandals involving Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Both officials said they did not want to continue in the current cabinet for ethical reasons. Javid and Sunak admitted that they had lost confidence in the country's leadership.
The reason for the resignation was also Johnson's admission that he knew about the sexual harassment allegations against Chris Pincher, the deputy head of the ruling Conservative Party in the House of Commons.
Thus, Johnson, aware of Pincher's inappropriate behavior, appointed him to a key position in the ruling party. After that, the prime minister faced criticism. This led to the departure of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid.
Chris Pincher molested two men at the Carlton Club in Piccadilly while drunk. He resigned as an MP after he was found guilty.
However, it emerged that Boris Johnson knew of allegations about Chris Pincher before appointing him to a senior Government job.
Johnson apologized for Pincher's appointments. "If I had my time again, I would think back on it and recognize that he wasn't going to learn a lesson, and he wasn't going to change, and I regret that," he told Sky News.
Britain certainly feels fragile at the moment with runaway inflation, war in Ukraine and all manner of local difficulties plaguing the UK body politic. Already beset by various scandals and electoral setbacks, Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered even greater blows on Tuesday with the resignation of both Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the exchequer, and Sajid Javid, the health secretary, key members of the cabinet.
The London Stock Exchange Index is falling and could hit 2021 lows.
The speed at which the UK economy grew slowed significantly in recent months. The cost-of-living crisis is still a threat to many people. Inflation should reach double digits by the autumn. However, it should stabilize at the end of this year before falling sharply next year. This will only happen if Russia does not cut off energy supplies to Europe.
The most compelling strength of the UK economy is employment. A cost-of-living squeeze really does become a wider crisis, with sharply rising unemployment. The herculean efforts of the Sunak's furlough employment scheme may seem long gone, but it kept companies and employees afloat during lockdowns. Unemployment stands at just 3.8% with vacancies of 1.7 million.
Britain's new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nadhim Zahawi, signaled he wants to cut taxes faster than his predecessor Rishi Sunak, as he set out plans to boost the UK's struggling economy.
Zahawi said he is "determined to do more" on cutting taxes in a Sky News interview Wednesday, just hours after accepting his new post following Sunak's dramatic resignation. The government hopes they'll be able to do more immediate tax-cutting with Zahawi in post compared to Sunak.
Zahawi, 55, has taken on the top job at the Treasury with Britain facing its worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation and Prime Minister Boris Johnson fighting to stay in power after being hit by the high-profile resignations of Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid on Tuesday evening. In his opening pitch, Zahawi said the UK must continue to be vigilant against inflation but he would look at "all the evidence" on how he could boost economic growth.
Previously, Zahawi served as Johnson's education secretary and rose to prominence for his role in overseeing the nation's successful vaccination roll-out during the Covid-19 pandemic. He is widely regarded within the ruling Conservative Party as a safe pair of hands with a record of delivery.
His elevation followed Sunak quitting after almost two and a half years running the Treasury, telling Johnson in his resignation letter that the government "cannot continue like this."
