Rishi Sunak’s TV debate soundbite is coming back to bite him

Right, so the first election TV debate happened last night, a head to head between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, which narrowly Sunak was judged to have come out ahead on, despite the fact neither men could lie straight in bed and even when they try to give answers, it really didn’t matter whether it was honestly or not, since they were allocated just 45 seconds each to respond, meaning the format itself was largely at fault for not giving anyone watching any real clue abut what either man stood for on the various topics questions were asked about.
But for as much as I can go after both men for the dishonest things they said on the night, it was an endlessly repeated claim by Rishi Sunak that has blown up last night into this morning that not only was a complete fabrication, but he was warned ahead of time to not talk about and yet it seemingly was ALL he talked about.
Right, so if anyone planned on making last night’s TV debate into a drinking game, having to down a shot every time Keir Starmer mentioned how he was the son of a toolmaker, the son of a nurse, and that he was director of public prosecutions, you will have been legless by the end of the hour, he was as tedious and repetitive as ever, drillbit Starmer, a small boring tool. But equally diminutive in stature and equally if not more dishonest on the night was Rishi Sunak, who himself could have been the subject of a drinking game, if people realised just how many times he was going to bring up a seemingly out of nowhere statistic that Keir Starmer’s Labour would increase taxes on working people to the tune of £2000 a year, they’d be half cut too, but more than that, it was a complete fabrication and lie and it is likely in no small part due to Sunak’s repeated attacks regarding this that he was deemed to have been – marginally – been the winner of the debate and has seen several in the mainstream media praise what was blatant dishonesty as good and clever politics because now everyone is talking about it, yet few of those praising that are equally pointing out it was a lie. If we celebrate dishonesty in politics, we deserve dishonest politicians.
The stupid thing is, the really stupid thing is, Starmer has done nothing but lie and lie himself with impunity on all manner of things that Sunak could have quite legitimately had a go at him over, if not for the fact they are on the same page as so much of that, nothing between them and that also shone out to the public, shone out in the social media responses to the show, the main takeaways being Sunak and Starmer are equally awful, that Julie Etchingham couldn’t maintain order as they took lumps out of each other, which every question seemed to descend into, though equally part of that was the format of the program, not allowing proper detailed answers on questions to be heard. An hour for such an important debate in order to inform the public, simply isn’t long enough, but on the other hand more than hour of just these two is frankly more than some people can bear to countenance.
Anyway, to this claim that Sunak came out with, a £2000 tax rise for the public if they vote Labour, that’s a claim that will stick, that will horrify people, terrify people barely making ends meet, too many unable to even do that anymore as we know.
Now one Tory making a lot of this issue that Sunak repeatedly brought up, following the debate was the Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho, clearly seemingly having been briefed to really sell this point, this complete lie, to really drum it in to the public psyche, as she has repeatedly stated both last night and this morning that independent civil servants in the treasury came up with this figure for Labour’s plans and even when confronted with the fact this wasn’t true as happened this morning on Good Morning Britain, she still trotted out lines like, well I thought it was very telling that 10 times Keir Starmer refused to rule this out. Rule what out? You made it up and we have proof of this, because a letter to Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Labour MP Darren Jones, from the permanent secretary to the Treasury, so that’s the top civil servant, a chap called James Bowler, a guy who, you would imagine would have been involved in these costings if like Sunak had said they were the ones costing Labour’s policy and had highlighted this £2000 tax rise, he’d know about it, yet this is what he wrote:
‘Dear Darren
Opposition Costings.
Thank you for your letter dated 24th May regarding the presentation of Opposition policy costings.
As you will be aware, when costing the policies of of opposition parties, HM Treasury and the wider Civil Service follow established guidance set out in the Directory of Civil Service Guidance.
As per this guidance, the costings produced by HM Treasury and the wider Civil Service are published on the gov.uk website. As you will expect, civil servants were not involved in the production or presentation of the Conservative Party’s document “Labour Tax Rises” or in the calculation of the total figure used.
In your letter you highlight that the £38bn figure used in the Conservative Party’s publication includes costs beyond those provided by the Civil Service and published online by HM Treasury.
I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the Civil Service.
I have reminded ministers and advisers that that should be the case.’
That was sent out by head civil servant to the Treasury James Bowler to Labour MP Darren Jones on the 3rd June, the day before the TV debate. Bowler said he had reminded ministers of the fact that civil servants did not produce these figures, yet that is the claim Sunak and Couthinho have repeated with wilful abandon, when the truth of the matter is that it was Tory employees, Conservative Special Advisers that had put it together. Despite the Treasury explicitly stating that attribution of these figures should not be made to them, it happened anyway to give legitimacy to completely false claims, and happened repeatedly to drum these lies into the heads of voters.
Now, the other point raised is that he £38bn figure, which breaks down to a tax rise of £2000 on working class households, also includes figures not included on the gov.uk website, so in other words, figures that Labour haven’t submitted. Are these Labour omissions, or just numbers the Tories have made up from somewhere? We don’t know, but the fact they’ve attributed all workings to the civil servants in the treasury, implies the Tories are making these numbers up, because they had nothing to do with these calculations. Sunak, seemingly, in his absolute desperation, has made up a pack of lies, spread them liberally on live TV and they’ll now come back to bite him, when he’s asked where the additional numbers came from and we want to see the full workings. As I said before though, with all the lies we know Keir Starmer has told himself, to make something up is just ridiculous and so unnecessary, but it's that old whoever is more trusted on the economy wins the election belief thing again, and Sunak wants to be more trusted on the economy, despite it flatling broadly for years now, briefly dipping into recession not long ago, because he does nothing to actually promote growth. For the economy to grow, money has to work and for it to work it must be used, must be spent and lining the pockets rich time after time, who don’t spend it, just hoard it, means it isn’t working. The single biggest thing that could be done to promote growth right now, would be a wealth tax, to get that money back into active use and working again. Neither party will do this of course though, so they’ll both fail economically, however I’ve digressed.
For as much as Sunak has laid himself open here and for as much as Starmer did eventually get a word in to say it was total garbage, he said something else about this, showing he’s equally dishonest and when it came to this, he really didn’t have to be:
Yeah, I bet he wats Sunak to answer that because Sunak will be thinking, hang on a minute what company? My Spads put these figures together, what is he talking about? Equally as it panned to Sunak as Starmer brought up this company that he alleges put these figures together for him, he looked like a deer caught in headlights, thinking, oh s**t where’s he going with this, I made all that stuff up, what is he doing? And the short answer is, the only way anything Starmer actually just said there can possibly make sense, is if he is stood there lying through his teeth in response to the lies Sunak told. What company Keith? There isn’t one. Unless he’s mistaken about the source of the Tories figures, perhaps he knows where their additional figures came from, but they still didn’t make the final calculations, it came out on Newsnight last night that Tory Spads came up with the final figures and Labour knew a day ahead thanks to that letter to Darren Jones, that the Tories document, that there was no sign off from the civil service in the Treasury on this. Besides, if there is another company involved, as Starmer is implying, why are the Tories saying it was the civil service? An unknown company, that Starmer might well be making up, a civil service who wasn’t involved but the Tories claim were and the media saying it was Tory Spads, not the civil service or another company, a company which of course according to Starmer, favours Labours figures over the Tories, but which might not exist either. What is this company? I can find no proof to back up Starmer’s claim either. Happy to be corrected, but I can’t find it, so on the face of it, he’s lying about being lied about by Sunak! Your future Prime Minister folks, one of these two awful men, unless the entire country suddenly has an epiphany and rejects both, but let’s be realistic, that isn’t going to happen. Really though, if you’re going to vote one of these two parties, ask yourself really, really hard to justify exactly why you think that is better than the alternative.
Meanwhile Keir Starmer, fearing that someone half way competent in a live TV debate will actually target the lies he’s been saying is now running away from debating seemingly anyone other than Rishi Sunak, already pulling out of a seven way debate scheduled for next week and facing being empty chaired, which is exactly what should be done to him, but will Sunak now weasel out as well? Check out this video recommendation for the details of that and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.