Thread 38 Sunak: Soooo, square one is an option then?

[AdamRyan]

Thanks to @cornettoninja For the epic title!

@Notonthestairs its worse than that. Sunak's gibberish answer said rape charges (not convictions) had risen 50% last year which is true IF you look at CPS data about cases referred to them but not police data on all rape complaints. I.e. you only cherrypick the CPS data. And is of course a meaningless figure - charging rates are rising but overall convictions are falling because fewer of these cases are actually going to trial because of the huge backlogs in our courts. There's nothing to be proud of there, victims whose cases pass the threshold for charging, i.e. it's in the public and interest and the CPS think there's a better than 50% chance of conviction are LESS likely to see their rapist convicted than they used to be and they may wait 2+yrs for the trial to fall apart.

And then he claims conviction rates dropped when Starmer was DPP which is only true IF you use MoJ data not CPS. But at least Sunak knows what a woman is...

"Historic under investment in the regions"

You have been in power for 14 years! Why are you making it sound as though it is the fault of previous aministrations? 😡😡😡

Hopefully some one on Twitter will community note all this.

Of course he is. He hasn’t got anything else.

I've only heard the last 10 minutes or so but Hunt's already mentioned Labour and their plan several times. If that's the best they can do it just shows how much they're running scared.

Guess Hunt was Health Secretary under a different party

"And then he shoehorns in a rather feeble joke about Peter Mandelson saying yesterday that Starmer should “shed a few pounds”. If Labour get in, people will be losing more than a few pounds due to their tax plans, he says"

How utterly pathetic.

Utterly pathetic sums it up

£20,000,000 funding for several regions.

Over the next decade. £2 mil per year? lol. What can you do with £2 mill these days?

Rwanda cost £500 mil

How are these ridiculous personal insults ever considered to be acceptable in a professional sphere? @IClaudine

Apparently you can renovate village halls for £5m

He also attacked Ed Davey for missing a PMQs to look after his disabled son.

I don’t have it in me to listen to the budget. I’m too annoyed and too stressed to have more financial worries dropped on me from a great height!

The only words I want to hear out of any of them is the date of the next GE.

And now a cheap shot at Angela Rayner

NEW: Government to "abolish current tax system for non-doms"

"We will replace the regime with a modern, fairer residency based system."

Replacement will be a generous low tax regime for four years, then transition to normal residents' tax arrangements.

So a nothing policy then

Higher Income Child Benefit Tax charge threshold to be raised from £50,000 to £60,000 in 2026

Oh Lord, that’s going to be really popular and politically impossible to reverse.

Biggest thanks go to Martin Lewis there (yes I am a Lewis fan).

Now confirmed, National Insurance cut again by 2% points for both employees and self employed.

That was it, a rather underwhelming budget with lost of cheap jokes

I must say I thought it was incredibly rude and unnecessary of Mandelson to say that about Starmer. And giving free ammunition to the Tories. I mean Mandelson really is a bit of an arse, isn't he?

It was a stupid thing to say by Mandelson but its hardly ammo - no one is going to look at Starmer and think I'm not going to vote for this perfectly normal looking 60 yr old man cos he's not as slim as Sunak. Also if BMI is a qualification they have some chunky skeletons in their closet

Sunak isn’t just slim, he’s wimpy and gives off an air of immaturity.

Did Peter Mandelson also make a remark about Theresa Coffey ? .. not holding my breath