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UK economy struggling under Johnson’s rule: scholar

To explain why the Conservatives lost ground to the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the Labour party in the UK’s general elections TVP World was joined by Steven Fielding, professor of politics and international relations at the University of Nottingham, who said that the main reasons for such results were the cost of living crisis, soaring inflation, and the pandemic- and Ukraine-related expenses.

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While Europe maintains its rightward political tilt, the UK seems to be going left with the recent debacle of Boris Johnson’s Conservative party in the British general elections.

Mr Fielding recalled that the British government “is putting up taxes on working people, so people are going to suffer quite a lot.”

“Energy prices are going up massively. Energy companies have got huge super profits but the government is not taxing them. It is taxing people who have been consuming gas and electricity,” TVP World’s guest elaborated, adding that people “are asking why are you raising taxes on people who can’t afford it, while you could on the companies that can.

The scholar went on to recall a particular moment when PM Johnson was asked in the forerun to the general elections about an elderly pensioner who claimed she could not afford to pay for her energy costs anymore. “So what she does is she uses the free bus pass to go around buses all day to keep warm,” TVP World’s guest recounted, adding that PM Johnson responded by saying that he had introduced free bus passes for elderly people.

The British economy and the British society are really struggling,” Mr Fielding said.

“On the underpinning of all of that is the perception of Boris Johnson himself,” Mr Fielding said, calling him “a flawed figure… breaking his own rules during the COVID crisis. That has really smashed his reputation.”

“It’s a government in trouble, and a PM in trouble,” the scholar stressed.

In terms of Ukraine, TVP World’s guest said that “Boris Johnson is certainly seeing the Ukraine crisis as a way of diverting attention from his own domestic troubles.”

To learn whether the conservative MPs are doing anything to make Boris Johnson step down or if you are interested in the impact of the elections and the British left’s reemergence on the UK’s support for Ukraine, click the video above.

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