Category Archives: spring statement

Rishi Sunak Confronted On Live Radio By Mother Who Cannot Afford To Heat Home

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A single mother-of-two has confronted Rishi Sunak about how she cannot afford to heat her home despite taking on two extra jobs and reducing her grocery bill to £15 a week.

On LBC Radio, Hezel tackled the chancellor – on the day of his spring statement – about the “intense strain” rising costs had put on her ability to provide for her children, despite “on paper” having what is considered a good salary.

She said a government grants are not “going to cut it” as she asked Sunak “what else you suggest I can be doing to help myself”.

Experts – including consumer champion Martin Lewis – have said measures in Sunak’s financial update will do not go far enough in alleviate the squeeze on households.

The caller said: “The significant increase in our energy bills has meant that we don’t have the boiler on.

“The lights are always off unless absolutely necessary and when it’s cold, we wear jumpers and coats and sometimes you can see our breaths when we breathe.

“Now, despite working a full-time job I’m having to find ways to bridge the gap. I’ve started cleaning houses and I spend every evening riding a bike delivering Uber Eats.

“I’ve managed to cut my grocery shop down to just £15 a week for an adult and two children, and I often go without myself to make sure the kids get what they need and they’re fed.”

Sunak replied that he “cannot imagine how difficult” her job was, as he has a “wife and other help”, adding that he pays tribute to her for “working your socks off to look after them”.

He pointed to the energy bill rebate and higher national insurance threshold that will give a tax cut in July, although it will only offset a tax rise due in April.

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Martin Lewis On Rishi Sunak Tackling The Cost Of Living Crisis: ‘Nowhere Near Enough’

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Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis has said Rishi Sunak’s spring statement announcements to help tackle the cost of living crisis were “nowhere near enough”.

On Wednesday, the chancellor brought fuel duty down by 5p until next March, raised the national insurance contribution thresholds to remove more low-paid workers from paying it, and took a penny off the basic rate of income tax by 2024.

But the founder of moneysavingexpert.com, speaking to Sky News, made clear there was very little to help with soaring household bills.

Lewis said the national insurance change would have a limited impact on people claiming Universal Credit. and extra cash for a “starving or freezing” fund would only help those in the most extreme circumstances.

Lewis said: “The chancellor has done more than I expected him to do but still nowhere near enough.

“We are still standing on a personal finance precipice in the UK.

“The chancellor is now the only person who can pull us back from that and I don’t think what we saw today is enough to do it.”

Lewis pointed to a “very dangerous time” where typical households will see their energy bills in October go up by £1,300 compared to the same time a year earlier.

“There is nothing close in this budget to covering that amount of money,” he said.

The consumer journalist said the country was reaching the point where people were “heating the human not heating the home”. He explained: “Don’t turn your central heating on, sit in a sleeping back. This is not advice, this is the tangible situation people are putting themselves in. Whether you have to get an electric blanket to get the heat you need, then leave the house to be cold. That is a tactic I am seeing people doing. Stark, isn’t it?”

He added in a message to Sunak: “Chancellor, you are the only person who can help.”

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Is Rishi Sunak Trying To Meme His Way To No. 10?

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In what has now become tradition, Rishi Sunak’s team has published a series of pre-financial update pictures featuring the chancellor that were immediately seized upon on social media.

Ahead of reveling how he’ll push taxpayers’ money around (it’s called the spring statement but is a budget in all but name), the image-conscious politician was variously pictured preparing his speech and looking relaxed as he held forth to aides.

Wednesday’s address is set against a difficult backdrop. Sunak is trying to square the circle between burnishing his low-tax Conservative credentials with one eye on the Tory leadership, and actually raising taxes to pay for pandemic policies and NHS promises. There’s also pressure to provide relief from the rising cost of living and added strains from the war in Ukraine.

While crunching the numbers is Sunak’s prioriry, so-called optics matter too. One picture stood out from the set:

We can assume the A4 sheets of paper laid out in two neat rows represent the latest version of the speech Sunak will deliver to the Commons. It’s a bit like a footballer carefully positioning their kit in the changing room ahead of the big match.

Anyway, Twitter was ready to do what Twitter does.

It was pretty easy to photoshop

It had a certain posed energy

There were echoes of a gameshow classic

Two gameshows, in fact

These were some of the other pictures of the chilled-out chancellor

SIMON WALKER HM TREASURY

SIMON WALKER HM TREASURY

And the article he’s reading in one of the photos seems fascinating

It’s very much not the first time Sunak has been instantly memed.

On the eve of the budget in October, the Treasury published another series of photographs of the chancellor preparing for the big day.

The pictures included one of a Twix bar and a can of Sprite, and another with his dog Nova. The most commented on image had Sunak standing next to an adviser while sporting socks and £95 Palm Angels’ sliders.

And on the eve of his summer 2021 statement to parliament, the chancellor was pictured with a £180 “supermug”.

On his desk was the Ember Travel Mug, reportedly a gift from his wife, Akshata Murthy, the daughter of a billionaire businessman, which retailed for up to £179.95 online.

<img class="img-sized__img landscape" loading="lazy" alt="Sunak and the Ember Travel Mug.” width=”720″ height=”494″ src=”https://www.wellnessmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/is-rishi-sunak-trying-to-meme-his-way-to-no-10-6.jpg”>
Sunak and the Ember Travel Mug.

HM Treasury

One less successful piece of stage management saw Sunak on the stairs of No. 11, alongside other members of his Treasury team.

The oddly-framed picture brought to mind films including Titanic and The Shining, as many pointed to chairs being photoshopped out of the shot.

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