TORIES SLAM CHANCELLOR’S £500 BUDGET CLAIM AS ‘COMPLETE NONSENSE’

THE Conservatives have slammed the Chancellor’s claim that people will be £500 better off due to Labour’s budget measures as “complete nonsense”.

Shadow Minister Alex Burghart told GB News: “No one is going to be better off as a consequence of the spring statement…it’s complete nonsense.

“This figure, I think it’s been plucked out of page 36 of the report, which says, if everything goes right by the end of the parliament, by the end of the decade, some people will be a few hundred pounds a month better off.

“A few hundred pounds a year better off, but it doesn’t take account of the fact that as of next week, everybody’s energy prices are going up, everybody’s water bills are going up, train fares are going up, and a lot of people are going to lose their jobs because of National Insurance contribution changes. So it’s just poppycock.

“The Labour Party inherited the fastest growing economy in the G7 and because of the bad choices that Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer made last year, the economy is now in a bad way.

“The economy started contracting, and that’s even before we get to next month when these disastrous taxes on businesses come in, taxes on jobs come in, that will mean people aren’t hiring.

“People aren’t going to set up businesses. Some businesses are going to go to the wall, and some people are going to lose their jobs.

“You can’t have a growing economy if you put too much pressure on business. It’s the private sector that grows the economy. No other part of nothing else does it. And the Labour Party doesn’t get that.”

Asked if this meant that the Tories were going to have a good result at the local elections, he said: “No…we had a very good local elections four years ago, 2021, the vaccine bounce, and we had a very unusually good showing.

“We expect to slip back from that position, we’ve obviously got pressure from Reform as well. We’re realistic about the local elections, but we’ll be taking our message and our argument to the voting public every single day until that point.

“Let’s see how Reform do. They have not been doing as well in the local council by-elections over the past few months, compared to their positions in the polls. So let’s see how they actually do in a proper campaign.

“My colleagues, we are out to get every single vote we can. I was out campaigning yesterday and the day before, I be going out again on Monday, once I’ve got Mothering Sunday out of the way, we’ll be making the case for the Conservatives.”