Sky News host Wilfred Frost called out a Tory frontbencher today for refusing to recognise how his party led the country into a recession.
Shadow chancellor Mel Stride was trying to attack the Labour government over its recent benefit crackdown, claiming that Downing Street has “killed economic growth stone dead”.
UK gross domestic product (GDP) did shrink in January by 0.1%, but, as Frost pointed out, “we’re not in recession”.
To be in a recession, there has to be two consecutive quarters of negative growth – something which did happen in 2023 under the Tories.
But Stride, who was the work and pensions secretary under Rishi Sunak, told Sky News: “I didn’t say recession, there’s no growth in the economy now.”
“Nor was there for most of the last government...” The presenter pointed out.
Stride cut in: “We had the fastest growing economy in the G7 when the government took over –”
The presenter cut in again: “For a six-month period, following a six-month period where you were in recession, which has not materialised [under Labour].”
“We had the highest levels of employment, we had very low levels of unemployment,” Stride began.
“Unemployment has hardly moved since Keir Starmer came to power,” the host said, asking: “Was there a recession under the last Rishi Sunak government, is there a recession now?”
“The important thing is we went through a cost of living crisis –”
“Answer me that question – did you have a recession, is there a recession now?”
Stride continued to deflect, to which Frost said: “Excuse me, sorry – was there a recession under Rishi SUnak, has there been a recession under this government?”
Stride dodged the question again, so the presenter said: “The non-answer speaks volumes.”
The Tory frontbencher replied by saying inflation was “imported through the Ukraine war” while the Covid pandemic also rocked the economy.
Stride said: “We got ourselves through that without mass unemployment, all the kinds of things people said would have happened as a consequence of those external factors.”
He added that the UK had the fastest growing economy in the G7 on the day of the general election in July 2024.