LAUNCHING the Tory Party manifesto yesterday, Rishi Sunak attacked the sick and disabled, refugees and youth, boosted wealthy landlords, and banged the war drums against Russia.
He pledged another 2% cut in National Insurance contributions. This will be paid for by the recently announced cuts in benefits for the sick and disabled.
Sunak promised a Conservative government’s ‘transformational’ policies would boost home ownership.
Exhorting ‘a property owning democracy’ he said the Tories would ‘abolish Stamp Duty forever’ and landlords would also not have to pay tax on profits when selling to tenants.
He said his party would continue indefinitely the existing £425,000 threshold before first-time buyers have to pay Stamp Duty tax on purchases.
This threshold, which applies in England and Northern Ireland, was raised in 2022 and is currently due to end in March next year.
Citing ‘challenges’, including Covid and the spike in energy prices following Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, Sunak said Conservatives know ‘security is essential for success’ and says there will be a rise in defence investment to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 to deal with the ‘increasingly uncertain world we live in’.
This will be the biggest sustained increase in the defence budget since the end of the Cold War, boasted Sunak, claiming this is one that Labour will ‘not match’.
Continuing the war on asylum seekers, he said flights to Rwanda will leave in July.
Sunak also said he’ll cut funding to so-called ‘rip-off degrees’ and use that to pay for 100,000 high-quality apprenticeships.
He claimed introducing military National Service for youth will help build a more cohesive society ‘so we can be sure we are on the same side.’ This plan is to call-up 18-year-olds take part in armed forces National Service if the party wins the general election on 4th July.
