Brazen Rishi Sunak has finally touched down in the UK for crisis talks with hospitality leaders - as businesses have been pleading for Covid financial support.
The dressed-down Chancellor took a flight back from the US after he was accused of being "missing in action" as medics urged Brits to "de-prioritise" less important social events.
He was pictured by The Mirror marching through Heathrow Airport wearing white trainers, grey tracksuit bottoms and a navy hoodie.
Sources told the Mirror earlier this week that Mr Sunak was on a four-day official trip - leaving his team back home scrabbling to work out a package of support.
It comes as struggling firms say they face "closure by stealth" as the Omicron variant rages across the case, with the Department for Health recording almost 90,000 cases yesterday and scientists fearing hospitals could be overwhelmed within weeks.
The impact of the measures already taken have hit pubs and restaurants hard, forcing Mr Sunak to cut short a work trip to the United States to fly home for talks with the sector.
The Chancellor said “I appreciate that it is a difficult time for the hospitality industry” and promised the Government would continue to do “whatever it takes” to support lives and livelihoods.
Trade body UKHospitality’s boss Kate Nicholls and pub chiefs have made a plea for business rates relief and VAT discounts to be extended, warning that the sector has been knocked harder than expected by the new restrictions.
Ms Nicholls said hospitality sales have already plunged by more than a third over the past 10 days with £2 billion of trade already lost in December.
The British Beer and Pub Association said an estimated three million Christmas bookings had been cancelled in the past week.
Premises are forecast to sell 37 million fewer pints and lose out on £297 million in trade across the festive period compared to 2019.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts, said a combination of increasing hospital cases and staff shortages could cause difficulties across the health service.
Asked whether a lockdown was inevitable, he said: “It’s very difficult to tell at this point.”
He told BBC’s Question Time: “The bit that is really going to come up and give us a major problem is the number of staff that we’re going to have off because of the fact that they have caught Covid.”
The infection rate will mean “significant numbers of our staff are actually not going the able to be at work”.
