Rishi Sunak posed for pictures promoting the Treasury's temporary fuel duty cut using someone else's car, it has emerged.
The millionaire Chancellor arranged a photo opportunity at a Sainsbury's forecourt filling up a Kia Rio - worth about £12,000 - and paying for the petrol himself.
The Cabinet minister, who had a small mic clipped to his tie for the publicity shots, was roundly mocked on social media for posing as "a man of the people" while Brits brace for the biggest fall in living standards since records began in the 1950s.
And it is now understood that the family car he was filling up did not even belong to the Cabinet minister and was that of a Sainsbury's worker.
Fuel duty will be cut by 5p a litre until March 2023. The Chancellor trumpeted the measure as the biggest cut ever and Treasury boasted it will save the "average van driver" around £200 this year - or £1,500 for the average haulier.
But it will only knock £3 off the cost of a 60-litre tank for a family car. The Resolution Foundation said it’ll save the typical driving household only £75 a year.
And even if garages pass it on in full, it will only reverse 13% of the rise in pump prices over the last year.
Petrol prices have gone up 5p in seven days - so Sunak’s big tax cut takes us back to…. last week.
MPs shouted “ is that it?" as he announced just £500m for a household fund for poverty-stricken Brits in the Commons yesterday, and announced nothing for those stuck on benefits, or who need more cash to pay soaring energy bills.
It comes as inflation rockets to 7.4% this year - and could peak at nearly 9% thanks to the Ukraine-Russia war.
Mr Sunak also promised to cut the basic rate of income tax from 20p to 19p in the pound - but not now, only in April 2024 in an election bribe.
