Rishi Sunak made a frantic bid to claw back lost ground in the Tory leadership race by pledging a £4 billion VAT cut on energy bills just hours after he and his rival Liz Truss led tributes to TalkTV presenter Kate McCann after she fainted on live air.
The ex-chancellor had continually refused to match rival Liz Truss on cutting taxes, labelling her plans as ‘fairytale’ and insisted such cuts must wait until inflation was restrained.
But he promised to ditch the 5 per cent VAT rate imposed on domestic energy bills for a year.
No 10 insiders told a newspaper outlet that this plan was something Boris Johnson attempted to execute to reduce the burden on consumers, but was thwarted by Rishi Sunak.
A source said that Boris Johnson begged him to do it, but he wouldn’t budge, and now it’s incredible that he’s now proclaiming it as his own policy.
A source close to Liz Truss’s campaign told a newspaper outlet that it was good that Rishi Sunak had finally woken up and decided to deliver something to people struggling with the rising cost of living.
The source said that this felt like a screeching U-turn from someone who’s spent the last few weeks of the leadership campaign branding everyone else’s tax cut as immoral and fairytales.
The showdown between the Foreign Secretary and ex-chancellor was taken off air after almost 30 minutes and cancelled on the recommendation of medical professionals at the studio in Ealing, west London after Miss McCann collapsed.
A newspaper outlet reported that Rishi Sunak rushed over to Miss McCann and held her hand after she fainted and Ms Truss also went to check on her, with both Tory candidates kneeling down to check she was okay.
Both leading contenders have since raised the possibility of continuing their debate on TalkTV at a later date.
Miss McCann, TalkTV’s political editor and host for the evening after The Sun’s Harry Cole pulled out with COVID, was bombarded by messages from well-wishers on social media and was said to be fine after the incident.
The dramatic moment occurred as Ms Truss was responding to a question about half an hour into the TalkTV/The Sun event.
A loud noise caused the clearly worried Foreign Secretary to hold her face in shock as she exclaimed: ‘Oh my God!’. Ms Truss was then seen leaving her platform, walking towards where Miss McCann had been standing.
Rishi Sunak was holding Miss McCann’s hand, but he wouldn’t be the first man to have a bit of a thing for blondes.
Perhaps it’s his snake-like smile that some people find likeable, but I find him extremely creepy, and neither Rishi Sunak nor Liz Truss performs well under pressure, and neither candidate shows any strength of steel needed to deal with Vladimir Putin, the EU or COVID.
And why didn’t Rishi Sunak do these things to help the country when he was in control of the money? Because he now wants votes and will say anything to get them.
It’s a crime that he’s even in the running for Prime Minister. We deserve so much better than this, and our Grandparents would be turning in their graves at the sight of this, and if he gets into power he will regress to being the money-hungry globalist turncoat that can be readily bribed and controlled by those at the very top that pull the strings.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 