FORMER Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged Rishi Sunak to deliver a fourth budget this year, saying the Chancellor needs to have a plan to tackle the cost of living crisis.
He also urged Boris Johnson to convene a summit of world leaders in a bid to stave off impending global economic catastrophe.
The ex-Labour leader has compared the current situation to the 1930s, the so-called "devil's decade".
"We've got protectionism, we've got war in Europe, we've got a form of jingoism and nationalism in different countries, pursuing their own selfish interests, and we're in danger of having a global recession,"he told the BBC.
"We have to face up to these problems."
Mr Brown said he was “shocked by the fact that so many families and so many children are going to be forced into poverty during this winter, despite Chancellor Sunak’s proposals last month."
Mr Brown added: “I see millions of families in poverty, and millions of children going to school ill-clad and hungry, people are unable to afford to put up their heating.
“Something has got to be done about this. And it has to be done in a far fairer way than the previous three budgets.
“Family budgets are under huge pressure, and the Government will need a plan. I am proposing a fourth budget. We’ve had three budgets this year."
He said the budget should "get inflation on a pathway towards stable prices" and do something to "ease family poverty because child poverty is going to go beyond five million if we don’t take further action."
He added: "And thirdly, I think what people are really looking for is a plan for growth to get over this.”
Mr Brown said without that plan there was "no programme of action."
He added: “The government is going from crisis to crisis and scandal to scandal. We cannot see the way out of this. We will have pain now and pain later. What we need is minimising pain now and maximising gain later.
“At the moment, no government minister can explain any strategy for the next year, two years or three years. There is no plan, no programme of action, and there’s got to be one.”
Mr Brown said it was "a global problem that needs a global solution."
"We’re actually leaderless at the moment, but we’re not powerless,” he said.
“There’s a food crisis, 800 million on the verge of starvation. There’s an energy crisis with oil prices going up, affecting every country, inflation and of course on top of Covid and conflict and climate change, which is affecting every country.
“So Boris Johnson may be going to [the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in] Rwanda and then to Germany but he really ought to be getting world leaders together, and they should concoct a plan that deals in a concerted and comprehensive way that can get oil prices down can get food supply, moving around the world, and can get control of inflation.”
During the interview, the former Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath MP said he thought it was likely the Conservatives would need to scrap planned corporation and fuel tax rises.
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