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Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has decided not to raise National Insurance for self-employed people following a perfectly civilised conversation with the man repairing his sink.
The plan had previously been to raise rates for the self-employed, in keeping with the Tory tradition of treating a manifesto as an aspiration rather than a promise.
“But that’s all changed now,” said Tory backbencher, Simon Williams.
“Phil walked into a meeting, white as a sheet, and said there wouldn’t be any kind of National Insurance increase in this parliament.
“He then walked out of the door with the slight limp of a man who has recently had a socket wrench shoved up his arse.”
A spokesperson for 11 Downing Street said, “The chancellor and his plumber have always enjoyed a frank exchange of views.
“Although in this case, the plumber seemed to be enjoying it while the Chancellor was screaming ‘alright! Alright! I’ll call it off!’ quite a lot.
“I couldn’t tell you exactly what was said as the door was shut and it sounded like a skull-shaped object was being repeatedly twatted against it quite hard.”
Mr Hammond’s, plumber, Jay Cooper, wiped the sweat from his furrowed brow and chuckled “yeah, we had a good chat”.
“It was such a good chat that Mr Hammond had to pop to the hospital afterwards.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I urgently need to go out and buy a new socket wrench.”
