Multi-multi-millionaire Rishi Sunak lecturing hard-up folk that they’ll never have it so good with him is a haughty, out-of-touch Prime Minister reinforcing why the UK Conservatives deserve to lose the general election.
Britain’s richest leader in modern history is tone-deaf, as is his multi-millionaire Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. People count their pennies and know they’re squeezed under the Tories. Most households are likely to be poorer at the looming election later this year than at the previous one in 2019. That’s a first.
The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies forecast this to be the worst Parliament for growth in material living standards since at least 1961 – the earliest year for which comparable data exists.
The PM and Chancellor lose political currency by painting false pictures, breaking the patience of voters who pay more tax for slashed public services in a Britain where nothing seems to work.
Look at wages. The TUC estimates the average UK worker would be £10,400 a year better off – £200 a week – had real wages grown at the annual average rate of the 16 years to 2008 – 1.7% – instead of the -0.2% in a similar period dominated by the Tories.
Is it any wonder that 43% think their personal finances have deteriorated over the past year and only 16% that they improved? Or just 15% believe the economy is in a better place against the 53% who think it has gone backwards?
Hyperbolic Office for National Statistics chief economist Grant Fitzner is in the wrong job if he reckons the economy “is going gangbusters” – paraphrasing former Australian Premier Paul Keating. OK, Britain is out of recession but GDP per head is still lower now than it was two years ago.
In fact GDP per head grew annually only 0.3% in the past 16 years, compared to 2.2% in the previous 40. The British economy is stronger under Labour, with growth averaging 1.3% annually in the Blair-Brown era – including the 2008 financial crash – to top the 1.2% average of the G7 major economies.
Under the Cons it is only a tad over 0.7%, or nearly half that rate, and well below the G7 average of 1.1%. The figures expose the hollowness of Sunak and Hunt’s arguments – Labour Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves adept at getting her retaliation in first.
Sunak and Hunt’s tactic of expecting credit for recoveries while shunning blame for doldrums and downturns isn’t working. These two Tory rich blokes lecturing victims of a cost of living crisis are just a pair of Conservative muggers outstaying their welcome. It’s the economy, stupid, and the Tories are finished.