Budget day blow as analysis finds Tories squandered £125billion in 5 years

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Jeremy Hunt is set to deliver his budget speech on Wednesday (Image: PA)
Jeremy Hunt is set to deliver his budget speech on Wednesday (Image: PA)

The Tories have squandered more than £125billion of taxpayers’ cash since the 2019 election, new analysis has found.

The figure has grown by a staggering £25billion since last November - with almost all of it blown while Rishi Sunak was either Chancellor or Prime Minister.

The eye-watering increase, tallied up by campaign group Best for Britain, is more than half of annual UK military spending and would have been enough to almost double the number of British army soldiers since 2019.

Darren Jones, Labour ’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury said: “It is astounding how much money the Tories manage to waste while our public services are on their knees and families are having to cut back more than ever.

“Over 14 years, the Tories have demonstrated time and again that they are totally incapable of managing the country’s finances.”

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The analysis separates questionable spending into ‘outrageous outgoings’, ‘duff deals’ and ‘crony contracts’ - handed to firms with links to ministers, MPs or Tory Donors.

Updates in the first category includes £1.6 million handed out in bonuses to Post Office Executives after the Horizon scandal was known. It also includes the £7,897 cost of the party Boris Johnson threw to celebrate “ Brexit day”.

‘Duff deals’ includes the £5.3 billion cost to the nation of the asylum backlog, keeping people fleeing danger in unsuitable accommodation rather than allowing them to rebuild their lives, work and pay tax.

And it counts the £61.3million subsidy from the government in 2020 to reduce the cost to the consumer of Tesla cars. Tesla is owned by Elon Musk, who is among the richest men in the world.

The most recent entry under ‘crony contracts’ is around £55.7 million in deals for Infosys, a firm partly owned by the Prime Minister’s wife.

Naomi Smith, CEO of Best for Britain and founder of tactical voting site GetVoting.org said: “People are struggling to pay bills and are forced to wait hours for an ambulance, weeks to see a GP and months for an operation, so voters are rightly sick to their stomach at the scale of this squander and sick to the back teeth of the Government responsible.

“Every day the Tories squat in Number 10 is more taxpayer money down the drain. We need a General Election now and we need people to vote tactically for change.”

Mr Jones added: “This fiscally incompetent and morally vacant Tory Government has to go. It's time for an election and a new Labour Government that will treat every pound of taxpayers’ money with care.”

Mikey Smith

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