PM: Food And Fuel Crisis Just A ‘Change Of Direction'

Boris Johnson will brush off the petrol queues and empty shelves as evidence of a “change of direction ” towards a high wage economy today as he closes a Conservative conference at which supply shortages have barely been acknowledged.

- Heather Stewart Julia Kollewe

The prime minister channelled Margaret Thatcher yesterday to insist “there is no alternative ” but to press ahead with the post-Brexit transition to a labour market less reliant on immigration. Asked whether the UK was facing a crisis, Johnson said “no”. He added: “It’s not the job of government to come in and try to fix every problem in business and industry .”

Despite warnings from business groups of rising prices and continued shortages of key products in the run-up to Christmas, he will tell the party conference in Manchester that a bright future lies ahead.

“That is the direction in which this country is going – towards a high wage, high skill, high productivity economy that the people of this country need and deserve, in which everyone can take pride in their work and the quality of their work,” he is expected to say.

“We are not going back to the same old broken model with low wages, low growth, low skills and low productivity, all of it enabled and assisted by uncontrolled immigration.”

Downing Street sources insisted the prime minister’s approach was not “Panglossian optimism”, but a determination to ride out the disruption. Senior Conservatives said focus group and polling evidence was so far telling them the public did not blame the government for the supply crunch, and was “giving them the benefit of the doubt” for the time being.