Rishi Sunal admits taking money from deprived areas

[hellmannsnotheinz]

amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/05/video-emerges-of-rishi-sunak-admitting-to-taking-money-from-deprived-areas

Sorry if this thread has already been done, could t see one.

Thoughts please Mumsnet

Yes! I noticed the tabloids are pretty keen to push for Truss and there have been a lot of snide articles posted about Sunak.

I'm not surprised he did it, but I'm surprised he's admitted it in public.

@Shortbreadbuyer I think you have a good heart, I hope yours is the correct interpretation but I fear not. But maybe!

I bet those areas who have a Tory MP did not lose much money.

There really wasn't any nuance, the facts speak for themselves. Analysis of council funding shows the biggest cuts were made in the poorest areas.

The government deliberately levelled down.

But some of those party members might be concerned about people other than themselves. That's why some people get into politics.
There will be problems within primarily well off areas that need Gov funding and it might be that the previous formula wasn't working. I don't know. I do think knee jerk reactions aren't helpful.

We do know the facts. The biggest cuts were in the poorest areas. Look at bloody Blackpool as a good example. What's been done is awful.

There is no knee jerk reaction, the facts have been known for a long time. What is new, and newsworthy, is Sunak saying it out loud, honestly. They absolutely reprofiled spending to benefit areas that didn't need it as much. This is well documented.

Isn’t this a bit of a storm in a tea cup? There is awful deprivation in many ‘wealthy’ rural towns. I live in a rural area (opposite side to the country to TW) that’s classic for it. Almost every town round here is of two halves. Some of the most expensive towns in the SW have some pretty extreme poverty and we also have lack of services and major lack of transport. I honestly think it’s harder to be poor in rural areas. Surely the point he was making is that it’s not good to only concentrate on urban areas? Hate the torys, never voted for them, never will but can’t really understand why everyone is frothing over this. I suppose everyone thinks life in the countryside is rosy.

Listen to what he actually said. He said that he had taken funding from "deprived urban areas" into "areas like this", ie areas like Tunbridge Wells.

If his actual meaning had been that he was trying to tackle rural deprivation, he would have phrased it differently. For example, he would have talked about taking funding out of urban areas in order to put it into rural areas - there would have been no need for the emphasis on "deprived", as his point would have been that deprivation existed in both areas. And frankly, if that was really what he meant, speaking in a place like TW which is known for its prosperity, I would have expected him to spell out much more explicitly what he actually meant, eg by saying that it's wrong to assume that deprivation only exists in cities, there are deprived people here as well.

I think there can be no doubt about what he really meant, no matter how he tries to spin it now. And Liz Truss had better not try to score points of the back of this video either, because she was part of the Cabinet that implemented this policy and bears her share of the collective responsibility. Shame on the whole bloody lot of them!

Bless you. Many people do get into politics because they're concerned about people other than themselves, but they do not join the Tory party for that reason!

No, that is not the point he was making. The point he was making is he moved funding from deprived urban areas to less deprived rural areas.

There are undoubtedly poor individuals in wealthy areas, but there are far fewer of them as a percentage of the overall population. There are higher numbers of poor people in deprived areas. Their funding was cut, and cut ferociously.

That is why we have seen food bank use rocket, child poverty increase.

It is disgusting to take money from the poor. It is disgusting to take a lot of money from a large number of poor people to give a little bit of money to a small group of different poor people.

Sunak fucked up when he admitted it so baldly.

Bless you. Many people do get into politics because they're concerned about people other than themselves, but they do not join the Tory party for that reason!

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this. Maybe not the vast majority of Tories, but there are some. I've worked with lots of politicians over the years They have a different view on how to achieve it!

If that was really their motivation, they would leave the Tory party in the face of extensive evidence that their approach isn't working. There might be a small minority who make that shift, but all the evidence suggests that the vast majority don't actually give a shit.

If that was really their motivation, they would leave the Tory party in the face of extensive evidence that their approach isn't working.

I agree. If they were principled in that way, they would surely realise they were in the wrong party!

It all comes back to that old chestnut, doesn't it. When someone tells you who they are, believe them!

I want to know who has been sitting on this footage, why they have sold it to the newspapers now and what they have vested in a win for Truss.

This is someone's horrible scheme. I'm not saying that Rishi isn't a shit, but that there is an agenda being played here and it's super obvious.

He's just proved that levelling up is a load of bollocks.

I don't doubt that someone has an agenda.

Liz Truss bears equal responsibility for the policies of the current government, though, in my view. She wasn't chancellor, but she was part of the Cabinet. If she didn't agree with the approach of diverting funds away from deprived communities into wealthier ones, then she should have resigned. That's how collective responsibility works.

It's astonishing really. The opposition parties will be able to take most of their next general election campaigns straight out of the mouths of the Tories themselves. This leadership election has given them so many choice quotes from high profile Tories regarding their own record in government. You couldn't make it up!

I hope they use it wisely.

If that was really their motivation, they would leave the Tory party in the face of extensive evidence that their approach isn't working. There might be a small minority who make that shift, but all the evidence suggests that the vast majority don't actually give a shit.
If someone has invested their whole identity into being a Tory, with the belief this approach will make life better for all, they may not either look too deeply into the evidence of whether its working, or have some cognitive dissonance going on because it's hard to admit to yourself you could be wrong.
You might say they should look at the evidence properly, but not everyone does, so I think it's still possible for people to be interested in improving lives across the board and be a Tory.

I just don't think they will sadly.
Would love for that to happen though.

He didn't say he was combating rural poverty. He actually said he took money away from deprived areas to give to Royal Tunbridge Wells. With its lovely Conservative majority.🙈

For those saying "Rural areas have deprivation too" Well, thats fine of course they do... but the answer isn't to take money from urban poor areas to give to rural poor areas.. the answer to to increase the funding to the rural deprived areas
After all, Brexit, pushed by Sunak, released 'billions in extra monies for this sort of thing.

Anyone who thinks that Rishi was talking about rural deprivation is kidding themselves. He was talking to Tory voters in Royal Tunbridge Wells. 🙄