Rishi Sunak: ‘I am not blind to the fact people are frustrated with me’
Rishi Sunak said he is not “blind to the fact people are frustrated with me” as he unveiled a £17bn package of tax cuts in the Conservative manifesto.
The prime minister admitted he has “not got everything right” as he set out “big ideas” to turn around his faltering campaign.
Having called the election amid a 20-point poll deficit, things became worse for Mr Sunak when he left an international D-day event early last week – sparking such a furore he was forced quash rumours he considered resigning.
Election latest: Tory manifesto launch
Mr Sunak’s headline offering to voters includes a further 2p cut to national insurance (NI) and the so-called “triple lock plus” for pensioners – which will create a new “age-related” tax-free allowance.
He also wants to cut taxes to support the self-employed by abolishing the main rate of self-employed national insurance entirely by the end of the next parliament.
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PM launches party manifesto
In a bid to boost home ownership, he has also set a new target of building 1.6 million new homes, promised to abolish stamp duty on properties up to a value of £425,000 for first-time buyers, capital gains tax relief for landlords who sell to their existing tenants and a new Help to Buy scheme.
Pic: PA
For young people, the manifesto includes previously announced plans for mandatory national service, banning the use of mobile phones during the school day and scrapping A-Levels in place of a new system, the Advanced British Standard.
“Now is the time for bold action, not the uncertain Keir Starmer as prime minister”, Mr Sunak said.
In a nod to polls suggesting the Tories are heading for an electoral wipeout, the prime minister said he is not “blind to the fact that people are frustrated with our party and frustrated with me”.
He admitted “we have not got everything right” but claimed the Conservatives are the only party “with the big ideas to make our country a better place to live”.
“We will keep cutting taxes in the coming years meaning by 2027 we will have halved national insurance to 6%, that is a tax cut my friends of £1300 to the average worker,” Mr Sunak said.
Migration caps and tougher sentencing
In his launch speech, he also committed to “halve migration as we have halved inflation and then reduce it every single year”.
The plans on how to achieve this were thin on detail, but Mr Sunak said he will introduce a cap that means MPs will be able to vote every year on how many people can come into the country.
On law and order, pledges include a 25-year prison term for domestic murders, a review of homicide sentencing and a ban on protests outside schools.
Other policies in the manifesto include:
• Moving the threshold to pay high income child benefit charge for single-earner families to £120,000, up from £60,000 currently
• A guarantee not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT
• A workplace pension guarantee to not introduce any new taxes on pensions or increase existing ones for the whole of the next parliament
• A commitment not to change the number of council tax bands, undertake a council tax revaluation or cut council tax discounts
• An ambition to abolish national insurance when financially responsible to do so
• A “binding, legal cap” on work and family visas which would “fall every year of the next parliament and cannot be breached”
• A requirement for migrants to undergo a health check in advance of coming to the UK – with the prospect of paying a higher rate of the immigration health surcharge or forcing them to purchase insurance if they are “likely to be a burden on the NHS”
Pic: Reuters
PM denies manifesto ‘last chance saloon’
In total, the package of giveaways would amount to a £17.2bn annual cost to the Exchequer by 2029-30.
The Tories say they will pay for the measures by reforming the welfare system to make savings of about £12bn.
The other £5bn will come from cutting the civil service and saving on consultancy.
The 2p cut to NI is the third reduction promised by the Tories as part of a drive to eliminate the tax altogether.
The party reduced employees’ national insurance from 10% to 8% at the March budget, following a similar cut in autumn 2023, at an annual cost of almost £10bn by 2028/29.
But critics have pointed out that this followed the tax burden reaching the highest level since the Second World War under the Conservatives’ watch, with frozen income tax thresholds previously announced by Mr Sunak dragging people into higher tax bands.
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Election: Sky’s Beth Rigby asks if PM has ‘blown it’ with voters on tax
Pressed on why anyone should believe his promise to cut taxes, the prime minister said he previously had to make difficult decisions because of the COVID pandemic and energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine.
He denied the manifesto was a “last chance saloon”, claiming he took the job as prime minister under challenging circumstances but the country had “turned a corner” and “it is right to talk about the future”.
Asked by Sky News political editor Beth Rigby if he had blown it no matter what he says, he said: “The only poll that matters is the poll on July 4th.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the money was not there to pay for the prime minister’s pledges, warning it was a “recipe for five more years of chaos” under the Conservatives.
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Woman’s body found in car boot in east London – as murder investigation launched by two police forces
UK
Police investigating criminal offence after Daily Telegraph columnist ‘dumbfounded’ by social media post probe
Essex Police say they are investigating an alleged criminal offence of inciting racial hatred, after Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson said she was “dumbfounded and upset” when officers knocked on her door last Sunday.
Ms Pearson revealed she was told she was being investigated over a year-old deleted post online.
She said she wasn’t informed which post had been reported, but suggested it could have been related to the 7 October attacks in Israel or pro-Palestine marches.
She claimed the officers told her she was being investigated for a NCHI (a none crime hate incident) an incident involving an act which is perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards persons with a particular characteristic, but is not illegal.
NCHI reports have long been controversial, with many citing free speech concerns, and Ms Pearson’s account of the police visit has led to widespread support from Conservatives and online commentators, including Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
But an Essex Police spokesperson has told Sky News its investigation was never for an NCHI, and that the matter was always being treated as an investigation into an alleged criminal offence of inciting racial hatred.
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Speaking on her Planet Normal podcast on Wednesday, Ms Pearson said she found the visit “chilling”.
“I was dumbfounded, upset, it’s not very nice,” she said. “I was in my dressing gown on the step of the house, these two coppers were there just outside the door.
“There were people gathering for the Remembrance Day parade so there were people watching from the other side of the road.
“Whatever I did or didn’t tweet, if somebody found it offensive, that to me is still not a reason for two policemen to come to my house on a Sunday morning.
“You know, they don’t do that for burglars, do they? We know policing is under-resourced and they are unable to attend often quite serious crimes.
“This was the most extraordinary overreach and state intrusion into my private life and I don’t think I did anything wrong and I think their response was outrageous.”
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In a statement, Essex Police said: “Officers attended an address in Essex and invited a woman to come to a voluntary interview.
“They said it related to an investigation into an alleged offence of inciting racial hatred, linked to a post on social media.
“For clarity: a complaint of a possible criminal offence was made to the police and this is why we called; to arrange an interview.
“Everyone was polite and professional throughout the brief conversation.”
They said an officer told Ms Pearson: “It’s gone down as an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online. That would be the offence.”
Essex Police say they have complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) over what they call “false reporting” regarding the ongoing investigation.
In an interview with The Telegraph published yesterday, Kemi Badenoch said police visiting a journalist over a social media post was “absolutely wrong” and that “we need to look at the laws around non-crime hate incidents”.
“There has been a long-running problem with people not taking free speech seriously,” she said.
She challenged the prime minister to review the laws, saying: “Keir Starmer says he is someone who believes in these things. Now he needs to actually show that he does believe it. All we’ve seen from him is the opposite.”
Ms Badenoch added: “We need to stop this behaviour of people wasting police time on trivial incidents because they don’t like something, as if they’re in a nursery.
“It’s like children reporting each other. And I think that in certain cases, the police do it because they’re afraid that if they don’t do it, they will also be accused of not taking these issues seriously.”
Essex Police said the officers went to the address to invite Ms Pearson to attend a voluntary interview as part of their investigation, which was passed to them by another force.
“The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed,” the statement read.
“An investigation is now being carried out under Section 17 of the Public Order Act.”
Essex Police also said they made attempts to contact Ms Pearson before the visit.
Other prominent Conservative voices such as Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Chris Philp have also leapt to Ms Pearson’s defence online, as has X owner Elon Musk, who quoted a post about the incident and said: “This needs to stop.”
Police commentator Graham Wettone told Sky News the police are “duty bound to investigate allegations of crime”.
“They’ve had an allegation of crime made there,” he said. “They will investigate it. If at the end of this they decide that no criminal offence has been committed – and we’re not at that stage yet – then it can still be recorded as a none crime hate incident.”
The police, he said, are duty bound to keep a record of none crime hate incidents.
“Parliament said they want the police to do this, to investigate and record incidents like this. So they are doing exactly what parliament and society asked them to do, and they are getting criticism for doing what people want.”
UK
Sir Keir Starmer vows to defend budget decisions ‘all day long’ as farmers slam ‘disrespectful’ PM
Sir Keir Starmer has said he will defend the decisions made in the budget “all day long” amid anger from farmers over inheritance tax changes.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last month in her key speech that from April 2026, farms worth more than £1m will face an inheritance tax rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40% applied to other land and property.
The announcement has sparked anger among farmers who argue this will mean higher food prices, lower food production and having to sell off land to pay for the tax.
Sir Keir defended the budget as he gave his first speech as prime minister at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales, where farmers have been holding a tractor protest outside.
Sir Keir admitted: “We’ve taken some extremely tough decisions on tax.”
He said: “I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality. I will defend the tough decisions that were necessary to stabilise our economy.
“And I will defend protecting the payslips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy, and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales. Finally, turning the page on austerity once and for all.”
He also said the budget allocation for Wales was a “record figure” – some £21bn for next year – an extra £1.7bn through the Barnett Formula, as he hailed a “path of change” with Labour governments in Wales and Westminster.
And he confirmed a £160m investment zone in Wrexham and Flintshire will be going live in 2025.
‘PM should have addressed the protesters’
Among the hundreds of farmers demonstrating was Gareth Wyn Jones, who told Sky News it was “disrespectful” that the prime minister did not mention farmers in his speech.
He said “so many people have come here to air their frustrations. He (Starmer) had an opportunity to address the crowd. Even if he was booed he should have been man enough to come out and talk to the people”.
He said farmers planned to deliver Sir Keir a letter which begins with “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.
Farmers’ tractor protest outside the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales
Mr Wyn Jones told Sky News the government was “destroying” an industry that was already struggling.
“They’re destroying an industry that’s already on its knees and struggling, absolutely struggling, mentally, emotionally and physically. We need government support not more hindrance so we can produce food to feed the nation.”
He said inheritance tax changes will result in farmers increasing the price of food: “The poorer people in society aren’t going to be able to afford good, healthy, nutritious British food, so we have to push this to government for them to understand that enough is enough, the farmers can’t take any more of what they’re throwing at us.”
Mr Wyn Jones disputed the government’s estimation that only 500 farming estates in the UK will be affected by the inheritance tax changes.
“Look, a lot of farmers in this country are in their 70s and 80s, they haven’t handed their farms down because that’s the way it’s always been, they’ve always known there was never going to be inheritance tax.”
On Friday, Sir Keir addressed farmers’ concerns, saying: “I know some farmers are anxious about the inheritance tax rules that we brought in two weeks ago.
“What I would say about that is, once you add the £1m for the farmland to the £1m that is exempt for your spouse, for most couples with a farm wanting to hand on to their children, it’s £3m before anybody pays a penny in inheritance tax.”
Read more:
Ex-Labour adviser suggests doing to farms ‘what Thatcher did to coal mines’
Farmers ‘could block ports and disrupt food supply’
Welsh farmer Gareth Wyn Jones
Ministers said the move will not affect small farms and is aimed at targeting wealthy landowners who buy up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.
But analysis this week said a typical family farm would have to put 159% of annual profits into paying the new inheritance tax every year for a decade and could have to sell 20% of their land.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The Country and Land Business Association (CLA), which represents owners of rural land, property and businesses in England and Wales, found a typical 200-acre farm owned by one person with an expected profit of £27,300 would face a £435,000 inheritance tax bill.
The plan says families can spread the inheritance tax payments over 10 years, but the CLA found this would require an average farm to allocate 159% of its profits each year for a decade.
To pay that, successors could be forced to sell 20% of their land, the analysis found.
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