LONDON
(Labour Buzz) - It’s sleaze, sleaze, sleaze with the Conservatives as Starmer roasts Boris offer dodgy texts and dodgy deals.
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It’s been an exciting week for the leaders with both getting down and dirty with the great unwashed. Boris had found out about the concept of association football, while Starmer had enjoyed his first pub fight. What would they find to talk about today?
Round one: Things that suck.
Starmer went straight in on the news that James Dyson, inventors of vacuum cleaners and novelty air heaters, had texted his friend Boris asking for a tax break.
“What does he think is the right thing to do if he receives a text message from a billion-dollar conservative donor asking for tax breaks?” He asked.
Johnson replied that he made ‘no apologies for shifting heaven and earth to secure ventilators for the people of this country’.
Score: A predictable start. It all depends on what version of reality you choose to see. Starmer frames this as Johnson giving tax breaks to friends while Johnson says he was moving ‘heaven and earth’ to procure ventilators for the pandemic response. Which of these realities people believe will determine who wins the day.
Round two: Taxing problems.
“Let’s be clear what these texts show.” Johnson, he said, had been lobbied for a change in the tax rules. The PM responded: ‘I’ll fix it.’
How many other people, Starmer wanted to know, has Boris given preferential treatment to?
The answer from Johnson was less than convincing. There were a lot of ums and ahs as he rustled through papers seeking an answer. In the end, he went back to reminding the house of the crisis they had been facing.
Score: This felt like a point hitting home for Starmer. Johnson struggles to explain why bunging a tax break to a donor helps to fight a pandemic.
Round three: The fix is in.
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