🚨 DRIVERS ARE ALREADY CUTTING BACK UK fuel sales fell 1.3% in August as prices rose sharply. The ONS says motorists are partially filling their tanks as higher prices bite. The oil shock is already squeezin household budgets and reducing demand. We should NOT be increasing interest rates on top of this. Higher rates won't produce more oil or bring down global energy prices. They will just give households another bill to pay. Higher fuel costs. Higher mortgage costs. Don't hit families twice

🚨 WELSH NHS WAITING LISTS RISE AGAIN 4 months of a Plaid Cymru Government. 4 consecutive months of NHS waiting lists rising. 🔴 Nearly 710,000 treatment pathways waiting 🔴 More than 4,700 waiting over TWO YEARS Plaid inherited a huge NHS backlog. But they were elected promising change, and so far the numbers are moving in the wrong direction. How long should they get before Wales expects to see improvement?

Britain now has around 216,000 fewer people on payrolls than in June 2024 - BEFORE THE ELECTION. Payroll employment has fallen for 7 months in a row. Vacancies: 702,000 Public sector employment: +33,000 Public sector pay growth: 6.3% Private sector: 2.9% You cannot keep growing the state unless the economy paying for it grows too.

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🚨 UK INFLATION RISES TO 3.1% — BUT LOOK AT WHAT’S DRIVING IT. Core inflation: 2.6% — unchanged Services inflation: 3.4% — unchanged Food inflation: 1.3% — unchanged Motor fuels: +23% Petrol jumped 9.1p a litre in ONE MONTH. Diesel jumped 14.2p. The biggest upward pressure came from transport, particularly fuel. The Bank of England itself says monetary policy cannot influence energy prices. Its concern is whether the shock spreads into wider wages and prices. Yet core and services inflation didn’t rise. So if the Bank raises interest rates, the key question is: what evidence is there that this energy shock is becoming broader, persistent inflation? Higher interest rates won’t make petrol cheaper.

🚨 NEW - BRITAIN IS STILL LOSING JOBS The UK has now recorded 7 consecutive monthly falls in payroll employment. Since Labour came to office, and hit employers with its jobs tax, Britain has lost 216,000 payrolled jobs compared with June 2024. 30.44m → 30.23m Retail, -138k Hospitality, -103k Manufacturing, -69k Information & communication, -69k I guess this is what Labour meant by “fixing the foundations.”

🚨 Oil above $107. If that pushes inflation higher, the Bank of England may be tempted to raise interest rates. But we’ve been here before. The Bank responded to the last external inflation shock by pushing up borrowing costs to suppress spending across the economy. But higher interest rates do not produce more oil. They do not reopen pipelines. They do not calm the Middle East. And they do not suddenly stop people needing to drive to work. So households get hit twice: Higher energy costs first. Higher mortgage and borrowing costs second. We tried this before. Doing it again because oil prices have risen would be bonkers. Would you support another rate rise because the global oil price has gone up?

🚨 27 YEARS OF LABOUR. WALES FELL FURTHER BEHIND. The latest PISA results put Wales bottom of the UK in maths, reading and science. In 2006, the gap with England was 11–15 points. Today, it is 36–40 points. After nearly three decades of reform, why is the gap wider?