London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

UK's Sunak criticised for claiming he diverted funds from deprived areas

Rishi Sunak, trailing in the two-horse race to replace British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, faced criticism on Friday for saying he had previously instigated policy changes to divert funding away from deprived urban areas.

The ruling Conservative Party is choosing a new leader after Johnson was forced to quit when dozens of ministers resigned in protest at a series of scandals and missteps. Party members are voting by post to select either Sunak or foreign minister Liz Truss.

Polling shows Sunak, who was finance minister between February 2020 and July 2022, is trailing Truss as the two candidates tour the country in a bid to secure votes.

His comments came in a video published on Friday by the New Statesman magazine, which it said was filmed on July 29 at a meeting of Conservative Party members in Tunbridge Wells, a relatively affluent area in south east England.

Sunak is seen telling an audience: "I managed to start changing the funding formulas to make sure that areas like this are getting the funding that they deserve, because we inherited a bunch of formulas from the Labour Party that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas ... that needed to be undone. I started the work of undoing that."

The New Statesman did not specify who filmed the short video and Reuters could not independently verify the date or the location when the video was made. The context of his comments was not shown.


LEVELLING UP


Asked about the comments, a source in Sunak's campaign referred to reforms to ensure rural areas received funding alongside urban centres, pointing to his efforts, announced in March 2020, to redraw rules the finance ministry used to allocate investment.

"Levelling up isn't just about city centres, it's also about towns and rural areas all over the country that need help too," the source said, of Johnson's policy to reduce regional inequalities.

"Travelling around the country, he's seen non-metropolitan areas that need better bus services, faster broadband, or high quality schools. That's what he'll deliver as Prime Minister."

Truss did not immediately comment on the video.

However, the opposition Labour Party seized on the video as evidence that the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010, are not committed to spreading wealth across the country.

"Public money should always be distributed fairly and spent in areas where it is most needed," Labour's spokeswoman on Levelling up, Lisa Nandy, said in a letter to the government, describing the comments as "deeply concerning" and calling for an investigation.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×