But his slowness to announce a plan angered some MPs, with Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South, telling LBC radio: “The scale of this crisis is absolutely huge and personally I don’t see my party doing enough.
“Of course, I want the Labor Party to go further. Now is an opportunity to show true leadership by supporting the unions who are on the front lines of this fight. We should be in solidarity with the workers who are fighting for a salary increase, we should make this argument to end food poverty”.
Diane Abbott, the former home secretary, shared a mock search poster of Sir Keir, which was circulated by left-wing campaigners on social media.
“Have you seen this man? Disappeared during the cost of living crisis,” it read, next to a black and white photo of the Labor leader.
Another Labor MP said: “Where the hell is he? Where is our leader? It’s very strange. What the hell is he doing? Gordon doing this has made it quite difficult for the leadership to keep quiet but it’s strange how they’ve been calm down.”
In a column this week, Mr Brown made it clear that “crises don’t take holidays” as he urged action on the cost of living.
Writing in The Guardian, he said: “Weather and tide wait for no one. Neither do crises. They don’t take holidays and they don’t politely hang fire, certainly not to suit the convenience of an outgoing Prime Minister and to the whims of two possible successors and the membership of the conservative party.
On Thursday night, 22 MPs and peers from the Labor left sent a letter to Sir Keir, as well as Boris Johnson, calling for Parliament to be withdrawn. Among the signatories were Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labor leader, and John McDonnell, who was his shadow chancellor.
Reed rejected suggestions that Brown was leading the party and dismissed his renationalisation proposal as too expensive.
Instead, Labor would spend £113m raised from the levy to scrap the higher energy price cap for pre-paid meters, reimbursing the difference to suppliers.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said the party would also take “wider action to help people manage their bills over the winter”, saying the Tories had “lost control of the economy and they have nothing to offer.”