DAN WOOTTON: This budget proves the Tories In Name Only are in control

2022-11-17

DAN WOOTTON: This horror show of a budget from Fishy Rishi and High Tax Hunt proves the TINOS (Tories In Name Only) are in control. Ambition and growth are gone because we have to pay for crippling cost of lockdown

Never have I seen more duplicity and dishonesty in the House of Commons – and that’s saying something.

It’s Russia’s fault.

It’s Liz Truss’s fault.

It’s the fault of international headwinds.

Oh, and the Conservatives pretending to be, well, conservative while launching a horror show of a budget which proves our two major parties have now entered a social democratic economic coalition from hell even if they’ll never admit it.

In fact, I fear today’s Autumn Statement might smash the party’s low tax/small state reputation for a generation with the TINOS (Tories In Name Only) now leading the charge.

The anti-growth coalition has won.

Unelected globalist Fishy Rishi and High Tax Hunt have delivered the biggest tax burden in British history and a commitment to make Brits poorer by stealth over the next decade to satisfy the markets, not their voters.

‘Asking more from those who have more’, as Hunt put it coldly, sounding like any leftie Labour politician, will actually smash our nation’s ambition and ability to grow the economy.

Unelected globalist Fishy Rishi (pictured today) and High Tax Hunt have delivered the biggest tax burden in British history and a commitment to make Brits poorer by stealth over the next decade to satisfy the markets, not their voters

‘Asking more from those who have more’, as Hunt (pictured today put it coldly, sounding like any leftie Labour politician, will actually smash our nation’s ambition and ability to grow the economy

But what neither man – or the weak Labour opposition – are prepared to do is admit we are facing this economic calamity not because of Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget or even the damaging Ukraine war.

Nope, we’re here because of the chilling political consensus that emerged around the devastating decision to shutter our economy for close to two years to enforce increasingly ludicrous lockdown measures, closing businesses and stopping ordinary folk from earning an honest living, while spending £500billion to forever destroy our work ethic.

It’s hard to countenance that this time last year, there was still a powerful bloc in the Cabinet – including the likes of Michael Gove and Sajid Javid – who wanted Christmas to be cancelled again and Brits once again locked indoors for, by that point, a mild virus with a 99.8 per cent survival rate.

Nothing makes me angrier than the sight of Matt Hancock downing kangaroo balls in the Australian jungle and inexplicably earning forgiveness from swathes of the British public, all while pocketing his MP salary, as the mess he was one of the architects of hits the pocketbooks of all of us.

We were sold a fantasy of free furlough cash coming from the magic money tree by Sunak time and again.

Hundreds of thousands became accustomed to such a lifestyle and have never returned to work.

Lockdown sceptics like me were vilified for pointing out the cash he frittered away in the tens of billions was going to come back and bite us in the form of dire inflation.

Never have I seen more duplicity and dishonesty in the House of Commons – and that’s saying something, writes Dan Wootton (pictured)

Never were we warned of the cost of such seismic economic interventions, even though Hunt is proud to trumpet today that Conservatives don’t leave our debt to the next generation.

Would the majority have thought differently if Sunak had stood up in the House in 2021 and said: ‘The extra six months of furlough, even though most of us have already had Covid by now, will result in higher taxes for everyone in the country for the next 20 years and curtail your teenager’s chance of ever buying a house.’

Where’s the accountability about the £30billion spent on a white elephant test and trace scheme?

Or the £16billion lost by fraudsters playing the Covid loan schemes?

That’s our money – I want it back.

Tragically, it’s now undeniable that the consequences of lockdown are killing more poor souls than Covid ever did, with excess death figures higher than during the pandemic itself.

And that’s before you look at the decreased life expectancy that will inevitably follow on from the prolonged recession that is coming after today’s announcements.

While I concede Liz Truss was wrong not to link her mini budget to decreased spending, Sunak and Hunt have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and the consequences are dire for the future of Britain.

Perhaps the reason to be most concerned today is that Labour wouldn’t do anything differently.

Nothing makes me angrier than the sight of Matt Hancock (pictured) downing kangaroo balls in the Australian jungle and inexplicably earning forgiveness from swathes of the British public, all while pocketing his MP salary, as the mess he was one of the architects of hits the pocketbooks of all of us

It’s easy for Slippery Starmer and Robotic Reeves to drone on about the Truss mini budget when the reality is our economy would already be in depression if those two had been in power during Covid because Labour consistently wanted harder and longer lockdowns.

Politics only works if there is a clear ideological choice for voters – Thatcher vs Kinnock, Major vs Blair, Johnson vs Corbyn – but it’s hard to see the same differences between Sunak and Starmer.

No wonder the disillusionment from true-blue Tories is off the scale since the anti-democratic decision to deny members a vote on whether they wanted Fishy Rishi as PM, just two months after overwhelmingly rejecting the man who is hated within the party for backstabbing Boris Johnson and bringing down a largely successful premiership.

Sunak seems to misunderstand that going to the election on a platform of increased state spending into the NHS blackhole, coupled with higher taxes, will not be a vote winner.

In fact, the best person Sunak and Hunt think can bring ‘Scandinavian quality alongside Singaporean efficiency’ to the NHS is Patricia Hewitt, an ex-Labour minister. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so dire.

I’ll call it now. The Conservative party will be thrown out of power in a landslide if Sunak remains in post.

The Boris backers and Trussites need to find a way to win back the heart and soul of the Tories.

One former Cabinet minister told me this week the right of the party is waiting for the Hunt budget to fall apart.

I can’t see that taking long, especially given the Chancellor failed to mention today that the OBR has been told the government will lift fuel duty for the first time in 12 years in March by 23 per cent, effectively increasing the price of petrol and diesel by 12p a litre.

Meanwhile, electric vehicles will no longer be exempt from duty, as the deranged march to Net Zero continues to bankrupt us.

That’s before you get to the devastating threshold freezes, Capital Gains Tax allowance being slashed from £12,500 to £3,000, the council tax rises and the despicable 45p top tax rate now kicking in for anyone who earns over £125,000.

Hunt claimed today he was being practical rather than ideological.

But the ideology of the Conservatives as a party that believed in cutting the size and influence of the state and letting me decide how to spend my money was pretty much the only redeeming feature they had after the last 12 months of chaos and carnage.

If the TINOS stay in control, the world’s most successful political force will deserve to be out of power.

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