‘McDonnell’s works of fantasy’: Rishi Sunak’s best budget one-liners
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Version 0 of 1. Chancellor tries to raise a smile during speech overshadowed by threat of coronavirus It’s not quite a stand-up role, but traditionally during their speech the chancellor is expected to crack enough jokes to keep their side of the chamber laughing along with the budget minutiae. It was a tricky debut for Rishi Sunak, with the shadow of coronavirus-inspired economic damage hanging over his every word. Here’s how he tried to get MPs to crack a smile … Jobs miracles “Given the last few weeks I’ve had, I’m all in favour of jobs miracles,” said Sunak, referencing his sudden and unexpected ascension to the chancellorship last month. On the backbenches, Sajid Javid did not look amused. ‘Get on with it’ “Get on with it,” heckled someone from the Labour benches as Sunak burst into an almost evangelical call-and-response round of things he was intending to announce which ended with his shouting approximately 1,057 times: “This budget gets it done!” It went on to become a recurring pantomime-style refrain throughout proceedings. ‘The real workers’ party’ Echoing some of the campaign rhetoric around the Tory smash-and-grab of Labour’s “red wall” constituencies, Sunak revelled in announcing that workers on the minimum wage would be more than £5,000 a year better off than they were in 2010, and gleefully declared the Tories to be “the real workers’ party”. Red box tradition The chancellor wasn’t the only person holding up a traditional red box at Whitehall today. An Extinction Rebellion protester was also dressed up in parliamentary garb and brandishing an alternative budget box labelled “Treasure the Earth”. It had about as much chance of getting passed by parliament as that time the then Treasury Secretary, Danny Alexander, held up a yellow box with the alternative Liberal Democrat budget in it – when they were in government. ‘I can secure his legacy’ Having already made his joke about the jobs miracle, Sunak took the time to specifically thank his predecessor, while announcing some education spending that would have been close to Javid’s heart. Javid had a laugh getting his own personal “Saj, we’re getting it done” pantomime call, which provoked a thumbs up in response. ‘Works of fantasy’ Sunak saved his best for last, and the Tory benches were rocking when Sunak was announcing the abolition of VAT on digital publications. He declared that books would be free of VAT whether they were the historical fiction of Hilary Mantel, textbooks such as Gray’s Anatomy, or “works of fantasy, like John McDonnell’s Economics for the Many”. And, referring to the time McDonnell used a prop in the House of Commons while responding to one of George Osborne’s autumn statements, Sunak continued, “The irony is, it sold so few, it’s literally his own little-read book.” A tough gig With the opening section of his speech a sombre warning of how coronavirus was likely to tip the nation into temporary recession, shifting tone to make some jokes was a challenge. Still, at least the chancellor’s attempts at keeping us amused today were deliberate, unlike Michael Gove’s. |