So thanks for em.. nothing

A FEW weeks ago I sent an invoice to 10 Downing Street for our £1billion. You know, the bribe the DUP extracted for helping to keep Theresa May in a job she is hopelessly unsuited for.

Well, it seems the invoice paid off. The first instalment, some £410million, is included in the new budget outlined by Secretary of State Karen Bradley.

But the alleged handout is accompanied by a domestic rate rise of about 4.5% – that’s money you and I have to shell out towards this budget.

Last year about £1.2billion was forcibly taken from us in rates. A 4.5% rise equals £54million – so the DUP bung is actually worth £356million.

Even so, it’s not to be sneezed at, is it? It still equates to a rise in spending of 3.2%. Happy days, eh? Except the increase is entirely wiped out by inflation.

So the much-heralded bung is worth (counts fingers) a total of ZERO pounds. Zilch. Nada, Diddly squat.

And it doesn’t take into account the economic damage Brexit is going to do to. The Government’s own figures say the NI economy is going to suffer an 8% dip in growth. The GDP here is about £40billion, so the drop could be as much as £3.2billion.

So in really real terms, the actual figures totted up by accountants rather than the dream world inhabited by the politicians, we are going to be worse off than ever before.

It turns out the DUP deal is not worth whatever back of an envelope it was scribbled on. But what do you expect from a government that has sat on £817million allocated to alleviate the homeless crisis, and a party of economic numbskulls who presided over the ash for cash

PRIME SUSPECTS May and Foster