By Abigail Pennson, our reasonable, plain-speaking middle-class columnist slightly to the right of Hitler
MOURN Britannia, for she is no more. The colossus which once bestrode the globe has been murdered, her country dead, its natives doomed. The murder weapon? Rishi Sunak’s budget.
Her corpse lies, violated, at Westminster. Its lifeblood of Boadicea, of Shakespeare, of Spitfires and Edward Elgar and Cheggers Plays Pop ebbed into the Thames. The fingerprints on the murder weapon? Rishi Sunak’s budget.
Once, like so many, I believed in Rishi. His independent wealth, his youthful hoodies, his humbling lack of stature. I believed that finally, after fifth columnist Phillip Hammond and Cuban coke connection Osborne, we had a chancellor we could be proud of.
But yesterday? When he had the golden opportunity to announce, finally, that the misguided post-war dream of the welfare state was over? When any sensible chancellor would have abolished all taxes and all public services and let Britain fly free?
Imagine. No more welfare-scrounging pensioners enjoying eternal life on our cash. No more NHS healing the weak. No more regulations stopping our businesses competing with Chinese child labour. Just unstoppable, unending success forever.
No National Insurance. No fuel duty. No income tax. No road tax. No capital gains tax. The money would flood in. We’d be stuffed to bursting with foreign cash.
I can’t have been the only one trembling on the edge of the sofa when Rishi stood up. It wasn’t just me thinking ‘this is it. This is when he announces net zero – for taxation.’ I won’t deny I was soaking wet downstairs.
Instead? Rishi the butcher pulled out his long knives and slaughtered this country. Like in the mid-90s martial arts film Butterfly and Sword starring Donnie Yen, we have already been hacked to pieces. The moment we take a step we will fall into bloody gobbets.
Sunak stabbed the Conservative party between the eyes and pulled out its wet brain. He disembowelled our world-leading City. He punched his bare fingers through the ribcage of our island’s proud history and squeezed its heart in his merciless fist.
The police report will read: ‘Cause of death? Murder. The murder weapon? A 1.25 per cent rise in National Insurance contributions.’
‘The killer? Still at large. But by God we’re going to catch him. And when we do? He’ll be hung, drawn and quartered at Old Palace Yard.’
