Labour’s latest Rishi Sunak attack ad lands on Tory-supporting website Conservative Home within hours
Labour has launched a new attack ad against Rishi Sunak – and it has ended up on the Tory-supporting Conservative Home website.
In the ad, which was launched as Labour visited the Conservative-held seat of Wellingborough ahead of the upcoming by-election there, the party claims the government had left working people with a “raw deal” because of hidden tax rises.
It claims that the benefit felt by cuts to national insurance, which will take effect from tomorrow, will be effectively cancelled out by the fact that frozen income tax and national insurance thresholds have drawn people into higher tax bands.
The poster was unveiled on a shopfront and ad van as Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves joined shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth in Wellingborough, where the former MP Peter Bone was ousted for breaching the MPs’ code of conduct.
The ad will also be published online and in regional newspapers across the country.
By Friday afternoon, the ad, which is presented in the style of a mock shopping deal advert, had already appeared on the Conservative Home website, which supports Mr Sunak’s party and is influential with grassroots Tory activists.
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Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced in the autumn statement that national insurance would be cut by two percentage points from 12% to 10% from 6 January – saving those on an average salary of £35,000 over £450 a year.
Mr Hunt also abolished NI payments for the self-employed, known as class two national insurance, to recognise the government “values their work”.
But Ms Reeves said that despite the changes in the autumn statement, “for every 10p that they have increased taxes on working people, they are only giving 2p back” – something she called a “drop in the ocean”.
She claimed the average family was paying £1,200 extra tax this year “because of choices by Rishi Sunak and this Conservative government”, adding: “Never have people paid so much in tax and got so little in return in the form of public services.”
The government’s policy is to keep income tax and national insurance thresholds frozen until 2028, meaning millions of workers will be pushed into higher tax bands because of inflation.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has so far refused to commit to unfreezing tax thresholds if his party wins the next general election – saying he won’t make promises he can’t keep – but that he does want to “lower the burden of working people”.
The Liberal Democrats have also highlighted the impact of frozen tax thresholds on the public, with its research suggesting that the combined impact of taxes, mortgage rises and food inflation could cost the average household more than £4,700.
Labour’s new attack comes as the main parties gear up for what is predicted to be a long and fractious campaign for the general election, which the prime minister has hinted will take place in the autumn of this year.
Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to a youth centre in Nottinghamshire on Thursday, Mr Sunak said his “working assumption” was that the country would have a general election “in the second half of this year”, adding: “And in the meantime I’ve got lots that I want to get on with.”
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Responding to Mr Sunak’s remarks which hinted at an autumn vote, Sir Keir accused the prime minister of “delaying” the inevitable and asked: “What is he hiding from the public?”
He told Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby that he would “like to see an election as soon as possible”, adding: “People can’t afford for the prime minister to be squatting for months on end this year.”
Deputy Conservative Party chairman Brendan Clarke-Smith said: “The Labour Party have admitted they won’t cut taxes – instead their £28bn unfunded spending will result in thousands of pounds of tax rises for the British people.
“Tomorrow we will deliver the biggest tax cut to National Insurance in modern history for 27 million workers, before we go further and cut taxes for the self-employed because of the long-term decisions we have taken to have inflation and strengthen the economy.”
Shuttered crypto exchange Garantex is reportedly back under a new name after laundering millions in ruble-backed stablecoins and sending them to a freshly created exchange, according to a Swiss blockchain analytics company.
Global Ledger claims the operators of the Russian exchange have shifted liquidity and customer deposits to Grinex, which they say is “Garantex’s full-fledged successor,” in a report released to X on March 19.
“We can confidently state that Grinex and Garantex are directly connected both onchain and offchain.”
“The movement of funds, including the systematic transfer of A7A5 liquidity, the use of one-time-use wallets, and the involvement of addresses previously associated with Garantex, provides clear onchain proof of their link,” the Global Ledger team said in the report.
After completing its investigation on March 13, Global Ledger says it had found onchain data showing Garantex laundered over $60 million worth of ruble-backed stablecoins called A7A5 and sent them to addresses associated with Grinex.
Global Ledger claims Garantex has moved all its funds over to a newly launched exchange and is back in business. Source: Global Ledger
“In this case, the burning and subsequent minting process was used to launder funds from Garantex, allowing new coins to be minted from a system address with a clean history,” the team said.
A Garantex manager also reportedly told Global Ledger that customers have been visiting the exchange office in person and moving funds from Garantex to Grinex.
“Additionally, offchain indicators, such as transactional patterns, commentaries and exchange behaviors, further reinforce this connection,” it said.
The report also points to a description of Grinex on the Russian crypto tracking site CoinMarketRating, claiming that the owners of Garantex created it. The reports said this shows “Grinex is not an independent entity but rather a full-fledged successor to Garantex, continuing its financial operations despite the exchange’s official shutdown.”
Source: Global Ledger
By March 14, the volume of incoming transactions on Grinex was nearly $30 million, according to Global Ledger. CoinMarketRating shows that the trade volume for the month is now over $68 million, with spot trading topping $2 million.
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control first hit Garantex with sanctions in April 2022 for allegedly money laundering violations.
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On March 6, the US Department of Justice collaborated with authorities in Germany and Finland to freeze domains associated with Garantex, which they claim processed over $96 billion worth of criminal proceeds since launching in 2019.
Stablecoin operator Tether also froze $27 million in Tether (USDT), on March 6 which forced Garantex to halt all operations, including withdrawals.
Only a few days later, on March 12, officials with India’s Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Aleksej Bešciokov, who allegedly operated Garantex, on US charges that included conspiracy to commit money laundering.
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Ministers are drawing up plans restricting foreign donors from giving unlimited funds to UK political parties, Sky News understands.
Currently, political parties can accept donations from any company registered in the UK – and foreign donors can and have used these companies to make indirect contributions.
The rules allow for British companies to be used in this way even if they don’t make any money at all.
However, Sky News understands that officials are currently looking at restricting donations based on how much money a company makes – either using a profit or a share of revenue to calculate a potential cap for the amount each UK business can give.
The government says this is in line with its manifesto pledge to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties”.
Senior government sources have told Sky News these changes are partially about Elon Musk.
Officials are said to be anxious about the rumoured donation of $100m (about £80m) that Musk has suggested he would make to Reform UK.
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Nigel Farage says ‘Musk is going to support Reform’
The government’s thinking is that the tech billionaire is likely to do this just before the next election, and they hope they can pass their Elections Bill – the legislation through which the donation loophole would be closed – through parliament before that happens.
The bill would enter parliament in the next session, but ministers have told MPs that they should expect an update to these plans within months.
Musk’s donation would be an astronomical amount in the context of British politics.
The sum would trump all political donations that have been made to any political party this year – and would inevitably make a big impact on campaigning.
Elon Musk is not on the electoral register and the British arm of his company X – X.AI London Limited – has not yet made any money.
Under the proposed changes, this avenue of donating money to Reform UK would not be possible.
Reform UK’s total received donations for 2024 would be considerably higher with £80m from Elon Musk
A government source said this is just one of the options on the table, adding that another change they are considering will mean enhanced due diligence checks on donations from unincorporated associations.
In exclusive polling, Sky News has found that any money given to parties by foreign donors is incredibly unpopular.
A total of 77% of respondents thought foreign nationals who are not registered to vote in the UK should not be allowed to donate to political parties, while only 7% thought they should be.
Even looking specifically at Reform UK voters, who would likely benefit from an Elon Musk donation, the percentage is roughly the same: 73% said they shouldn’t donate to British politics at all, while 7% said they should.
A total of 77% of respondents said foreign nationals should not be allowed to donate to UK political parties
There is a lot of cash swirling all around Westminster and foreign money can and does enter UK politics.
Transparency International found almost £1 in every £10 donated to parties and politicians came from unknown or dubious sources between 2001 and 2024.
Whatever the motivation, these changes could bring greater transparency to what’s behind any murky money swirling into Westminster.
Crypto regulations must be enacted through an act of Congress to become permanent and meaningful pieces of legislation, according to former Congressman Wiley Nickel.
In an exclusive video interview with Cointelegraph’s Turner Wright, Nickel urged bipartisan collaboration to push through comprehensive crypto regulations. The former Congressman added:
“I think it’s really important for anybody who cares about this issue to step back and realize that if you want lasting change in Washington, you must move legislation through Congress. Otherwise, if you’re talking about executive orders, it will just go back and forth.”
“You don’t want to have the mess that we saw just months ago with Gary Gensler’s SEC — you need to get legislation through Congress,” Nickel reiterated.
President Trump’s Jan. 23 executive order establishing the Working Group on Digital Assets, which also prohibited the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and the order establishing a Bitcoin strategic reserve alongside a separate crypto stockpile, were both examples of executive actions that can be reversed at a later date.
Former Congressman Wiley Nickel is pictured sitting second from the left at the Blockworks Digital Asset Summit. Source: Cointelegraph
Related: Congress on track for stablecoin, market structure bills by August: Blockchain Association
Both chambers of Congress rush to push through meaningful legislation
Rep. Tom Emmer, the majority whip of the United States House of Representatives, reintroduced legislation banning a CBDC in the US on March 6.
Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis also reintroduced the Bitcoin Act in March, which builds upon an earlier bill of the same title but allows the US to purchase more than 1 million Bitcoin (BTC).
Senator Lummis’ Bitcoin Act of 2025. Source: Senator Cynthia Lummis
Rep. Byron Donalds recently announced that he would draft legislation to codify the Bitcoin strategic reserve into law — shielding President Trump’s original executive order from being overturned by a future administration.
On March 12, the House of Representatives repealed the IRS broker rule requiring decentralized finance platforms to report information to the Internal Revenue Service in a 292-131 vote.
Speaking at this year’s Blockworks Digital Asset Summit, Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna said that Congress should be able to pass comprehensive crypto regulation in 2025, including a stablecoin bill and a market structure bill.
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