The Government is facing fresh calls for an early General Election as new figures reveal they have blown over £125 billion in scandalous spending since 2019.
The Best for Britain Scandalous Spending Tracker charts wasteful or dubious government spending in a period where Rishi Sunak has had almost complete oversight as either Chancellor or Prime Minister.
The tracker breached £100bn late last year with today’s update adding a stomach-churning £25bn of fresh squander. As top generals warn of reducing the size of the British Army at a time of increasing global instability, £25bn 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.
The update comes as the Government prepares to unveil the Spring Budget casting even greater doubt on claims the Chancellor is likely to make about the fiscal responsibility of the Conservative Party. Last month it was confirmed that after a decade of economic stagnation and falling living standards, the UK had again entered recession, spiking any remains of the Conservative reputation for economic competence.
The tracker divides the spending into three categories; Outrageous Outgoings, Duff Deals and Crony Contracts. Crony Contracts, which saw a boom during the Covid-19 pandemic, sees a notable new entry after the Government awarded around £55.7 million in contracts to Infosys, a firm partly owned by the Prime Minister’s wife.
Other new entries to the tracker include; £1.6million in bonuses to the people who presided over the Horizon scandal, £2.1million to hold scandal-induced by-elections, and almost £8,000 on a Downing Street party thrown by Boris Johnson to celebrate Brexit. The total does not include the costs to the taxpayer from the Government trying to fight the publication of this expense in the courts, nor does it include the cost of Brexit itself, recently estimated by Goldman Sachs to be around £120bn per year.
Similarly, the tracker does not include the cost of the disastrous mini-budget estimated to be around £30bn, nor does it include any scandalous spending undertaken during the 9 years of Conservative government before 2019.
Campaigners say the findings underline the urgent need for a General Election and are calling on voters in marginal constituencies to vote tactically to deliver change. Recent Best for Britain polling shows that an overwhelming majority (61%) want to go to the polls no later than June 2024.
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.”
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