[Malcolm Armsteen]

"What you lookin' at, Gunga Din?"

By people who've never read the poem...

[Nigredo]

From this morning's newsletter from The New Statesman's senior political correspondent:

Good morning. Rishi Sunak is a dead man walking after yesterday passing up the chance to leave Boris Johnson’s cabinet on his own terms. He is now set to be sacked as Chancellor in the coming months, according to three highly placed sources in Tory party circles. They may be wrong. But taken together, the three sources tell a consistent and remarkable story of animosity at the top of British government – and of a far greater degree of rancour from Johnson towards Sunak than has been previously reported.

Inside No 10, I am told that Johnson has become openly contemptuous of Sunak, referring to him disparagingly by at least two expletive-laden nicknames. Both convey the sense of betrayal that Johnson feels after Sunak failed to offer his full support to Johnson at the peak of the partygate crisis in February.

At Chequers ten days ago – prior to the damning tax revelations that have scuttled Sunak’s national standing – Johnson was already delighting in the blowback Sunak was facing after his Spring Statement fell flat three weeks ago. Nadine Dorries, a cabinet colleague of Sunak’s and a long-time Johnson loyalist, was a guest that weekend.

Perhaps most fatally, Lynton Crosby – the most trusted political strategist in the Tory party, who is informally advising Johnson in No 10 – is also gunning for Sunak. He has let it be known that he intends to finish the Chancellor off. And a senior cabinet minister who has not always opposed Sunak now thinks that the he “deserves everything he gets”.

What has Sunak done to deserve such vituperation? Johnson’s vindictiveness is not, perhaps, surprising. Sunak is, like James Comey with Donald Trump, discovering the cost of not backing an uncompromising boss unconditionally. But why are others in the party so content, and even eager, to see Sunak deposed?

Sunak’s swift, serious and supportive action during the pandemic won him a rare national popularity for a politician. That masked an underlying weakness: Sunak had no base within the party when he became Chancellor, and over the next two years he failed to forge one as MPs rarely met in person. But Sunak’s lack of outreach went further than that. There are Treasury ministers who feel distant from him, let alone backbenchers.

Having succeeded in life by “being very strict and only playing what’s in front of him”, as an MP put it to me earlier this year, Sunak has struggled to play the politics of partygate. Now he has been fined for breaching lockdown rules alongside Johnson, when it is Johnson alone who presided over the law-breaking culture across Downing Street during the pandemic. Sunak’s appearance at Johnson’s birthday party appears to have been inadvertent: he thought he was turning up to a work meeting with Johnson.

There is a misfortune to Sunak’s plight. For much of 2021, he nimbly raised considerable amounts of tax without provoking Tory unrest: something that anyone on the economic left should welcome. But he has alienated everyone in 2022, from Tories who want taxes cut to voters outraged that Sunak did so little in his Spring Statement to prevent 1.3 million people falling into poverty.

Johnson, meanwhile, appears to be as fortunate as ever. As the Guardian front page puts it this morning: “PM: I broke my own law, but I refuse to go.” That is the stark point we appear to have reached. “The world would probably be in a different place,” a senior Tory MP told me last night, “without the invasion of Ukraine. You can’t escape from that.” The timing of the Metropolitan Police’s investigation, and Vladimir Putin’s war, have put Johnson in a position to survive partygate. Improbably, it is Rishi Sunak – the heir apparent just weeks ago – who is now set to take the fall.

[Nigredo]

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-pe ... 37646.html

A full tank of unleaded petrol for a typical family car (50 litres) costs the average British driver £81.60

£43.48 of which is tax, but at least Red Rishi magnanimously slashed 5p off that eh?

[Nigredo]

[Samanfur]

This was obviously money well spent:

Rishi Sunak spends £500,000 of taxpayers’ cash on focus groups ‘to repair his image’

[Boiler]

If I had any stomach contents to chuck up, I would. Vain little cunt.

[Nigredo]

This was obviously money well spent:

Rishi Sunak spends £500,000 of taxpayers’ cash on focus groups ‘to repair his image’

Was the focus group ten people in Knightsbridge?

[Crabcakes]

Might turn out that the focus group was 1 person who was paid £500,000 to change their opinion of Sunak.

(Please make cheque payable to A. B. D. Johnson, 11 Downing Street, London)

[Spoonman]

This was obviously money well spent:

Rishi Sunak spends £500,000 of taxpayers’ cash on focus groups ‘to repair his image’

I expect the Taxpayers Alliance will be furious over this.

[AOB]

UK energy bills to be cut by hundreds as part of £10bn support package

The government is to scrap a plan to give people £200 off bills from October which would be repaid over five years.

Instead, the BBC understands that sum will be increased and possibly doubled, and will not need to be paid back.

The support, to be announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak later, is expected to be largely funded by a windfall tax on oil and gas firms that could raise £7bn

"Lockdown parties? Quick, look over there, Rishi's got some wonga for you!"

When Shell, BP and the rest have in recent months announced their multi billion pounds profits, i have thought that it's the equivalent of meeting someone at the hospital gates on their way out after having their legs amputated and doing the hokey cokey in front of them. If they are making that much profit they can cut their prices.

[Boiler]

"but then we can't invest in future technologies"

[AOB]

The Telegraph are referring to it as a "handout".

Handout implies the recipient has failed to manage their situation, that it's their fault, as decades of the Tory press referring to benefits is testament to, deliberately.

This will be the same Telegraph that demands a handout from anyone wishing to read their website. See, two can play at that game.

[Watchman]

Would this be the same windfall tax that every Tory MP voted against, just last week?

[Tubby Isaacs]

It's fairly different- lasts longer, higher rate, but with generous investment allowances.

The problem is that it's still a windfall tax, which was supposed to be unthinkable. It wasn't just that they wanted to do it differently to Labour.

[Watchman]

The investment allowance announced by Rishi Sunak today, which will allow energy companies to get a total of 91p of their tax bill for every £1 they invest in the UK and which has been introduced to partially offset the impact of the windfall tax, will only not apply to investment in renewable energy, the government has confirmed. It will only apply to investment in oil and gas.

Fuck the environment

[Samanfur]

It's fairly different- lasts longer, higher rate, but with generous investment allowances.

The problem is that it's still a windfall tax, which was supposed to be unthinkable. It wasn't just that they wanted to do it differently to Labour.

Richard Drax did not approve.

[AOB]

Getting the money to those who need it most from Autumn, seeing as it appears to be processed via the energy companies rather than councils, will hopefully be less of a fuck up than the ongoing £150 energy discounts some councils (*glares at Liverpool council) are making. It's seriously screwed up that there will be multi millionaires, nay billionaires, in this country who who have had their £150 paid into their banks while those who actually need it are still waiting.

[Nigredo]

Dreadful on this morning's Today programme.

[davidjay]

Dreadful on this morning's Today programme.

Not according to this unbiased source.

[Andy McDandy]

The headline says that, but the article paints a more even picture. Case of the reporter and sub-editor (if they have any) not being in sync?