Spare us your fake outrage about P&O, Shapps – you were sleeping at the wheel Business

This, of course, is palpable nonsense. Rishi Sunak had ample opportunity to demonstrate his concern for UK households in the spring statement, but the Chancellor dropped the ball dramatically, opting instead to protect the Treasury from rising inflation at the expense of ordinary families.

This, despite fears that 1.3 million people – including half a million children – will be pushed below the poverty line next year. Sunak has rightly been called a “tax illusionist” for announcing tax cuts that would not offset other previously announced plans.

Shapps threatened P&O with legal action, as well as a review of all government contracts and transactions. He also called on the arrogant chief executive of P&O, Peter Hebblethwaite, to step down.

The Prime Minister even intervened, saying P&O could face ‘fines of up to millions of pounds’, but, as shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said: ‘The government has yet to do anything to hold P&O Ferries to account”.

The sad reality, as ministers themselves admitted, is that government can be powerless to act.

So, faced with intense pressure and the impression that P&O has acted with impunity, Shapps must give it one last desperate roll of the dice: the offer of “a new opportunity” to rehire the 800 minimum-wage workers, alongside a commitment to revise seafarers’ pay laws.

Under its ‘pay or ship’ ultimatum, if P&O fails to comply, it would be banned from UK roads.

The public is not stupid enough to fall for the trap. They know that Shapps is playing the gallery and they also know that this government is not really fighting for the millions of people about to be affected by what Andrew Bailey called a “historic real income shock” that will be “worse than any year in the 1970s”.

The Office for Budget Responsibility meanwhile said the country faces the biggest single-year drop in living standards since records began in 1956, with inflation on track to hit a 40-year high. years by 8.7% in October.