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ROD LIDDLE
Vote Labour and tax rises will cost you BIG time… Keir didn’t even deny it in the debate because it is true
After a cost-of-living crisis has left so many of us desperately hard up, why make our lives even more difficult?
DID you see the debate? Or were you watching Into The Amazon With Robson Green instead?
Come on, be honest.
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Or maybe it was that ludicrous programme about competitive sewing on BBC One.
Why would anybody want to watch people sewing? Are you all mad?
I watched the debate — and yeah, OK, I’ve had more exciting evenings.
Like when the mother-in-law comes over and we play Scrabble.
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Sunak versus Starmer? It doesn’t fill one’s heart with hope, does it?
The stoppable force versus the very moveable object. But nonetheless, I made it a very clear victory for Rishi.
I marked it as 9-3 to the PM. He had at least showed a bit of passion.
Starmer just stood there seething like a five-year-old who has just been told there’s broccoli for tea. All pent-up rage and snippiness.
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Where Sir Keir had a point was over Sunak’s refusal to admit to serious Conservative mistakes in the last 14 years.
All the missed chances to battle immigration. The underfunding of the police and defence. The chaos caused by Liz Truss.
Heated leaders' debate as Sunak says Labour will tax everyone £2,000
But that was about it. Because when it came to what Starmer could actually offer to the country, there was an acre of silence.
He got angry when Sunak pointed out, repeatedly, that Labour planned new taxes which would cost every family in the country two thousand quid a year.
Yes, he growled and snarled a bit. But he didn’t exactly hurry to deny it, did he?
I suspect the reason he was so slow to deny it is because it is true.
And to be honest, I suspect that two thousand quid is probably a large under-statement.
Because the thing that REALLY came out of that debate is this: Labour will cost you. It will cost you BIG TIME.
And there was no denial from Starmer over that. None whatsoever.
At one stage, he actually said: “We will raise specific taxes.”
It will cost you, no matter how much you earn.
Bit of honesty
It will cost you in various weird green stuff — when they tax your car, because it doesn’t run on organic pixie juice, or make you buy a new boiler.
It will cost you if you’ve saved up and sent your kid to a private school.
Or if you own your own house and want to sell it. Labour will cost you.
Now, there’s a good case for raising taxes. I don’t doubt that.
But Labour haven’t made that case.
They keep schtum on the whole subject for fear of upsetting the voters.
A bit of honesty wouldn’t be amiss.
And the other side of the argument is that the very last thing our economy needs right now is more taxation.
After a cost-of-living crisis has left so many of us desperately hard up, why make our lives even more difficult?
Do you know, halfway through me writing this, the local Labour team knocked at my door canvassing for support.
It was a really good bloke who I voted for in the council elections recently. We chatted about the debate.
He was angry about the £2,000 charge levelled at his leader by Sunak. Said it was dodgy.
“But you ARE going to put up taxes, aren’t you?” I asked him.
“Of course we bloody are!” he replied. “But that’s not the point.”
You know, mate, I think you’ll find it is exactly the point.
NIGE TO SHAKE ’EM UP
THE entrance of Nigel Farage, grinning as ever, into this election is a game-changer.
The timing of the election took Reform by surprise. And it looked as if Farage was going to watch from a distance.
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Now he has galvanised the party – and is laughing off being splattered with milkshake by a heckler on Tuesday.
If Rishi Sunak’s poll ratings don’t improve drastically, Reform could scupper the Tories’ chances in scores of seats.
And it will serve them right.
NEARLY half of the people who were planning to go on holiday to Majorca are thinking again, according to a new poll.
That’s because they’re being scared off by the anti-tourism protesters on the island.
There have been plenty of demos recently.
I think the Majorcans had better watch out. They might get what they want. A nice, sunny, island absolutely devoid of the means by which the locals make their money.
They’ll be back to catching sardines and kicking donkeys.
ALL GONE TO SEED
SPERM produced by men who work from home can’t be ar*ed to do anything, researchers have discovered.
At first they thought WFH might result in lower sperm counts.
Nope, the same number are produced – but they are lazy bastards.
Instead of swimming around and getting in shape for the great egg-penetration race, they just lounge around.
With a can of lager while watching Supermarket Sweep.
I suppose the one benefit is that when your girlfriend insists you wear protection during sex, you can reply: “No need to worry, love – I work from home.”
THINKING of having a new energy smart meter installed? Latest figures suggest 3.9million of them do not work properly.
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And it can take up to six months to get them sorted out.
Which takes me straight back to that smart-meter ad campaign.
If Albert Einstein knew those were the figures, do you think for a nanosecond that he’d have had a smart meter installed?
We must prepare for another D-Day
THE Allied landings at Normandy were heroic. And they were the beginning of the end for Hitler.
But as we remember them this week – and the fallen, now honoured by silhouette statues, at the British Normandy Memorial in France – we must also look to the future.
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We may need another D-Day not many years from now.
And at the moment our military is simply unequipped for the job. Just 75,000 serving soldiers, for example.
This is one of the most dangerous times since the end of World War Two.
Whoever wins the upcoming election, defence must be a priority.
COMETH THE DAY, GARETH
WELL, at least there’s one thing to look forward to.
We may face weeks of being harangued by desperate politicians after our votes but soon we can retreat into the excitement of the Euros.
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England has never had a better chance of winning a serious trophy since 1970.
But we said that last time. And the time before that. For some reason, Gareth Southgate finds it hard to deliver in major tournaments.
I’m not a fan of the bloke, as a manager. But boy, is this country crying out for something to be cheerful about.
So good luck, Gareth. You have an awful lot of goodwill riding with you.
KEIR STARMER used the phrase twice, if not three times, in the big TV debate.
And I hear it every day from some idiot wishing to make a point.
I mean the hugely annoying expression, “It’s in my DNA”. It must be the most overused cliché in the book.
And just because you’ve told us that the NHS is in your DNA, Keir, it doesn’t mean we trust you with it.
GO FOR IT DOMINIC
CHILLING news emerges that the Lib Dems might increase their number of MPs FOURFOLD!
God help us. You think Labour and the Tories are bad?
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Just listen to the Lib Dem front bench insisting we can have an energy policy based on harvesting unicorn tears, or something. Makes the Labour Left look sane.
Me, I hope they come out of the election with just one MP. And that the one MP is Dominic Dyer, who is standing in Buckingham and Bletchley.
Lib Dem he may be, but he has spent his life campaigning on animal welfare issues.
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He’s done a lot of good in this world.
Go, for it, mate.
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