‘World famous’: Rishi Sunak waxes lyrical about being in Burnley Market – while stood in Bury Market
One northern town is much the same as another, isn’t it?
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Your support makes all the difference.Rishi Sunak has waxed lyrical about being at “world famous Burnley Market” – while standing in Bury Market.
The chancellor appeared to confuse the two towns – well, they’re both northern, after all – while on a visit to Greater Manchester to promote Wednesday’s budget.
Answering a question about the government’s so-called levelling-up agenda, he told the BBC: “It is not just about being in the north by the way – we’re here in Burnley – but if you are growing up in a village in the southwest or even on the south coast, people want to feel opportunity is there for them, wherever they happen to be.”
As if to drive the message home that northern towns are pretty indistinguishable, the one-time public schoolboy and investment banker then repeated the mistake not once but twice more.
“I put it [levelling up] down to two things,” he said. “One is having pride in the place you call home and a lot of what we announced yesterday, the levelling-up fund – bids like Burnley market, world famous Burnley market, benefitting from £20 million of investment.
“That’s going to create jobs. It is about improving the everyday infrastructure of our communities.”
Burnley is 20 miles from Bury although, in fairness to Mr Sunak, both towns do indeed have stellar markets.
The gaffe came on Thursday morning just hours after the chancellor had promoted his beer duty tax cut by posing with barrels too small to benefit from the reduction.
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