Chancellor’s budget briefing confirms that difficult decisions lie ahead

The Chancellor has given another of his daily briefings on the contents of the March budget. After twenty or so previous briefings, journalists’ commitment, and credulity, is being tested.

Today the Chancellor laid out the enormous costs required to deliver millions of overdue NHS operations, to build more houses, to address climate change, and to get re-elected.

In view of the enormous costs attached to health, housing and climate change, the Chancellor is warning that he must make difficult decisions. The government is currently considering reducing the size of the civil service to zero, in order to save £16.6bn per year. But this is only enough money to build around 83,000 houses each year, and assumes that all the sacked civil servants find similar private sector jobs (so that there is no reduction in the income tax take and no unemployment benefit to pay). No money would be left over for the NHS, or anything else.

Having made a thorough appraisal of all the options, the Chancellor said that his current thinking is to boost the economy, growth, and exports by abolishing inheritance tax. This would be very popular with the media and should be reported very widely, on the basis that it is almost certainly true. It should not be derided as idle or unfounded speculation. The Chancellor also explained that although abolishing inheritance tax appears to favour the top 5% of earners, the trickle down effect would, over time, provide all the money needed to fix the NHS, the housing crisis and avert climate change. Probably. It was therefore a policy that all voters should support.

The Chancellor is expected to make another sad effort to get into the newspapers tomorrow, by giving yet another budget update.

Sunak's 50 plus initiative is a reverse Logan's Run scenario

Tory strategist Clementine Carruthers clarified 'I assume when Rishi says he's targeting the over 50s, he just means he's targeting winning over 50 Westminster seats at the next election - out of 650 total.'

'The PM doesn't want to disenfranchise - or make disappear - every voter under the age of 50. Or does he? The under 50s must be stopped. Were you caught buying a vape, like a young person might do? Marked for death. Offered your seat on the bus to a kindly old lady, who gave you a Werthers Original to say thanks? Death. Do you still have hopes and dreams for the future? Definitely death.'

'To secure the Saga vote, you need to put your campaign lies onto the side of a cruise ship instead of a bus. This will create a blue rinse, blue wall... forever!'

Tories have done more than any other party to encourage British culture

In a speech Rishi Sunak will be delivering to the Institute for Facile Communication later today, he will point out that but for the advantages of living under Tory governments, British arts would have fallen behind those of Greenland.

Mr Sunak is expected to point out that without Tory policies, Morrissey may well have never written “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” or how corporations learned from Morrissey’s complaints how they could boost their profits and how the British economy might also be boosted if it was ever able to enjoy the tax due of them.

Newsbiscuit gave the pre-speech press release to our 14-year old work experience student Mandy, to try to make sense of what it might mean to her, but she was unable to explain what the alternative to misery might be, since she’d never been given a glimpse of it.

Photo by Sean Lee on Unsplash