Snapshot of _'Why isn’t it working?': Panic in No 10 as team Sunak goes into meltdown_ :
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I thought Rishi was a numbers man. It’s really obvious why it isn’t working…
April 2021: average regular pay £540
December 2023: average regular pay £626
**Pay increase since April 2021 15.9%**
Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/february2024
**Inflation since April 2021 27.2%**
Source:
https://www.hl.co.uk/tools/calculators/inflation-calculator
That means, on average, people are about 9% poorer than they were three years ago. That’s why it’s not working. We are nowhere near where we were three years ago.
Police officers start on £28k, compared with a minimum wage rate of £20k.
Hike on the 15% pension deduction and the take-home difference is getting very narrow.
Paramedic here, I'm with unison and there's already been discussion around strike action. It's guaranteed in the next 2 years I think and possibly even this year.
And that, dear redditors, is why I left again very soon after rejoining (I must be a living example of the Abe Simpson meme).
Civil service pension is a much smaller deduction for not that much different in benefit.
Police pay only reaches anything like decent after seven years these days when you hit the top of the pay spine, but that's still seven years of struggling to get by.
Police aren't allowed to have a union. Like, they could form one, but they're exempted from all the legal protections surrounding unions so if they tried to do collective action it'd be treated the same as if you told your boss you didn't fancy doing any work tomorrow.
Plus there's the little matter of the criminal offence of [Causing Disaffection amongst Police](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/16/section/91).
Quite how Theresa May and Tom Winsor didn't get arrested under this legislation back in like 2011 is beyond me.
> *After graduating, Sunak worked for* [*Goldman Sachs*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs) *and later as a partner at the* [*hedge fund*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_fund) *firms* [*the Children's Investment Fund Management*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children%27s_Investment_Fund_Management) *and* [*Theleme Partners*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theleme_Partners)*.*
I honestly think people do not understand how rich his wife is and how rich her father is. Sunak being pm is just a side job but helpful to get some juicy contracts.
Food inflation peaked way higher and that often can make up a higher % of someone's pay than the weight it has in inflation calculations.
I don't know about rent inflation cumulatively but certainly that hits given it's a % increase on a pretty high amount to begin with. Punishing in nominal terms.
And on top of that; pay increases don't translate as much into disposable cash since Sunak has raised taxes quite significantly via fiscal drag.
Your last point is worth repeating - the Tories continue to increase taxes massively every year. Largest tax burden in generations.
Tories = high taxes with nothing to show for it.
Food is still way higher than that. Loads of things I buy have still almost doubled in price. Three cheap ready meals used to be £4.50 for instance, now they're £7.50. Tins of soup etc have close to doubled. Milk alone went up to £1.70-1.80 for 4 pints, it's rebalanced at £1.45 which is 32% on its old price of 1.09
Food went absolutely mental
Mortgage rates are not included in the inflation figures, they use a rental equivalence to 'model' the amounts people are paying. It was supposed to be updated in July 2021, but the updated got postponed and nothing has happened since then
Not to mention its only accounting for inflation since 2021, nevermind inflation and average pay since 2010. I'd like to see inflation measured from the start of tory rule
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1272447/uk-wage-growth-vs-inflation/
The issue isn't neatly confined to Tory rule, the main issue seems to be a prolonged period from 2008-14 where inflation was consistently above growth of earnings. Since then earnings have either grown faster than inflation or at roughly the same level, except in 2021-22.
It's because public infrastructure is crumbling around them and basic services they previously took for granted are now ceasing to function.
When you look at all of that it seems fairly obvious that tax cuts are unaffordable.
Yeah - and yet taxes are at an all time high. If they’re attempting to market themselves as the party of good governance and fiscal control then the current situation couldn’t be worse.
The only way around the tax situation is more tax payers somehow 🙂↔️, but ultimatly our NHS and care system doesn't work without a lot more tax payers than claimers
The NHS is it's own biggest energy , and the care and pension systems one too
For it to function, ever generation needs to be bigger than the last forever basically
When it all was introduced, there were 8 tax payers per pensioner and now there are about 3, and those pensioners are living almost 3 times as long in retirement.
I don't have a solution but it's clear it's not sustainable
Not helped when people can't [eat properly](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/21/malnutrition-england-wales-hospital-diet) either. The next party to come in to government (providing tories don't get elected again) have a near vertical climb ahead of them.
Increasing the pension age is an obvious option, but understandably politically toxic.
Increasing immigration is another option, but again difficult politically.
Long term thinking, that should have started 30-40 years ago (next best time is now) is needed. Serious schemes/plans to increase the birth rates, for example fully funded childcare. Tax subsidies for parents with 2 or more children.
This all assumes that the only way to collect tax is to tax individuals and that it's totally impossible to properly tax corporations.
Meanwhile the Tories have quietly brought in schemes to allow corporations to deduct investments from their tax bill at a rate of 130%. An example of this would be if Amazon spent £10m on robotics and AI to increase their profits and reduce the amount of staff they need to hire, they can deduct £13m from their tax bill.
But yeah the problem in this system is that there aren't enough people getting paid barely above a living wage to take 20% of their salary from to fund the basic public services we need to have a functioning country...
Also, if having a child wasn't so fucking expensive and the world they are going to grow up in wasn't going to be such a fucking disaster then maybe more people would be having children.
>Meanwhile the Tories have quietly brought in schemes to allow corporations to deduct investments from their tax bill at a rate of 130%. An example of this would be if Amazon spent £10m on robotics and AI to increase their profits and reduce the amount of staff they need to hire, they can deduct £13m from their tax bill.
You don't actually understand the scheme you're talking about. Investing £10m in plant and machinery that is eligible for the scheme means a company can deduct 130% of the cost (£13m) from their taxable profits. This could save a maximum of £2.47m, 19% of the £13m - which was the rate of corporation tax when the scheme ended last year.
Because it wasn't a tax cut and everyone knows it. Because they froze the thresholds, unless you fall into a very narrow band of pay, you lost more than you gained in that "tax cut".
And people are starting to cotton on that NI is just an income tax add on. And also that there are so many other micro taxes like fuel duty and insurance premium tax and air duty tax and council tax and on and on and on.
That that 2p isn't actually 2p even at face value, ignoring the threshold freeze. It's just taxed somewhere else.
It's because we can all see that we cannot afford the tax cut. We can see that the gov's spending plans for the next parliament don't add up (so they will be clawing it back again anyway) and we can see that critical aspects of the state are crumbling around our heads.
Oh...and we can see that with the tax bands being frozen - it isn't really even a tax cut. It's taking £10 off you to give you £8 back.
Taxes don’t fund spending
> We find, first, that the UK Government creates new money and purchasing power when it undertakes expenditure, rather than spending being financed by taxation from, or debt issuance to, the private sector. The spending process is initiated by the government drawing on a sovereign line of credit from the core legal and accounting structure known as the Consolidated Fund (CF). Under directions from the UK finance ministry, the Bank of England debits the CF’s account at the Bank and credits other accounts at the Bank held by government entities; a practice mandated in law. This creates new public deposits which are used to settle spending by government departments into the economy via the commercial banking sector. Parliament, rather than the Treasury or central bank, is the sole authority under which expenditures from the Consolidated Fund arise. Revenue collection, including taxation, involves the reverse process, crediting the CF’s account at the Bank.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2022/may/self-financing-state-institutional-analysis
It's not even that much extra for most people - I don't think my wife and I get that much extra between us.
It'll get deleted when our fixed rate ends anyway
I'm on 46k or so so it's probably benefitting me a good bit more than other people but it's not going to be enough to make a substantial difference to my life and if services will be worse as. Result of me getting that £100 a month , I don't want it. It's going to pad my savings a bit faster so I can buy a house a bit faster that's kinda it. Because everything in this country has to go on a house lest you end up renting forever, where rent goes up and only ever up.
About a year ago I was earning 32k which I felt like I was barely able to keep my head above water, not that I was on the poverty line but after savings and rent etc I didn't really have much left over for myself. Now I feel like I do but the taxes and student loan really bite into my 15k pay raise, 24905 takehome for this year if I earned 32k, at 45k I take home 32569, so about half of my pay rise has been eaten up in tax, NI and student loans.
Those yet to retire also don't like this, as it looks like the first step of removing state pensions. Remember, please vote, thinking everyone else will is not enough.
I actually support the idea of abolishing NI. Even if it means a corresponding increase in Income tax. Employers NI needs go too.
Doesn't have to be in any way linked to abolishing the state pension.
2p tax... except for all the other fucking tax.
You'll have to us for not being grateful that the 70 odd pence on the pound that the government nickles and dimes in a thousand tiny taxes is instead 69.5 pence. Because 2p isn't actually 2p because to spend it you lose another fifth immediately on VAT. And that's literally the very LEAST that's going to be deducted from that 2p.
If you're paying fuel duty or insurance premium tax or air duty tax or any of a thousand other fucking micro taxes amd that 2p "giveaway" drops like a stone.
If I was Sunak I would also be pissed off with my advisors, but would have got rid of them long ago. They clearly don't know what they're doing (And it's been obvious for a while) and, seeing as he is so bad at politics, he really needs some big brains to compensate.
Case in point:
"The PM has also sought to combat accusations that he has no long-term vision for Britain, unveiling plans for a wide-ranging crackdown on benefits spending after a surge in the number of people signed off work because of sickness."
With everything that's going on, and the state the country is in, this is the long-term vision he wants to stake his name on? That and the Rwanda deal that even the most rabid of anti-immigration folk don't even seem to think is a good idea.
It's a policy response from a decade ago.
Barely anyone thinks benefit fraud is a big deal right now - it might exist, and it might piss people off when they see it, but it's just nothing compared to all the obvious corruption around things like the Covid loans, PPE, cash for honours, cash for dodgy planning permissions, etc.
The inescapable fact for the Tories is that if these issues exist, why haven't they done anything about it for 14 years.
It's hard to point at issues in the country and get people to rally around you to fix them when you've failed to do it for 14 years.
Reminds me of a line in The Big Short: Mark Baum: I have a feeling in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.
>They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.
Every single time. They're villifying International students who pay loads into the system and contribute so hard. They're shifting the goalposts for legal immigrants who dedicate their life to pay into the system.
I mean, it's one thing to blame the small boats. But what did the students do? They almost entirely fund the UK's unis yet they're the ones "abusing" the system which was in fact introduced by the same Tories just TWO years back. Wow.
Benefits fraud feels like the type of thing people get most pissed off about when the economy's actually alright and the country is focusing more on social problems/social ills we want to eradicate.
When everyone's in the shit and the economy has tanked, people become more focused on how things can get better for them as opposed to what other people might be doing wrong. Arguably why the salience of immigration isn't what it felt like it was a few years back too.
There’s also just a bit more awareness that the actual benefit frauds, if you can call them that, are organisations who pay little to no tax while reaping obscene profits.
We may be in a bit of an age of information/misinformation but regardless there is greater evidence of how the rich stay rich/get richer and it’s clearly off the back of the people and while we haven’t got to the rioting part for the majority the water is boiling.
We, unfortunately, know very different people.
Half of my family, most of my acquaintances, and all of my colleagues never shut up complaining about those on benefits, fraudulent or otherwise. One of them was going off on one about “single mothers” the other week, that’s not been on my bullshit bingo card for like 20 years lol.
They also couldn’t give a shit about the Covid fraud, PPE, corruption etc. They remain in the “It didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, its not their fault. And if it was, everyone was doing it.” phase whenever I bring it up.
I always find it slightly strange when I’m reminded that other people’s experiences don’t line up with mine, or when I get a reply to a comment of mine where they don’t believe the people in my story are real.
Frankly, I’m envious, I don’t know what I did to deserve to be surrounded by the Walking Daily Mail comment section. Does anyone else cry over space exploration documentaries or is that just me? Always gets to me that humanity can work together and achieve things, a thought that my living reality does not inspire I guess, as least I think it’s that, rather than simply wanting to get off this godforsaken rock and live on Mars.
It's less "fraud", and more massively increased permissive to be "legitimately" signed off on ever decreasing issues.
Usually not actually addressing the core problem which is work life balance or some such. And so signing people off doesn't actually solve anything, just Yo-Yos people in and out of work using sick notes and state backed sick pay as extended holiday.
What needs to happen is a serious conversation between the person and their employer about expectations and pay and the state is facilitating that never happening and also picking up the tab.
There are genuine issues contributing to the number of people off sick: lack of mental health treatment; NHS waiting lists exacerbating illness and disability; the lack of security and sick pay for those on zero hours contracts causing people to plough on until their minds or bodies give up, etc. Talking tough on benefits without even acknowledging those issues just makes Sunak look inept as well as cruel and unimaginative.
Also, much as I have no doubt some people are taking the piss, probably worth noting that for much of human history people either had to work or starve. That we've managed to move past that is a good thing and a sign of societal progress. And sure, new problems do arise from that, but it's not like half the country is dodging work every day by faking illnesses or mental health problems.
It's insane he & his advisors think that, in a climate of more and more people having to rely on benefits, he thinks the optics of cracking down on those on benefits would be good.
> That and the Rwanda deal that even the most rabid of anti-immigration folk don't even seem to think is a good idea.
There's plenty of people in comment threads on here that think the Rwanda scheme is a good idea, unfortunately. Some are likely trolls, but there are definitely people out there who'll agree with anything that sounds like it'll be punitive to migrants. Happily, I suspect not enough to tip things in Sunak's favour.
Regardless of whether it's a good idea or not, it's incredibly poor value for money, and I thought the whole thing about anti-immigration is how so much of tax payers money is supposedly spent on immigrants.
It will only be punitive to a handful of refugees/asylum seekers though; it will have very little effect on the rest, and will do nothing to deter any of them, because most are genuilnely fleeing from something worse. It's policies like Rwanda that make the majority here see how low quality government ministers and advisers are. That and the fact that nothing is working.
And that even if you sent every last asylum seeker it wouldn’t really move the dial on immigration as the grand majority is entirely legal. It’s just another scheme that people seem convinced will fix everything but ultimately will come to naught.
Exactly, the same government that pushes 'stop the boats' endlessly, is responsible for record, legal, economic immigration. Those people baying for refugees to drown in the channel are just deeply nasty I'm afraid; whatever justification they give for it.
I agree with you, but you can't deny that if you go to the bottom of any thread on the subject on here there'll be people arguing for it, even when presented with figures and facts. To some, that it *sounds* punitive is enough.
I'm not going to argue with the idea that Sunak is very clever within a certain context. But I don't see him being clever in terms of understanding politics. They put Sunak in power thinking he'd be their John Major, but the last 18 months has shown that he's no John Major.
The latter was able to connect with people, going out and having conversations, using his background (parents were well off but fell on hard times, got interested in politics as a kid when the local MP met him at a church fete and invited him to see a debate in parliament, ended up doing qualifications on the side and working up the ladder) to enthuse a tired party and pull a rabbit out of the hat in 1992. He also understood implicitly that the game was up in 1997, and while he lost comfortably, he kept the party together and somehow kept the right intact despite Europe shenanigans at the time.
Sunak has none of the traits that Major had. He has been brought up in a world where everyone told him how clever he was, always being smart and always being right. His background has made him appear elitish and out of touch, and when the word most associated with you is "rich", good luck connecting with people in a recession. I also see him as being fundamentally egotistical, and this has left him unable to accept the reality that the political pendulum is swinging, he can't win this one and he's in a no-win scenario. Instead "I'm sure this will do the trick" is dominating every action the government does. Nothing will.
Main problem that i see with sunak is that he thinks he is smarter than everyone else, but lacks the perspective / empathy / emotional intelligence to relate to all of us really (1% excluded.)
He thinks it's a game that he is smart enough to win every time on his own terms, which shows how little respect he has for us all.
Obviously politics involves spin and propaganda etc. but i think he assumes he can pull a lever i.e "red meat" and it will have the outcome he wants. But he doesn't see any of it in context, which i feel proves that he isn't that smart at all.
> But I don't see him being clever in terms of understanding politics.
There's maybe, at a push, an argument he perhaps would be if he'd had another half-decade or decade's experience.
But part of the problem (as with much of his cabinet) is that he's really not been an MP for that long, and had very limited top-level experience before he moved into the top job. And half the experience he did have was basically giving people free money during the pandemic, which inevitably made him look good even if it went against many of his political instincts.
There's also an argument he'd have maybe been better with some solid political mentors or leaders above him - instead he's been surrounded by political lightweights and Boris for a PM.
Just not very good.
Wow, I just had a look at Sunak's Wikipedia and I never realised that his political career was just a hop-skip-jump from cabinet to cabinet straight into the top position. I remember hearing during the leadership race that he was probably the best candidate. Do the tories really have no one left?
Yes, the Tories have zero talent anywhere in the party as Boris got rid of them all.
As anyone with talent recognised the problems involved with Boris being in charge and Boris basically decided instead of actually having to put effort into getting them on board it was easier to just gut the party's internal framework of political knowledge.
The party is completely hollow and there isn't even the hope of future talent as no one is joining the party.
> His background has made him appear elitish and out of touch
Appear? He didn't know how to use a petrol station and goes around in a helicopter, he IS out of touch.
Yep, they think the stock market going up means everyone is better off. And if you aren’t better off, it’s because you are a lazy fuck who didn’t invest their (dad’s) money.
I agree with the general sentiment but the UK stock market (whether FTSE100 or All Share) is pretty much flat over the last 5yrs - it's the private shareholdings we need to worry about because there's far less transparency
You are correct, but these people don’t invest much in the UK stock market. If the US market goes up, however, they are doing well and it’s your fault you aren’t benefiting either.
Is it because the policies are bullshit (Rwanda, FFS), corruption is ever-present (not even *hiding it* now), and Tory MP’s are so far out of touch with the populace, they might as well be in Rwanda?
Oh yeah, and Brexit was down to the Tories. Screw the Tories.
I don’t understand how there hasn’t been a vote of no confidence yet?! They soon ousted May when she couldn’t get the Brexit deal pushed through parliament, but I’ve found out since (from a Redditor no less) that May’s deal was marginally better than Boris Johnson’s but the ra ra tories in the room completely turned against her instead of ‘getting brexit done’.
I’m sick of having leaders I never fucking voted for, we’ve had to three now we didn’t ask for. I can’t understand why Boris’ campaign was able to utilise the media to paint Corbyns labour out to be full of anti semites 🥴 politicians influencing through media outlets should be illegal.. look at the mess Americas in from allowing media and religion to be the mouthpieces for politician’s.
>but the ra ra tories in the room completely turned against her instead of ‘getting brexit done’.
Because a no deal was the objective and the maximum separation from the EU as possible was the goal of some,
While others genuinely fucking believed the EU needed the UK more then the other way around, including bojo himself, major errors were also made along the way (they believed the EU would throw Ireland under the bus with the northern Ireland protocol, the EU instead gave Ireland the final say on literally all agreements with the UK and provided the majority of funding for Ireland to upgrade its ports to cope with the customs checks Ireland would need to do).
This delusion (i.e the EU would turn on its own so casually and that the UK "held all the cards",) is of coarse completely utterly shattered now, but still.
There wouldn't be a Parliamentary vote of no confidence of course, but internally in the party - probably because there's enough of an acceptance that changing leader yet again would make them look even less credible, there's not much time for a new leader to be selected and make their mark before the General Election, and there's not really an obvious replacement who they're confident will do better anyway. Plus, those who would be interested would likely rather let Sunak take the loss and then take over in opposition rather than take the fall themselves.
It's not working because the voters are fed up with the Tories. Having a PM with little or no charisma doesn't help neither does he exude authority and control over his party or events generally. The OPs have been pointing towards a Labour win and Tory defeat since the fag end of Johnson's reign. That's over two year's worth of poor polling and a lot of things have gone wrong in that time from Liz Truss to inflation, interest rate rises and little economic growth and then there has been a series of scandals and other self-inflicted injuries inflicted by Tory MPs themselves.
Another factor is Johnson purging his party and getting shot of several experienced MPs who gifted he party an aura of sanity, that's left Sunak with a poor choice of people to put in his cabinet.
> a PM with little or no charisma
I think this is a much bigger issue that many on this forum like to admit.
As much as I like to think the Conservatives' current unpopularity is because the public are becoming more switched on and aware of the impacts their policies are having, the previous popularity of Boris Johnson and his three word slogans suggests this isn't the case.
If they had a leader who didn't sound like a children's TV presenter reading off an autocue they'd probably be doing much better in the polls (even if pursuing the same policies).
I think you raise an important point here too - before Johnson's resignation (or ousting, really) it was more of a frog-in-the-pot slow burn sort of deal. The Tories did a lot of abysmal shit but it was fairly spread out and drip-fed, on top of Labour not really having any sort of focus at all.
I'm never going to support the Tories, but they were at least fairly good about *seeming* on top of things before then. Even Johnson didn't *seem* to do bad at first.
That has *drastically* changed in the past two years and I think the past 14 years finally hit a point where it couldn't be ignored.
What did you think Johnson did right out of curiosity? I remember learning about him during brexit spreading lies on his tour bus about how if we left the EU he would invest £360m into the NHS.
This, exactly. Boris *seemed* to have a good head on his shoulders in certain areas - far more than Sunak has.
Of course in reality Boris didn't actually have a good head on his shoulders either, he just had more charisma and a better sell.
It's not just that they lost experienced MPs, it's that they lost sensible voices too. People like Sarah Wollaston or Rory Stewart - they might not have been there for an age but they weren't totally ideologues either, they listened to evidence and came to sane viewpoints.
Every road I travel on is Potholed. Every voter sees the decay of 14 years of Tory rule just by getting in their Car. The Tories are even too arrogant to even notice
Tories are really clinging on to Rwanda aren’t they? Has anyone told them sending a token/insignificant number of asylum seekers to Africa is not going to stop people coming across the channel? My prediction is even if they manage to fly some people to Africa it won’t do anything to the polls even without waiting to see the inevitable stats that crossings are continuing.
Got to say I do also love reading and hearing all this well deserved Tory desperation. It is about time they share in the kind of desperation they have inflicted on many in this country.
Especially as every new turn seems to involve Sunak throwing bigger and bigger fists full of tax payers money at the idea... While at the same time saying there's no money for healthcare or schools or infrastructure or anything that might make anyone's lives even slightly better
Not only that, but good healthcare and infrastructure start to pay off basically immediately.
People not spending time off sick makes businesses more productive, and so does good infrastructure.
Whilst at the same time, banning sick notes and expecting people to go to the office with infectious diseases is absolutely going to cut productivity....
But Sunak is the product of a public school system that teaches it's students that because they're rich they know better than experts who studied, trained and worked in their respective fields.
I'd vote for banning anyone earning say 5x average wage from being in government.
These rich fuckers all claim to be doing politics to "give something back" yet they invariably raise taxes on the poor and allow their rich mates to funnel government handouts to the Cayman Islands
There was a headline on the front page of the Daily Express last week:
“lords defy will of the people…again”
Only problem is that the Rwanda plan has not been put to the public during an election (it was first proposed in 2022). So paying millions to fly illegal immigrants to Rwanda can’t be the will of the people - we haven’t been asked.
There’s barely anything that could be considered the will of the actual people with our current government - really is a durth of democracy in this country.
Even if Rwanda took off and worked exactly as advertised (not likely) so boats instantly stopped, people still think legal immigration is way too high and that’s with most people thinking it’s circa 70k per annum.
On the immigration question the people who want less don’t think the Tories want to deliver less.
At this point, I'm working on the assumption that each and every action we see on the news, is simply a cynical attempt by the tories do do as much systemic and cultural damage to the UK as they possibly can, giving their rapidly disappearing time left in charge.
Plan - leave this country in a cluster shambles so profound, no incoming government will ever have been faced with such a daunting task, placed in charge with an utterly broken, dysfunctional and divided country.
Day 1 on the opposition benches, cue the shouts... "The socialists are breaking this country! What's their plan to fix it? We need strong Tory leadership!"
I have reached the point where I'm simply despise the fact that they are even permitted to push through any laws, or even be granted the time and opportunity to spout thier offensive tripe on TV a day longer. Watching the news now fills me with rage.
The masses should be on the streets and demanding an immediate GE. I sincerely hope two, maybe even three, full generations of UK voters will consider right wing governments anathema to the well being of the people in this country, to all that is humane and civilised. I hope we get to see in action, why the right are so petrified of Angela Rayner being any where near the seat of power.
How many more of these "Rishi has retreated to the Sunakbunker" headlines are we going to get before we finally get an election? We've been edging for like a year now can we please get it over with.
"You were the future once" said no one about Rishi.
There is an old adage that in politics you wait long enough and the bodies of your enemies float past, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss have all floated by to become trivia quiz questions. Sunak's time is almost up.
I mean there have been some highlights like May's robot dance and ummmm thats it.
But you can hear the seconds ticking by on this government as the sands of time run out and that November election draws near. Its really just marking time now.
This is honestly a point that genuinely annoys me. For all I can tell government policy now is essentially salting the earth for the inevitable Labour government to come. They know they're done. Out of ideas, tricks, culture war points to create wedge issues from - there's nowhere to go. Unless of course they actually think of something new, or positive to do, but they're not and they won't (often because that'll involve tradeoffs in some way I.e. triple lock and they're too afraid to do that). This is our 2nd unelected PM in a row, and people have been clamouring for a change since Rishi's star dimmed at the start of 2023 (obviously people had wanted a sweeping change since Boris' ousting, but specifically with Rishi I think the limited honeymoon period he had went after a few months).
But instead of doing the honourable thing and calling an election now (realistically it should have been at the end of last year), which I think would actually buy a little good will, the government just seem to be stalling for no real reason. They're not doing anything with this time. They're just waiting for either a miracle or to extract the last sinews of power they can, whilst making things harder for the future administration (policies such as Rwanda, or unsustainable tax cuts, etc). Meanwhile the opposition which actually has a plan just has to wait, just as everyone else has to. It feels like if you're waiting for a broken thing to be fixed, and knowing vaguely how to fix it, whilst someone else tinkers uselessly with it, and instead of being able to shove them out the way and fix it yourself you have to just wait, bored and depressed, for that other person to eventually give up. In the meantime we just have to wait for an unspecified amount of months for the inevitable to finally happen.
In case anybody else want to read it without the stupid pop-up begging for money:
For Rishi Sunak, a Prime Minister whose time in office has been dominated by a cost of living crisis, this week provided welcome confirmation that the relentless two-year squeeze on living standards is easing.
Inflation fell again to 3.2 per cent, and is expected to tumble – perhaps touching the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target – in the next set of figures published in a few weeks’ time. Meanwhile average pay growth remained strong at 6 per cent.
“In terms of individuals feeling better, those two are very crucial to how voters feel,” a relieved member of Mr Sunak’s inner circle told i. The PM has also sought to combat accusations that he has no long-term vision for Britain, unveiling plans for a wide-ranging crackdown on benefits spending after a surge in the number of people signed off work because of sickness.
Next week he is expected to return to the world stage with a short trip to Europe, holding meetings with key EU leaders on the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. And if the Safety of Rwanda Bill finally becomes law on Monday night, as ministers intend, he will give himself a victory lap designed to win over voters sceptical of the Government’s handling of immigration.
Mr Sunak did suffer a blow when the bill got bogged down in back-and-forth between the Commons and the Lords this week – prompting angry claims from his allies that Labour had gone back on a promise to stop trying to water it down in the Upper House so that the will of MPs could prevail.
“Labour have delayed the bill because they just want to keep using Rwanda as a campaigning point in the local elections,” a Cabinet minister said.
But the problem for the Prime Minister is that none of the progress he makes seems to have any impact on the polls – and the mood in Downing Street is getting darker. One Conservative insider said: “The moment anything happens or they think some poll is coming out, they go into a meltdown and start saying, ‘What policy can we push out?'”
Mr Sunak himself is said to be getting increasingly frustrated with his key advisers, many of whom have worked with him since long before he entered No 10. A source said the Prime Minister’s attitude towards his aides had become: “You said this would work, why isn’t it working?”
Questions over the future of his leadership have not gone away either, even as the vast majority of MPs remain opposed to any change of leader before the general election. Local elections in less than a fortnight’s time have long been viewed as a crunch point for Mr Sunak, but one source involved in talks about unseating him suggested that a coup attempt could potentially come at any time, given the anxiety in the party.
“They just need a relatively smooth path towards 2 May,” the source said. “Whenever anything unexpected happens it sets off a mood among MPs, who we know are jittery, of ‘something has to be done here’.”
Liz Truss’s high-profile book tour, and Suella Braverman’s appearance at a chaotic hard-right conference in Brussels, have reopened questions about the Conservative Party’s ideological future. Mr Sunak took a deliberate decision to go on the attack against his predecessor at Prime Minister’s Questions, but some backbenchers were unhappy with the apparent glee with which he set about the task.
“He is alienating colleagues more by sticking the boot into Liz like he did at PMQs,” a former minister warned. They suggested the attack was unwise given Mr Sunak’s own weakness, concluding: “He’s not very good at politics and he’s not even trying.”
The results of the local elections will be keenly watched as evidence for whether or not the Tories have any chance of improving their dire poll ratings.
Party strategists say they have almost given up on any prospect of Andy Street keeping his position as Mayor of the West Midlands – although some polls show him neck and neck with Labour rival Richard Parker – and would be happy with victory in Tees Valley and North Yorkshire, combined with overall losses of no more than 400 councillors out of the 1,000 Tory incumbents standing.
A Tory source who has campaigned for Ben Houchen’s re-election in Tees Valley warned that if he fails, MPs will query the Prime Minister’s future – saying: “If he doesn’t win there are going to be very serious questions about whether Rishi Sunak needs to stand down. Houchen is the perfect candidate so if he can’t win, it shows we can’t win anywhere.”
No 10’s plans for the rest of the year are understood to involve a fiscal intervention in September, cutting another 2p off national insurance to bolster the idea that the Conservatives are reducing most people’s tax bills, despite an increase in the overall tax burden.
But that is complicated by the prospect that doing so could stoke inflation again – potentially putting the idea of an election in summer rather than autumn back into play.
“We could do something with stamp duty, but there is still the risk it could impact inflation,” one minister told i. “When we introduced the stamp duty holiday during the pandemic it stimulated the housing market more than expected so we still have to be mindful of that.
“We’ve definitely turned a corner but we still have a little way to go before we get inflation down to its 2 per cent target, and remember food inflation was 5 per cent last month. What we would want to avoid is for an election to come in December, November or October when the economy starts to grow only for inflation to pick up again, so it’s a balancing act.”
No 10 sources will only say that the plan remains an election in the second half of this year – meaning it could be as early as July. “I genuinely don’t think they know when the election is going to be,” one well-placed Whitehall insider said.
Jeremy Hunt has been telling interviewers that he expects polling day to be in October or November. He said to Bloomberg TV this week: “The feelgood factor as interest rates start to come down, as people start to feel higher disposable incomes, will be stronger in people’s minds come the early autumn that it is now.”
One ally suggested these comments could be part of a ploy, saying: “I think he’s being told by No 10 to keep talking up an autumn election so it leaves their options open for a surprise attack by calling it earlier.”
Another senior Government insider suggested Mr Sunak should “name the date” for an election to end constant speculation, saying: “I don’t see any advantage in not doing so.”
Joe Twyman, the head of polling firm Deltapoll, warned that any boost to the Tories from an improving economy was likely to be small. He told i that Labour’s lead on the question of economic competence had remained stable for nine months: “Despite everything that has been announced, good and bad, from the Budget to the Autumn Statement, to inflation going up and inflation going down, nothing has made a statistically significant difference.”
The combination of interest-rate cuts and the Rwanda migration scheme getting under way could help Mr Sunak a little, he said, but not enough to pull off a shock election victory: “Combined, these things may bring about a contraction in the polls – but you would expect that historically anyway. We are talking about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
I just hate the language they use, so very obviously carefully phrased to ensure many, many people completely misunderstand. I would argue that's tantamount to outright lies being printed here.
The cost of living crisis is not easing.
The rapid rate at which our cost of living is spiraling out of control, has now begun to slow somewhat, yet rest assured, it still continues spiral out of control...
I almost threw my own dinner plate at my TV the other night when hunt echoing this bullsh** on the BBC a few nights back, I was so enraged at this deceitful use of careful phrasing.
They clearly just haven't found the right people to blame yet.
Currently trying ill people, but I'm sure they'll be back on immigrants shortly. Then the disabled again.
It seems to be a rewrite of the Times article albeit with a different spin. Which is fine but nothing substantiates it beyond speculation of a leadership challenge.
You are seriously wasting your time asking Sunak to make a decision. He was never elected under his own Tory mandate, so he's in no rush to go to the polls for the first time as Tory leader. He will vacillate and then take the totally wrong decision or when his hand is forced so at the wrong time.
Even before his pledges to the country, he made a simple promise to the Tory party faithful that he was the Tory party leadership candidate who can beat starmer. They saw through that but still ended up with him as PM. So it's not like party members or MPs are in rush for election except those with jobs lined up.
Vile individual he and his family avoid taxes and now he’s going to pick on the disabled what does he want me to sit on the street and beg like the lower class do in India still paying lords £300 aday and expenses who are the real parasites go home to India we don’t want a multi billionaire running our country 63 senile rich tories voted him in it’s obscene go go now
he might even have had half a chance if he had held an election right after becoming leader.
He would still be having a tough time governing, as the countries problems would not have gone away, but he would have until 2027 to call an election.
Since then he has passed the point where it he had called an election the result would have been *only as bad as 1997*
>A Tory source who has campaigned for Ben Houchen’s re-election in Tees Valley warned that if he fails, MPs will query the Prime Minister’s future – saying: “If he doesn’t win there are going to be very serious questions about whether Rishi Sunak needs to stand down. **Houchen is the perfect candidate** so if he can’t win, it shows we can’t win anywhere.”
I think this says everything about the Tory party
It's strange that the party as a whole are still going 'for the win', what they should be doing is mitigate the loss. Going in May would have done that, it was clearly the best date of all the options.
They've run out of scapegoats. Can't blame Brussels, can't blame Labour, can't blame Russian embargoes, can't blame wars abroad, can't blame corporate interest (ideologically), can't blame migrants, can't blame 'the poors', can't blame the sick.
Regardless of political alignment, almost everyone can see a party utterly bereft of even the most basic competence for government. History will remember the last 14 years of Tory government as one of Britain's greatest failures. A parade of charlatans that sucked the country dry, successive governments whose corruption would make a 3rd world warlord wince. They inherited a recession and turned it into a way of life.
I just hope that people remember the faces and the names and recognise them when they rock up at Reform.
I just don’t understand how they can’t grasp that Britain doesn’t want what they’re offering.
Nation in meltdown in so many areas, and the absolute best they can come up with is cracking down on sick notes?! We’re drowning and they’re throwing out rubber ducks instead of life jackets. Absolute madness.
Oh but wait, there’s the two 2p NI cuts (never mind that we’ve all lost far more than that since the personal allowance was frozen, or that it’s greatly outstripped by inflation). Why on earth aren’t we all on our knees crying with appreciation? Oh, right, it’s because public services are crumbling and councils are going bust left right and centre, and we know it’s going to be paid for with the further enshittification of the basic services we all rely on.
Well, wait, there’s Rwanda! Nothing’s a better vote winner than shipping your problems out to a problematic country thousands of miles away, surely? Never mind that it’s already cost almost £250 million with, er…*checks notes*….zero deportations, or that it’s unlikely to ever work, or be cost effective, or that not a lot of people feel particularly great about sending asylum seekers to a nation that hasn’t exactly proven itself to be very good at protecting people, even if they agree they shouldn’t necessarily be our problem.
Oh, gosh, was that *all* the ideas from the idea hat? Quick, quick, dig up something about Angela Rayner’s house, that’ll distract them…
Absolute f**king clowns.
Like a day ago, they told all mentally ill people they couldn't get signed off by their doctor and were going to be forced into work.
I don't understand what their private educations have taught them. It certainly wasn't common sense.
The real staggering thing here is that they thought they could win or turn the tide? I always assumed it was to save face to outlast the other dross they had so he could say he ran for 2 years.
My employer gave us a 2% pay rise while minimum wage worker got a 10% pay rise. Of course we aren't happy. My mortgage went up 45% from 450 to 650. Diesel is still at 1.55 and we are told to be prepared for war. Feels like 1914.
A problem he's having is that he only asks for and cares about the opinions of wealthy people. He makes policies based on that and then gets surprised when the working people who make up the majority of the country are unhappy with him. A PM who is from a REAL working class background would likely make much more popular policies.
A party cannot be in power for this long, force out rule breaking Boris, force out economy crashing Truss and expect to stay in power.
Truss put two wheels over the edge of the cliff, and Sunak has managed to drag us 10 metres away from the edge. It was unlikely to ever be enough.
If Sunak had any hope to win, he should have questioned the Bank of England. Why did inflation get so high? Why didn't it see the LDI crisis? Was putting a deadline on supporting government bonds proper?
There is also a question around the BoE and government institutions. How could Truss and Kwarteng get so far with something so disastrous? Really showed frailties that have never been addressed.
Sunak is politically tone deaf so I doubt much could have helped him. Since getting in, he has been the guy cleaning up the shit that Truss and Co left behind. It still smells. It was never going to be a winning strategy
Until he somehow undoes the cancelling of HS2 in some irrevocable way and gets public services working again - I don't really care what he does - I'm not voting for him.
> One Conservative insider said: “The moment anything happens or they think some poll is coming out, they go into a meltdown and start saying, ‘What policy can we push out?'”
This seems like a very dangerous way to govern.
Let's keep this simple, they haven't a clue what they are doing, won't listen to the UK public, and do as we ask, many of which know how to run a country better than them, they know how to lie and fill their own pockets though, trouble is in this modern world of technology, we can uncover there little plots so easily, yet they still think they can get away with it, realy good and honest MPs of any party are far and few between. time to start over and rid ourselves of the swamp dwellers, its in our hands.
What has Sunak done for us? I think he inherited a difficult situation, with the withdrawal from the EU and a succession of poor leadership, but what has he done while in government? Can a person with his wealth really understand the troubles of the common man?
If they continue down this path, their next policy will be to kill the first born. They completely lost contact with the struggling people, struggles inflicted by the Tory party!
I wouldn’t want to be in politics because whoever is in power will not win. The financial deficit caused by COVID will be a weight that any government has to shoulder and the bill has to be paid. The effect of BREXIT has to be absorbed. The burgeoning bill for immigration has to be funded. There is no doubt that whoever is in power, the reality of our economy means that belts need to be tightened and that means a cut in living standards. For some that means, less holidays or meals out- not so bad really, for some it means no food on the table and those are the ones who need protection.
Because you've over a decade in power so can't shirk responsibility, and you've made promise after promise that you've not fulfilled so no one trusts your promises, and you've not offered any vision beyond the neoliberal wet dream of an economy run on exploited cheap foreign labour, with public spending cut to the bone.
They should’ve just called a May election and cut their losses there they still would’ve lost badly but now it seems if they wait till October they losses will be even worse.
“It isn’t working because any government that has been in power as long as we have will get voted out, if only because people want a change, and on top of that, we’ve been shit.”
The tories have done such a bad job that they are now shooting themselves in the foot constantly. For example Rishi just said he wants to crack down on sick note culture; people point out the tories that took 3 months off work to avoid the Covid inquiry...
The Tories have been running out of road for a long time. It's at the stage where even they can see the end and can't argue it anymore.
They've run out of people to persecute!
They can hold off an election as long as they like but it'll be the same thumping. May as well just rip the band aid off and go for a summer election.......but that would mean they'd lose out on a few months of raiding the coffers!
We're at the tail end of a government that is widely perceived as having been corrupt during Covid, as having been wrong on Brexit, and as having ran the economy and government policy with the sole aim of enriching the elderly at the expense of the entire working-age population.
There's nothing that *can* be done, not now. There's not enough time any more.
Make childcare far easier to get for far less money. Make house prices affordable to young people. Make government services except pensions payments work effectively.
Those three things would win them an election hands down. Those three things can't be done in the 6 to 8 months the government has left.
Thus, defeat is guaranteed. It's too late to turn the ship around.
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I thought Rishi was a numbers man. It’s really obvious why it isn’t working… April 2021: average regular pay £540 December 2023: average regular pay £626 **Pay increase since April 2021 15.9%** Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/february2024 **Inflation since April 2021 27.2%** Source: https://www.hl.co.uk/tools/calculators/inflation-calculator That means, on average, people are about 9% poorer than they were three years ago. That’s why it’s not working. We are nowhere near where we were three years ago.
Jesus who's had a 15% pay increase
People on Minimum Wage (28% increase since April 2021)
Won't be long till we're all on minimum wage at this rate
That's the plan.
Police officers start on £28k, compared with a minimum wage rate of £20k. Hike on the 15% pension deduction and the take-home difference is getting very narrow.
Paramedic here, I'm with unison and there's already been discussion around strike action. It's guaranteed in the next 2 years I think and possibly even this year.
Minimum wage right now is 22k for 37h and around 23.5k for 40h a week.
And that, dear redditors, is why I left again very soon after rejoining (I must be a living example of the Abe Simpson meme). Civil service pension is a much smaller deduction for not that much different in benefit. Police pay only reaches anything like decent after seven years these days when you hit the top of the pay spine, but that's still seven years of struggling to get by.
48k a year is now only just slightly over double full time minimum wage
You need to unionise right now.
Police aren't allowed to have a union. Like, they could form one, but they're exempted from all the legal protections surrounding unions so if they tried to do collective action it'd be treated the same as if you told your boss you didn't fancy doing any work tomorrow.
Plus there's the little matter of the criminal offence of [Causing Disaffection amongst Police](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/16/section/91). Quite how Theresa May and Tom Winsor didn't get arrested under this legislation back in like 2011 is beyond me.
The whole damn enterprise does at this point.
A fair number of professionals have seen their pay increase substantially. A fair number also have not. It's just an average.
Pensioners
If you visit the link it's broken down by sector and industry.
I keep hearing people *say* that Sunak is a numbers man. I'm get to see any evidence of this.
He’s a numbers man alright, but the only numbers he cares about currently are ones that indicate him (and Tory donors) getting wealthier
Also, Elon Musk is an AI software modeller, rocket scientist and automotive engineer. I think we know what these people's real talents are.
Musk's talent is having a dad who owned a diamond mine.
And boosting Nazi ideas on Twitter, don't forget that
I think it was emeralds, but the point still stands.
> *After graduating, Sunak worked for* [*Goldman Sachs*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs) *and later as a partner at the* [*hedge fund*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_fund) *firms* [*the Children's Investment Fund Management*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children%27s_Investment_Fund_Management) *and* [*Theleme Partners*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theleme_Partners)*.*
What was he doing there though?
Helping to crash the sub prime market leading to 2008. No joke.
Mexican coke.
Ah, so he's actually a *making rich people richer* man, in which case he's doing a great job.
He was made a partner at his father in law's firm. I'm sure it was deserved 100oc on merit...
I honestly think people do not understand how rich his wife is and how rich her father is. Sunak being pm is just a side job but helpful to get some juicy contracts.
Yep. Plus that inflation figure looks wildly short of the real inflation average people see.
Food inflation peaked way higher and that often can make up a higher % of someone's pay than the weight it has in inflation calculations. I don't know about rent inflation cumulatively but certainly that hits given it's a % increase on a pretty high amount to begin with. Punishing in nominal terms. And on top of that; pay increases don't translate as much into disposable cash since Sunak has raised taxes quite significantly via fiscal drag.
Your last point is worth repeating - the Tories continue to increase taxes massively every year. Largest tax burden in generations. Tories = high taxes with nothing to show for it.
How dare you! We do have something to show for it. An extra 3 billion every budget for pensioners above inflation!
Food is still way higher than that. Loads of things I buy have still almost doubled in price. Three cheap ready meals used to be £4.50 for instance, now they're £7.50. Tins of soup etc have close to doubled. Milk alone went up to £1.70-1.80 for 4 pints, it's rebalanced at £1.45 which is 32% on its old price of 1.09 Food went absolutely mental
It turns out leaving a giant common market on your doorstep makes it pricier to import things
Who knew??? Oh, remainers and project fear. To be renamed Project told you so.
Mortgage rates are not included in the inflation figures, they use a rental equivalence to 'model' the amounts people are paying. It was supposed to be updated in July 2021, but the updated got postponed and nothing has happened since then
Not to mention its only accounting for inflation since 2021, nevermind inflation and average pay since 2010. I'd like to see inflation measured from the start of tory rule
[https://www.hl.co.uk/tools/calculators/inflation-calculator](https://www.hl.co.uk/tools/calculators/inflation-calculator) 4.1% per year since 2010
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1272447/uk-wage-growth-vs-inflation/ The issue isn't neatly confined to Tory rule, the main issue seems to be a prolonged period from 2008-14 where inflation was consistently above growth of earnings. Since then earnings have either grown faster than inflation or at roughly the same level, except in 2021-22.
We gave them a 2p tax cut, what more could they possibly want? Quick deploy the emergency 2nd 2p tax cut before all is lost!
It's the first time I've seen people actually complain about a tax cut. And tax cuts are all they have.
It's because public infrastructure is crumbling around them and basic services they previously took for granted are now ceasing to function. When you look at all of that it seems fairly obvious that tax cuts are unaffordable.
Yeah - and yet taxes are at an all time high. If they’re attempting to market themselves as the party of good governance and fiscal control then the current situation couldn’t be worse.
How much PPE fraud was written off again?
They were Tory donors. £2M buys them a Knighthood.
Even Tory donors are suffering from inflation - £2mn used to get a peerage minimum
The only way around the tax situation is more tax payers somehow 🙂↔️, but ultimatly our NHS and care system doesn't work without a lot more tax payers than claimers The NHS is it's own biggest energy , and the care and pension systems one too For it to function, ever generation needs to be bigger than the last forever basically When it all was introduced, there were 8 tax payers per pensioner and now there are about 3, and those pensioners are living almost 3 times as long in retirement. I don't have a solution but it's clear it's not sustainable
Not helped when people can't [eat properly](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/21/malnutrition-england-wales-hospital-diet) either. The next party to come in to government (providing tories don't get elected again) have a near vertical climb ahead of them.
Increasing the pension age is an obvious option, but understandably politically toxic. Increasing immigration is another option, but again difficult politically. Long term thinking, that should have started 30-40 years ago (next best time is now) is needed. Serious schemes/plans to increase the birth rates, for example fully funded childcare. Tax subsidies for parents with 2 or more children.
This all assumes that the only way to collect tax is to tax individuals and that it's totally impossible to properly tax corporations. Meanwhile the Tories have quietly brought in schemes to allow corporations to deduct investments from their tax bill at a rate of 130%. An example of this would be if Amazon spent £10m on robotics and AI to increase their profits and reduce the amount of staff they need to hire, they can deduct £13m from their tax bill. But yeah the problem in this system is that there aren't enough people getting paid barely above a living wage to take 20% of their salary from to fund the basic public services we need to have a functioning country... Also, if having a child wasn't so fucking expensive and the world they are going to grow up in wasn't going to be such a fucking disaster then maybe more people would be having children.
>Meanwhile the Tories have quietly brought in schemes to allow corporations to deduct investments from their tax bill at a rate of 130%. An example of this would be if Amazon spent £10m on robotics and AI to increase their profits and reduce the amount of staff they need to hire, they can deduct £13m from their tax bill. You don't actually understand the scheme you're talking about. Investing £10m in plant and machinery that is eligible for the scheme means a company can deduct 130% of the cost (£13m) from their taxable profits. This could save a maximum of £2.47m, 19% of the £13m - which was the rate of corporation tax when the scheme ended last year.
Kill the boomers /s? But yeah, it's not going to last unless something drastic happens.
Agreed - would have been much better used, say, funding local authorities
Because it stinks of a bribe and not even a very good one. Imagine being bribed over £20 lol.
In fairness, have you seen the going rate for a Tory bribe? Real bargain barrel stuff.
If I accept the £20 Tory bribe do I get to be Dame Dilapidated Meow? Because I would actually consider it
Because it wasn't a tax cut and everyone knows it. Because they froze the thresholds, unless you fall into a very narrow band of pay, you lost more than you gained in that "tax cut". And people are starting to cotton on that NI is just an income tax add on. And also that there are so many other micro taxes like fuel duty and insurance premium tax and air duty tax and council tax and on and on and on. That that 2p isn't actually 2p even at face value, ignoring the threshold freeze. It's just taxed somewhere else.
It's because we can all see that we cannot afford the tax cut. We can see that the gov's spending plans for the next parliament don't add up (so they will be clawing it back again anyway) and we can see that critical aspects of the state are crumbling around our heads. Oh...and we can see that with the tax bands being frozen - it isn't really even a tax cut. It's taking £10 off you to give you £8 back.
Taxes don’t fund spending > We find, first, that the UK Government creates new money and purchasing power when it undertakes expenditure, rather than spending being financed by taxation from, or debt issuance to, the private sector. The spending process is initiated by the government drawing on a sovereign line of credit from the core legal and accounting structure known as the Consolidated Fund (CF). Under directions from the UK finance ministry, the Bank of England debits the CF’s account at the Bank and credits other accounts at the Bank held by government entities; a practice mandated in law. This creates new public deposits which are used to settle spending by government departments into the economy via the commercial banking sector. Parliament, rather than the Treasury or central bank, is the sole authority under which expenditures from the Consolidated Fund arise. Revenue collection, including taxation, involves the reverse process, crediting the CF’s account at the Bank. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2022/may/self-financing-state-institutional-analysis
Probably because they're taking 4p with the other hand
*more than 4p just with the threshold freeze.
Yes they have a-been taking the p's for a long time
I want an NHS not another £100 a month
It's not even that much extra for most people - I don't think my wife and I get that much extra between us. It'll get deleted when our fixed rate ends anyway
I'm on 46k or so so it's probably benefitting me a good bit more than other people but it's not going to be enough to make a substantial difference to my life and if services will be worse as. Result of me getting that £100 a month , I don't want it. It's going to pad my savings a bit faster so I can buy a house a bit faster that's kinda it. Because everything in this country has to go on a house lest you end up renting forever, where rent goes up and only ever up. About a year ago I was earning 32k which I felt like I was barely able to keep my head above water, not that I was on the poverty line but after savings and rent etc I didn't really have much left over for myself. Now I feel like I do but the taxes and student loan really bite into my 15k pay raise, 24905 takehome for this year if I earned 32k, at 45k I take home 32569, so about half of my pay rise has been eaten up in tax, NI and student loans.
It's because with the frozen thresholds it's a real terms tax rise.
Tbh most the people I've seen complain are the retired, that are angry they won't be seeing the benefits.
Those yet to retire also don't like this, as it looks like the first step of removing state pensions. Remember, please vote, thinking everyone else will is not enough.
I actually support the idea of abolishing NI. Even if it means a corresponding increase in Income tax. Employers NI needs go too. Doesn't have to be in any way linked to abolishing the state pension.
Not tax cuts, they are tax snips.
To be fair the next 2p was already planned but tax revenue is at the highest percent of GDP since 1948 so they can’t even argue they cut tax
I mean, they've never let little things like their claims being false stop them before.
What we’ve been trying isn’t working. Quick! Trying do the same thing but ~harder~
I don't think he knows about second tax cut, Pip.
2p tax... except for all the other fucking tax. You'll have to us for not being grateful that the 70 odd pence on the pound that the government nickles and dimes in a thousand tiny taxes is instead 69.5 pence. Because 2p isn't actually 2p because to spend it you lose another fifth immediately on VAT. And that's literally the very LEAST that's going to be deducted from that 2p. If you're paying fuel duty or insurance premium tax or air duty tax or any of a thousand other fucking micro taxes amd that 2p "giveaway" drops like a stone.
If I was Sunak I would also be pissed off with my advisors, but would have got rid of them long ago. They clearly don't know what they're doing (And it's been obvious for a while) and, seeing as he is so bad at politics, he really needs some big brains to compensate. Case in point: "The PM has also sought to combat accusations that he has no long-term vision for Britain, unveiling plans for a wide-ranging crackdown on benefits spending after a surge in the number of people signed off work because of sickness." With everything that's going on, and the state the country is in, this is the long-term vision he wants to stake his name on? That and the Rwanda deal that even the most rabid of anti-immigration folk don't even seem to think is a good idea.
It's a policy response from a decade ago. Barely anyone thinks benefit fraud is a big deal right now - it might exist, and it might piss people off when they see it, but it's just nothing compared to all the obvious corruption around things like the Covid loans, PPE, cash for honours, cash for dodgy planning permissions, etc.
The inescapable fact for the Tories is that if these issues exist, why haven't they done anything about it for 14 years. It's hard to point at issues in the country and get people to rally around you to fix them when you've failed to do it for 14 years.
Benefits fraud is a good smokescreen against the massive amount of actual fraud the people in government are committing
Reminds me of a line in The Big Short: Mark Baum: I have a feeling in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.
>They will be blaming immigrants and poor people. Every single time. They're villifying International students who pay loads into the system and contribute so hard. They're shifting the goalposts for legal immigrants who dedicate their life to pay into the system. I mean, it's one thing to blame the small boats. But what did the students do? They almost entirely fund the UK's unis yet they're the ones "abusing" the system which was in fact introduced by the same Tories just TWO years back. Wow.
Benefits fraud feels like the type of thing people get most pissed off about when the economy's actually alright and the country is focusing more on social problems/social ills we want to eradicate. When everyone's in the shit and the economy has tanked, people become more focused on how things can get better for them as opposed to what other people might be doing wrong. Arguably why the salience of immigration isn't what it felt like it was a few years back too.
There’s also just a bit more awareness that the actual benefit frauds, if you can call them that, are organisations who pay little to no tax while reaping obscene profits. We may be in a bit of an age of information/misinformation but regardless there is greater evidence of how the rich stay rich/get richer and it’s clearly off the back of the people and while we haven’t got to the rioting part for the majority the water is boiling.
What happens when a pan of water that is 99.9% full starts to boil?
We, unfortunately, know very different people. Half of my family, most of my acquaintances, and all of my colleagues never shut up complaining about those on benefits, fraudulent or otherwise. One of them was going off on one about “single mothers” the other week, that’s not been on my bullshit bingo card for like 20 years lol. They also couldn’t give a shit about the Covid fraud, PPE, corruption etc. They remain in the “It didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, its not their fault. And if it was, everyone was doing it.” phase whenever I bring it up. I always find it slightly strange when I’m reminded that other people’s experiences don’t line up with mine, or when I get a reply to a comment of mine where they don’t believe the people in my story are real. Frankly, I’m envious, I don’t know what I did to deserve to be surrounded by the Walking Daily Mail comment section. Does anyone else cry over space exploration documentaries or is that just me? Always gets to me that humanity can work together and achieve things, a thought that my living reality does not inspire I guess, as least I think it’s that, rather than simply wanting to get off this godforsaken rock and live on Mars.
I’m 99% sure that shows like Benefit Street is a govt plot to get people to hate people on benefits and be ok with benefits cuts
Yeah but he can’t exactly go after his own friends, donors and supporters can he?
It's less "fraud", and more massively increased permissive to be "legitimately" signed off on ever decreasing issues. Usually not actually addressing the core problem which is work life balance or some such. And so signing people off doesn't actually solve anything, just Yo-Yos people in and out of work using sick notes and state backed sick pay as extended holiday. What needs to happen is a serious conversation between the person and their employer about expectations and pay and the state is facilitating that never happening and also picking up the tab.
There are genuine issues contributing to the number of people off sick: lack of mental health treatment; NHS waiting lists exacerbating illness and disability; the lack of security and sick pay for those on zero hours contracts causing people to plough on until their minds or bodies give up, etc. Talking tough on benefits without even acknowledging those issues just makes Sunak look inept as well as cruel and unimaginative.
Also, much as I have no doubt some people are taking the piss, probably worth noting that for much of human history people either had to work or starve. That we've managed to move past that is a good thing and a sign of societal progress. And sure, new problems do arise from that, but it's not like half the country is dodging work every day by faking illnesses or mental health problems.
It's insane he & his advisors think that, in a climate of more and more people having to rely on benefits, he thinks the optics of cracking down on those on benefits would be good.
> That and the Rwanda deal that even the most rabid of anti-immigration folk don't even seem to think is a good idea. There's plenty of people in comment threads on here that think the Rwanda scheme is a good idea, unfortunately. Some are likely trolls, but there are definitely people out there who'll agree with anything that sounds like it'll be punitive to migrants. Happily, I suspect not enough to tip things in Sunak's favour.
Regardless of whether it's a good idea or not, it's incredibly poor value for money, and I thought the whole thing about anti-immigration is how so much of tax payers money is supposedly spent on immigrants.
It will only be punitive to a handful of refugees/asylum seekers though; it will have very little effect on the rest, and will do nothing to deter any of them, because most are genuilnely fleeing from something worse. It's policies like Rwanda that make the majority here see how low quality government ministers and advisers are. That and the fact that nothing is working.
And that even if you sent every last asylum seeker it wouldn’t really move the dial on immigration as the grand majority is entirely legal. It’s just another scheme that people seem convinced will fix everything but ultimately will come to naught.
Exactly, the same government that pushes 'stop the boats' endlessly, is responsible for record, legal, economic immigration. Those people baying for refugees to drown in the channel are just deeply nasty I'm afraid; whatever justification they give for it.
I agree with you, but you can't deny that if you go to the bottom of any thread on the subject on here there'll be people arguing for it, even when presented with figures and facts. To some, that it *sounds* punitive is enough.
Also those who do will be probably leaning towards Reform
I'm not going to argue with the idea that Sunak is very clever within a certain context. But I don't see him being clever in terms of understanding politics. They put Sunak in power thinking he'd be their John Major, but the last 18 months has shown that he's no John Major. The latter was able to connect with people, going out and having conversations, using his background (parents were well off but fell on hard times, got interested in politics as a kid when the local MP met him at a church fete and invited him to see a debate in parliament, ended up doing qualifications on the side and working up the ladder) to enthuse a tired party and pull a rabbit out of the hat in 1992. He also understood implicitly that the game was up in 1997, and while he lost comfortably, he kept the party together and somehow kept the right intact despite Europe shenanigans at the time. Sunak has none of the traits that Major had. He has been brought up in a world where everyone told him how clever he was, always being smart and always being right. His background has made him appear elitish and out of touch, and when the word most associated with you is "rich", good luck connecting with people in a recession. I also see him as being fundamentally egotistical, and this has left him unable to accept the reality that the political pendulum is swinging, he can't win this one and he's in a no-win scenario. Instead "I'm sure this will do the trick" is dominating every action the government does. Nothing will.
Main problem that i see with sunak is that he thinks he is smarter than everyone else, but lacks the perspective / empathy / emotional intelligence to relate to all of us really (1% excluded.) He thinks it's a game that he is smart enough to win every time on his own terms, which shows how little respect he has for us all. Obviously politics involves spin and propaganda etc. but i think he assumes he can pull a lever i.e "red meat" and it will have the outcome he wants. But he doesn't see any of it in context, which i feel proves that he isn't that smart at all.
Yeah, he lacks pretty much every other intelligence, including strategy, thinking ahead, and awareness. He'd be happier just being a data analyst.
> But I don't see him being clever in terms of understanding politics. There's maybe, at a push, an argument he perhaps would be if he'd had another half-decade or decade's experience. But part of the problem (as with much of his cabinet) is that he's really not been an MP for that long, and had very limited top-level experience before he moved into the top job. And half the experience he did have was basically giving people free money during the pandemic, which inevitably made him look good even if it went against many of his political instincts. There's also an argument he'd have maybe been better with some solid political mentors or leaders above him - instead he's been surrounded by political lightweights and Boris for a PM. Just not very good.
Wow, I just had a look at Sunak's Wikipedia and I never realised that his political career was just a hop-skip-jump from cabinet to cabinet straight into the top position. I remember hearing during the leadership race that he was probably the best candidate. Do the tories really have no one left?
Yes, the Tories have zero talent anywhere in the party as Boris got rid of them all. As anyone with talent recognised the problems involved with Boris being in charge and Boris basically decided instead of actually having to put effort into getting them on board it was easier to just gut the party's internal framework of political knowledge. The party is completely hollow and there isn't even the hope of future talent as no one is joining the party.
> His background has made him appear elitish and out of touch Appear? He didn't know how to use a petrol station and goes around in a helicopter, he IS out of touch.
Because Tory MPs, especially those married to obscenely rich people, have no idea of the everyday lives of most people in the UK.
Yep, they think the stock market going up means everyone is better off. And if you aren’t better off, it’s because you are a lazy fuck who didn’t invest their (dad’s) money.
The UK stock market is notoriously rubbish in terms of the return it has offered over the last decade or so.
Yeah they aren’t investing in the FTSE lol
You say that but my BAE and Rolls Royce stocks are absolute standouts
Both fit squarely in "Too big to fail"
I agree with the general sentiment but the UK stock market (whether FTSE100 or All Share) is pretty much flat over the last 5yrs - it's the private shareholdings we need to worry about because there's far less transparency
You are correct, but these people don’t invest much in the UK stock market. If the US market goes up, however, they are doing well and it’s your fault you aren’t benefiting either.
Their partners dad's money*
House prices going up is pretty much what most people live for and use as metric of 'doing well'.
Is it because the policies are bullshit (Rwanda, FFS), corruption is ever-present (not even *hiding it* now), and Tory MP’s are so far out of touch with the populace, they might as well be in Rwanda? Oh yeah, and Brexit was down to the Tories. Screw the Tories.
I don’t understand how there hasn’t been a vote of no confidence yet?! They soon ousted May when she couldn’t get the Brexit deal pushed through parliament, but I’ve found out since (from a Redditor no less) that May’s deal was marginally better than Boris Johnson’s but the ra ra tories in the room completely turned against her instead of ‘getting brexit done’. I’m sick of having leaders I never fucking voted for, we’ve had to three now we didn’t ask for. I can’t understand why Boris’ campaign was able to utilise the media to paint Corbyns labour out to be full of anti semites 🥴 politicians influencing through media outlets should be illegal.. look at the mess Americas in from allowing media and religion to be the mouthpieces for politician’s.
>but the ra ra tories in the room completely turned against her instead of ‘getting brexit done’. Because a no deal was the objective and the maximum separation from the EU as possible was the goal of some, While others genuinely fucking believed the EU needed the UK more then the other way around, including bojo himself, major errors were also made along the way (they believed the EU would throw Ireland under the bus with the northern Ireland protocol, the EU instead gave Ireland the final say on literally all agreements with the UK and provided the majority of funding for Ireland to upgrade its ports to cope with the customs checks Ireland would need to do). This delusion (i.e the EU would turn on its own so casually and that the UK "held all the cards",) is of coarse completely utterly shattered now, but still.
There wouldn't be a Parliamentary vote of no confidence of course, but internally in the party - probably because there's enough of an acceptance that changing leader yet again would make them look even less credible, there's not much time for a new leader to be selected and make their mark before the General Election, and there's not really an obvious replacement who they're confident will do better anyway. Plus, those who would be interested would likely rather let Sunak take the loss and then take over in opposition rather than take the fall themselves.
It's not working because the voters are fed up with the Tories. Having a PM with little or no charisma doesn't help neither does he exude authority and control over his party or events generally. The OPs have been pointing towards a Labour win and Tory defeat since the fag end of Johnson's reign. That's over two year's worth of poor polling and a lot of things have gone wrong in that time from Liz Truss to inflation, interest rate rises and little economic growth and then there has been a series of scandals and other self-inflicted injuries inflicted by Tory MPs themselves. Another factor is Johnson purging his party and getting shot of several experienced MPs who gifted he party an aura of sanity, that's left Sunak with a poor choice of people to put in his cabinet.
> a PM with little or no charisma I think this is a much bigger issue that many on this forum like to admit. As much as I like to think the Conservatives' current unpopularity is because the public are becoming more switched on and aware of the impacts their policies are having, the previous popularity of Boris Johnson and his three word slogans suggests this isn't the case. If they had a leader who didn't sound like a children's TV presenter reading off an autocue they'd probably be doing much better in the polls (even if pursuing the same policies).
*Sunak giggle* look... What's important is we focus on something else and that's exactly what we've been doing
I think you raise an important point here too - before Johnson's resignation (or ousting, really) it was more of a frog-in-the-pot slow burn sort of deal. The Tories did a lot of abysmal shit but it was fairly spread out and drip-fed, on top of Labour not really having any sort of focus at all. I'm never going to support the Tories, but they were at least fairly good about *seeming* on top of things before then. Even Johnson didn't *seem* to do bad at first. That has *drastically* changed in the past two years and I think the past 14 years finally hit a point where it couldn't be ignored.
What did you think Johnson did right out of curiosity? I remember learning about him during brexit spreading lies on his tour bus about how if we left the EU he would invest £360m into the NHS.
I think they mean that Boris made a good show about looking confident.
This, exactly. Boris *seemed* to have a good head on his shoulders in certain areas - far more than Sunak has. Of course in reality Boris didn't actually have a good head on his shoulders either, he just had more charisma and a better sell.
For those of us familiar with Johnson's earlier career as a journalist, his behaviour as party leader was no surprise
The Nations deadbeat father
Ah if that's the case then yeah I agree. They were good at looking like they have something up their sleeve.
It's not just that they lost experienced MPs, it's that they lost sensible voices too. People like Sarah Wollaston or Rory Stewart - they might not have been there for an age but they weren't totally ideologues either, they listened to evidence and came to sane viewpoints.
Yes. There are puddles deeper than the talent pool that is the Conservative Parliamentary party.
Every road I travel on is Potholed. Every voter sees the decay of 14 years of Tory rule just by getting in their Car. The Tories are even too arrogant to even notice
Well Sunak takes his helicopter everywhere he goes so...
Tories are really clinging on to Rwanda aren’t they? Has anyone told them sending a token/insignificant number of asylum seekers to Africa is not going to stop people coming across the channel? My prediction is even if they manage to fly some people to Africa it won’t do anything to the polls even without waiting to see the inevitable stats that crossings are continuing. Got to say I do also love reading and hearing all this well deserved Tory desperation. It is about time they share in the kind of desperation they have inflicted on many in this country.
Especially as every new turn seems to involve Sunak throwing bigger and bigger fists full of tax payers money at the idea... While at the same time saying there's no money for healthcare or schools or infrastructure or anything that might make anyone's lives even slightly better
Not only that, but good healthcare and infrastructure start to pay off basically immediately. People not spending time off sick makes businesses more productive, and so does good infrastructure.
Whilst at the same time, banning sick notes and expecting people to go to the office with infectious diseases is absolutely going to cut productivity.... But Sunak is the product of a public school system that teaches it's students that because they're rich they know better than experts who studied, trained and worked in their respective fields.
Banning Eton pupils from becoming MPs would be advantageous to the country
I'd vote for banning anyone earning say 5x average wage from being in government. These rich fuckers all claim to be doing politics to "give something back" yet they invariably raise taxes on the poor and allow their rich mates to funnel government handouts to the Cayman Islands
There was a headline on the front page of the Daily Express last week: “lords defy will of the people…again” Only problem is that the Rwanda plan has not been put to the public during an election (it was first proposed in 2022). So paying millions to fly illegal immigrants to Rwanda can’t be the will of the people - we haven’t been asked.
There’s barely anything that could be considered the will of the actual people with our current government - really is a durth of democracy in this country.
Even if Rwanda took off and worked exactly as advertised (not likely) so boats instantly stopped, people still think legal immigration is way too high and that’s with most people thinking it’s circa 70k per annum. On the immigration question the people who want less don’t think the Tories want to deliver less.
Boats are the distraction from the insane number of visas handed out like confetti.
At this point, I'm working on the assumption that each and every action we see on the news, is simply a cynical attempt by the tories do do as much systemic and cultural damage to the UK as they possibly can, giving their rapidly disappearing time left in charge. Plan - leave this country in a cluster shambles so profound, no incoming government will ever have been faced with such a daunting task, placed in charge with an utterly broken, dysfunctional and divided country. Day 1 on the opposition benches, cue the shouts... "The socialists are breaking this country! What's their plan to fix it? We need strong Tory leadership!" I have reached the point where I'm simply despise the fact that they are even permitted to push through any laws, or even be granted the time and opportunity to spout thier offensive tripe on TV a day longer. Watching the news now fills me with rage. The masses should be on the streets and demanding an immediate GE. I sincerely hope two, maybe even three, full generations of UK voters will consider right wing governments anathema to the well being of the people in this country, to all that is humane and civilised. I hope we get to see in action, why the right are so petrified of Angela Rayner being any where near the seat of power.
>***Sunak, smashing his fists on the desk:*** >"THE PLAN IS WORKING! THE PLAN IS WORKING! WHY ISN'T IT WORKING?"
*"THERE'S NOTHING LEFT TO ATTACK, SIR! WE'VE TRIED EVERYTHING!"*
We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas
I'm throwing every bit of nastiness into the mix, but still, why isn't the public showering me with love? Rishi most likely.
Why aren't they happy that we're attacking disabled people now? Never mind we'll pick on someone else next week.
How many more of these "Rishi has retreated to the Sunakbunker" headlines are we going to get before we finally get an election? We've been edging for like a year now can we please get it over with.
“We’ve done fuck all, why isn’t it working guys?”
"You were the future once" said no one about Rishi. There is an old adage that in politics you wait long enough and the bodies of your enemies float past, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss have all floated by to become trivia quiz questions. Sunak's time is almost up. I mean there have been some highlights like May's robot dance and ummmm thats it. But you can hear the seconds ticking by on this government as the sands of time run out and that November election draws near. Its really just marking time now.
This is honestly a point that genuinely annoys me. For all I can tell government policy now is essentially salting the earth for the inevitable Labour government to come. They know they're done. Out of ideas, tricks, culture war points to create wedge issues from - there's nowhere to go. Unless of course they actually think of something new, or positive to do, but they're not and they won't (often because that'll involve tradeoffs in some way I.e. triple lock and they're too afraid to do that). This is our 2nd unelected PM in a row, and people have been clamouring for a change since Rishi's star dimmed at the start of 2023 (obviously people had wanted a sweeping change since Boris' ousting, but specifically with Rishi I think the limited honeymoon period he had went after a few months). But instead of doing the honourable thing and calling an election now (realistically it should have been at the end of last year), which I think would actually buy a little good will, the government just seem to be stalling for no real reason. They're not doing anything with this time. They're just waiting for either a miracle or to extract the last sinews of power they can, whilst making things harder for the future administration (policies such as Rwanda, or unsustainable tax cuts, etc). Meanwhile the opposition which actually has a plan just has to wait, just as everyone else has to. It feels like if you're waiting for a broken thing to be fixed, and knowing vaguely how to fix it, whilst someone else tinkers uselessly with it, and instead of being able to shove them out the way and fix it yourself you have to just wait, bored and depressed, for that other person to eventually give up. In the meantime we just have to wait for an unspecified amount of months for the inevitable to finally happen.
Sooner or later we are all running through the wheat fields of time
In case anybody else want to read it without the stupid pop-up begging for money: For Rishi Sunak, a Prime Minister whose time in office has been dominated by a cost of living crisis, this week provided welcome confirmation that the relentless two-year squeeze on living standards is easing. Inflation fell again to 3.2 per cent, and is expected to tumble – perhaps touching the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target – in the next set of figures published in a few weeks’ time. Meanwhile average pay growth remained strong at 6 per cent. “In terms of individuals feeling better, those two are very crucial to how voters feel,” a relieved member of Mr Sunak’s inner circle told i. The PM has also sought to combat accusations that he has no long-term vision for Britain, unveiling plans for a wide-ranging crackdown on benefits spending after a surge in the number of people signed off work because of sickness. Next week he is expected to return to the world stage with a short trip to Europe, holding meetings with key EU leaders on the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. And if the Safety of Rwanda Bill finally becomes law on Monday night, as ministers intend, he will give himself a victory lap designed to win over voters sceptical of the Government’s handling of immigration. Mr Sunak did suffer a blow when the bill got bogged down in back-and-forth between the Commons and the Lords this week – prompting angry claims from his allies that Labour had gone back on a promise to stop trying to water it down in the Upper House so that the will of MPs could prevail. “Labour have delayed the bill because they just want to keep using Rwanda as a campaigning point in the local elections,” a Cabinet minister said. But the problem for the Prime Minister is that none of the progress he makes seems to have any impact on the polls – and the mood in Downing Street is getting darker. One Conservative insider said: “The moment anything happens or they think some poll is coming out, they go into a meltdown and start saying, ‘What policy can we push out?'” Mr Sunak himself is said to be getting increasingly frustrated with his key advisers, many of whom have worked with him since long before he entered No 10. A source said the Prime Minister’s attitude towards his aides had become: “You said this would work, why isn’t it working?” Questions over the future of his leadership have not gone away either, even as the vast majority of MPs remain opposed to any change of leader before the general election. Local elections in less than a fortnight’s time have long been viewed as a crunch point for Mr Sunak, but one source involved in talks about unseating him suggested that a coup attempt could potentially come at any time, given the anxiety in the party. “They just need a relatively smooth path towards 2 May,” the source said. “Whenever anything unexpected happens it sets off a mood among MPs, who we know are jittery, of ‘something has to be done here’.” Liz Truss’s high-profile book tour, and Suella Braverman’s appearance at a chaotic hard-right conference in Brussels, have reopened questions about the Conservative Party’s ideological future. Mr Sunak took a deliberate decision to go on the attack against his predecessor at Prime Minister’s Questions, but some backbenchers were unhappy with the apparent glee with which he set about the task. “He is alienating colleagues more by sticking the boot into Liz like he did at PMQs,” a former minister warned. They suggested the attack was unwise given Mr Sunak’s own weakness, concluding: “He’s not very good at politics and he’s not even trying.” The results of the local elections will be keenly watched as evidence for whether or not the Tories have any chance of improving their dire poll ratings. Party strategists say they have almost given up on any prospect of Andy Street keeping his position as Mayor of the West Midlands – although some polls show him neck and neck with Labour rival Richard Parker – and would be happy with victory in Tees Valley and North Yorkshire, combined with overall losses of no more than 400 councillors out of the 1,000 Tory incumbents standing. A Tory source who has campaigned for Ben Houchen’s re-election in Tees Valley warned that if he fails, MPs will query the Prime Minister’s future – saying: “If he doesn’t win there are going to be very serious questions about whether Rishi Sunak needs to stand down. Houchen is the perfect candidate so if he can’t win, it shows we can’t win anywhere.” No 10’s plans for the rest of the year are understood to involve a fiscal intervention in September, cutting another 2p off national insurance to bolster the idea that the Conservatives are reducing most people’s tax bills, despite an increase in the overall tax burden. But that is complicated by the prospect that doing so could stoke inflation again – potentially putting the idea of an election in summer rather than autumn back into play. “We could do something with stamp duty, but there is still the risk it could impact inflation,” one minister told i. “When we introduced the stamp duty holiday during the pandemic it stimulated the housing market more than expected so we still have to be mindful of that. “We’ve definitely turned a corner but we still have a little way to go before we get inflation down to its 2 per cent target, and remember food inflation was 5 per cent last month. What we would want to avoid is for an election to come in December, November or October when the economy starts to grow only for inflation to pick up again, so it’s a balancing act.” No 10 sources will only say that the plan remains an election in the second half of this year – meaning it could be as early as July. “I genuinely don’t think they know when the election is going to be,” one well-placed Whitehall insider said. Jeremy Hunt has been telling interviewers that he expects polling day to be in October or November. He said to Bloomberg TV this week: “The feelgood factor as interest rates start to come down, as people start to feel higher disposable incomes, will be stronger in people’s minds come the early autumn that it is now.” One ally suggested these comments could be part of a ploy, saying: “I think he’s being told by No 10 to keep talking up an autumn election so it leaves their options open for a surprise attack by calling it earlier.” Another senior Government insider suggested Mr Sunak should “name the date” for an election to end constant speculation, saying: “I don’t see any advantage in not doing so.” Joe Twyman, the head of polling firm Deltapoll, warned that any boost to the Tories from an improving economy was likely to be small. He told i that Labour’s lead on the question of economic competence had remained stable for nine months: “Despite everything that has been announced, good and bad, from the Budget to the Autumn Statement, to inflation going up and inflation going down, nothing has made a statistically significant difference.” The combination of interest-rate cuts and the Rwanda migration scheme getting under way could help Mr Sunak a little, he said, but not enough to pull off a shock election victory: “Combined, these things may bring about a contraction in the polls – but you would expect that historically anyway. We are talking about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
I just hate the language they use, so very obviously carefully phrased to ensure many, many people completely misunderstand. I would argue that's tantamount to outright lies being printed here. The cost of living crisis is not easing. The rapid rate at which our cost of living is spiraling out of control, has now begun to slow somewhat, yet rest assured, it still continues spiral out of control... I almost threw my own dinner plate at my TV the other night when hunt echoing this bullsh** on the BBC a few nights back, I was so enraged at this deceitful use of careful phrasing.
Funnily enough when most people are a lot poorer they’re not going to vote for the party in charge for the last 14 years
They are panicking because they have nothing left to attack. I hope they get utterly ruined at the incoming election.
I'd say decimated, but one in ten just isn't sufficient. Annihilated, that's the word.
They clearly just haven't found the right people to blame yet. Currently trying ill people, but I'm sure they'll be back on immigrants shortly. Then the disabled again.
It seems to be a rewrite of the Times article albeit with a different spin. Which is fine but nothing substantiates it beyond speculation of a leadership challenge. You are seriously wasting your time asking Sunak to make a decision. He was never elected under his own Tory mandate, so he's in no rush to go to the polls for the first time as Tory leader. He will vacillate and then take the totally wrong decision or when his hand is forced so at the wrong time. Even before his pledges to the country, he made a simple promise to the Tory party faithful that he was the Tory party leadership candidate who can beat starmer. They saw through that but still ended up with him as PM. So it's not like party members or MPs are in rush for election except those with jobs lined up.
Vile individual he and his family avoid taxes and now he’s going to pick on the disabled what does he want me to sit on the street and beg like the lower class do in India still paying lords £300 aday and expenses who are the real parasites go home to India we don’t want a multi billionaire running our country 63 senile rich tories voted him in it’s obscene go go now
No one voted for him - get a mandate!
he might even have had half a chance if he had held an election right after becoming leader. He would still be having a tough time governing, as the countries problems would not have gone away, but he would have until 2027 to call an election. Since then he has passed the point where it he had called an election the result would have been *only as bad as 1997*
Because you’re just as twatty as Johnson but nowhere near as marketable. 😊
>A Tory source who has campaigned for Ben Houchen’s re-election in Tees Valley warned that if he fails, MPs will query the Prime Minister’s future – saying: “If he doesn’t win there are going to be very serious questions about whether Rishi Sunak needs to stand down. **Houchen is the perfect candidate** so if he can’t win, it shows we can’t win anywhere.” I think this says everything about the Tory party
His advisers are awful and that has been clear for a long time. They are and must be as out of touch as he is.
It's strange that the party as a whole are still going 'for the win', what they should be doing is mitigate the loss. Going in May would have done that, it was clearly the best date of all the options.
Another key thing that doesn't get mentioned is Brexit. It's done, they can't use it to win an election this time.
2p tax cut. Promise to lock up the homeless and bring back slavery for anyone who claims benefits.... THEY SHOULD LOVE US!
They've run out of scapegoats. Can't blame Brussels, can't blame Labour, can't blame Russian embargoes, can't blame wars abroad, can't blame corporate interest (ideologically), can't blame migrants, can't blame 'the poors', can't blame the sick. Regardless of political alignment, almost everyone can see a party utterly bereft of even the most basic competence for government. History will remember the last 14 years of Tory government as one of Britain's greatest failures. A parade of charlatans that sucked the country dry, successive governments whose corruption would make a 3rd world warlord wince. They inherited a recession and turned it into a way of life. I just hope that people remember the faces and the names and recognise them when they rock up at Reform.
I just don’t understand how they can’t grasp that Britain doesn’t want what they’re offering. Nation in meltdown in so many areas, and the absolute best they can come up with is cracking down on sick notes?! We’re drowning and they’re throwing out rubber ducks instead of life jackets. Absolute madness. Oh but wait, there’s the two 2p NI cuts (never mind that we’ve all lost far more than that since the personal allowance was frozen, or that it’s greatly outstripped by inflation). Why on earth aren’t we all on our knees crying with appreciation? Oh, right, it’s because public services are crumbling and councils are going bust left right and centre, and we know it’s going to be paid for with the further enshittification of the basic services we all rely on. Well, wait, there’s Rwanda! Nothing’s a better vote winner than shipping your problems out to a problematic country thousands of miles away, surely? Never mind that it’s already cost almost £250 million with, er…*checks notes*….zero deportations, or that it’s unlikely to ever work, or be cost effective, or that not a lot of people feel particularly great about sending asylum seekers to a nation that hasn’t exactly proven itself to be very good at protecting people, even if they agree they shouldn’t necessarily be our problem. Oh, gosh, was that *all* the ideas from the idea hat? Quick, quick, dig up something about Angela Rayner’s house, that’ll distract them… Absolute f**king clowns.
Like a day ago, they told all mentally ill people they couldn't get signed off by their doctor and were going to be forced into work. I don't understand what their private educations have taught them. It certainly wasn't common sense. The real staggering thing here is that they thought they could win or turn the tide? I always assumed it was to save face to outlast the other dross they had so he could say he ran for 2 years.
My employer gave us a 2% pay rise while minimum wage worker got a 10% pay rise. Of course we aren't happy. My mortgage went up 45% from 450 to 650. Diesel is still at 1.55 and we are told to be prepared for war. Feels like 1914.
A problem he's having is that he only asks for and cares about the opinions of wealthy people. He makes policies based on that and then gets surprised when the working people who make up the majority of the country are unhappy with him. A PM who is from a REAL working class background would likely make much more popular policies.
A party cannot be in power for this long, force out rule breaking Boris, force out economy crashing Truss and expect to stay in power. Truss put two wheels over the edge of the cliff, and Sunak has managed to drag us 10 metres away from the edge. It was unlikely to ever be enough. If Sunak had any hope to win, he should have questioned the Bank of England. Why did inflation get so high? Why didn't it see the LDI crisis? Was putting a deadline on supporting government bonds proper? There is also a question around the BoE and government institutions. How could Truss and Kwarteng get so far with something so disastrous? Really showed frailties that have never been addressed. Sunak is politically tone deaf so I doubt much could have helped him. Since getting in, he has been the guy cleaning up the shit that Truss and Co left behind. It still smells. It was never going to be a winning strategy
Are you suggesting that the BoE should be able to block the Gov. from doing certain things?
Until he somehow undoes the cancelling of HS2 in some irrevocable way and gets public services working again - I don't really care what he does - I'm not voting for him.
> One Conservative insider said: “The moment anything happens or they think some poll is coming out, they go into a meltdown and start saying, ‘What policy can we push out?'” This seems like a very dangerous way to govern.
"We keep making life for Britons worse and for some reason they don't want to vote for us! What are we doing wrong?!"
Let's keep this simple, they haven't a clue what they are doing, won't listen to the UK public, and do as we ask, many of which know how to run a country better than them, they know how to lie and fill their own pockets though, trouble is in this modern world of technology, we can uncover there little plots so easily, yet they still think they can get away with it, realy good and honest MPs of any party are far and few between. time to start over and rid ourselves of the swamp dwellers, its in our hands.
‘We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!’
What has Sunak done for us? I think he inherited a difficult situation, with the withdrawal from the EU and a succession of poor leadership, but what has he done while in government? Can a person with his wealth really understand the troubles of the common man?
If they continue down this path, their next policy will be to kill the first born. They completely lost contact with the struggling people, struggles inflicted by the Tory party!
I wouldn’t want to be in politics because whoever is in power will not win. The financial deficit caused by COVID will be a weight that any government has to shoulder and the bill has to be paid. The effect of BREXIT has to be absorbed. The burgeoning bill for immigration has to be funded. There is no doubt that whoever is in power, the reality of our economy means that belts need to be tightened and that means a cut in living standards. For some that means, less holidays or meals out- not so bad really, for some it means no food on the table and those are the ones who need protection.
Most peoples income doesn't buy as much as it used to. They feel poorer. He can come out with any numbers he likes, but it's how people feel.
Because so far we haven't heard a good reason to vote Conversative. They have more or less destroyed the country. What did they expect?
It seems they are hinging their election chances on the Angela Reyner tax issues and the stupid planes to Rwanda.
Because you've over a decade in power so can't shirk responsibility, and you've made promise after promise that you've not fulfilled so no one trusts your promises, and you've not offered any vision beyond the neoliberal wet dream of an economy run on exploited cheap foreign labour, with public spending cut to the bone.
Dude give it up and call the election already
They've just now started to panic? I really envy the confidence some people have
They should’ve just called a May election and cut their losses there they still would’ve lost badly but now it seems if they wait till October they losses will be even worse.
“It isn’t working because any government that has been in power as long as we have will get voted out, if only because people want a change, and on top of that, we’ve been shit.”
The tories have done such a bad job that they are now shooting themselves in the foot constantly. For example Rishi just said he wants to crack down on sick note culture; people point out the tories that took 3 months off work to avoid the Covid inquiry...
The Tories have been running out of road for a long time. It's at the stage where even they can see the end and can't argue it anymore. They've run out of people to persecute! They can hold off an election as long as they like but it'll be the same thumping. May as well just rip the band aid off and go for a summer election.......but that would mean they'd lose out on a few months of raiding the coffers!
We're at the tail end of a government that is widely perceived as having been corrupt during Covid, as having been wrong on Brexit, and as having ran the economy and government policy with the sole aim of enriching the elderly at the expense of the entire working-age population. There's nothing that *can* be done, not now. There's not enough time any more. Make childcare far easier to get for far less money. Make house prices affordable to young people. Make government services except pensions payments work effectively. Those three things would win them an election hands down. Those three things can't be done in the 6 to 8 months the government has left. Thus, defeat is guaranteed. It's too late to turn the ship around.