According to an old myth, 'sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me'. Let me tell you, that is wrong, as countless people can confirm. I rather suspect that Sir Keir Starmer will soon be amongst their number.
Having said on Sunday that he will not change the Tory policy on paying benefits for more than two children in a household, unless that is a mother can convince authorities that the third was conceived as a result of rape, opprobrium has poured in Sir Keir's direction, and rightly so in my opinion.
My sources tell me that last night's Parliamentary Labour Party meeting was stormy. Rachel Reeves resorted to shouting, I am told. Angela Rayner sought to defend the indefensible that she has always condemned. It was not pretty.
Nor is the name 'Sir Kid Starver', now coined for the Labour leader, and yet it feels appropriate, not least because that is exactly what happens in families where this cap really hits home. Parents, and most especially mothers, do quite literally starve to feed their children. But we also know that there is growing child malnutrition in the UK.
As Jamie Driscoll, the now resigned from the Labour Party mayor for the North East, astutely noted yesterday, keeping children in hunger is a massively expensive policy that costs far more than it saves. That's because of the health cost, the cost in terms of disrupted education, and the long-term cost in benefits to support those who will one day not be able to work because they were too hungry to learn at school.
But it's worse than that. This policy sends out the message that some children of some parents are not wanted in our society. Boris Johnson can have as many children as he likes because he is rich. Others cannot because they need benefits to make ends meet, and the very obvious message in this policy is that those who are least well off, and their children who have done nothing to deserve this treatment which is aimed at harming their wellbeing, must be made to know this. And Labour is saying that they will do nothing to correct this.
As Jamie Driscoll said, if Labour cannot change this and for the sake of £1.25 billion take 250,000 children out of poverty, then what is it for?
No wonder Labour parliamentarians are angry.
No wonder that many others are.
Keir Starmer might find it very hard to avoid his new moniker, unless, that is, he changes his mind. We know he can. It is time he did so again.
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“Sir Keir, how many children are you happy to remain in poverty, if it helps you become Prime Minister?”
That would be my first question, which explains why I’ll never be a journalist!
In pure cash terms its worth pointing out that many families hit by the two child limit end up ‘on the parish’ and having to get cash limited funds from local authorities such as Discretionary Housing Payments, various Local Welfare Scheme’s, Social Services etc.
Thats to say nothing of the families stuck in B&B because they cant afford anything the local authority can offer them , so in the short term they are still ‘costing’ us its just local not national funds.
But by any moral or ethical reconning its shameful.
There was a report a few years ago by a Ecumenical Organisation (Eklisia?) The Lies We Tell Ourselves (?) which pointed out that these days families with three or more children are unusual and ‘very big’ ones extremely rare, and that family size does not significantly vary between benefit dependant and non benefit dependant families
the short version is here
late didn’t attach, sorry
4 pages https://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Bible-passages-on-TL.pdf
and the long version
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/truth_and_lies_report_final.pdf
On the theme of the UK being full of “faux” political parties faux because they’re wedded to the simple minded concept of fiscal conservatism where was this fiscal conservatism in both the Conservative and Labour parties mindlessly letting rip a fifty odd year’s house price bubble?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/18/vast-growth-in-value-of-england-rentals-since-1990-would-have-built-3m-council-homes
Oh and well done to Jamie Driscoll for astutely standing up to Sir “Kid Starver” Starmer I missed his arguments yesterday.
In pure cash terms its worth pointing out that many families hit by the two child limit end up ‘on the parish’ and having to get cash limited funds from local authorities such as Discretionary Housing Payments, various Local Welfare Scheme’s, Social Services etc.
Thats to say nothing of the families stuck in B&B because they cant afford anything the local authority can offer them , so in the short term they are still ‘costing’ us its just local not national funds.
But by any moral or ethical reconning its shameful.
There was a report a few years ago by a Ecumenical Organisation (Eklisia?) The Lies We Tell Ourselves (?) which pointed out that these days families with three or more children are unusual and ‘very big’ ones extremely rare, and that family size does not significantly vary between benefit dependant and non benefit dependant families
I suggest that Kid Starver has just lost his chance to be the leader of a majority government
I also sense deep disquiet in the Labour Party. Yesterday in an exchange with a Labour candidate in a marginal seat the following closing statement was made
“The main reasons I entered politics was to reduce poverty and make our country more equal so I shall voice these feelings “
Nothing to add !
Given a natural birthrate of 1.3 per fertile woman in Scotland (and 1.7 in Britain), when the base population replacement rate is 2.1 per fertile woman, the two child cap on benefits is a policy to guarantee the sharp decline of Britain’s economy and population, with worse consequences for Scotland, if only because the adverse outcomes of this disastrous policy are coming faster.
The Conservative-Labour population-decline policy model (the Brexit Gold Standard strategy), is accompanied by an anti-immigration policy (that the Conservatives are already trying to circumvent, even before the Illegal Immigration Bill is on the Statute Book, because they know the consequences of their folly is catastrophic); is a policy that plans to construct an outcome that guarantees that neither Scotland nor Britain are sustainable nations, long term. Our falling birthrate is accelerating, our population is becoming older; and we are now planning to make life as difficult as possible to sustain prosperity or wellbeing. It is a planned nightmare. It is a suicide mission.
It is just as well we will turn to AI, no matter the consequences or risks. We can then have factories and offices with no people, producing machines and services that will provide products for other machines, because there will be no people to use them, or at least fit enough to use them; or with sufficient resources to buy them.
Neoliberalism will have reached its inevitable goal for Scotland and Britain; a human desert. God help us. We are led by donkeys.
John, Scotland does not have a cap on child benefit. An advantage of devolution.
The point about demographics is well-made, and this is an issue that I spend a great deal of time thinking about. Although I’m no ‘expert’, this will rapidly become a very serious problem that will affect us all. I work mainly in the area of helping people make the right choices about what to do with their pension funds at the point of retirement. I favour the value, certainty, and safety of lifetime annuity income compared to the risks and costs of drawdown. The latter is going to be impacted by ‘decumulation’ in that as more and more near-retirees disinvest from equities and bonds and join the ‘annuity pool’, prices of those assets may well decline, notwithstanding usual market volatility. Because of my work I meet a lot of people in their 60s and 70s. Over the last decade, it is striking that a large majority (in my experience) do not have any grandchildren at all, and their own children are now reaching the end of their natural fertility. Recently, I met up with a couple who had five children, but no grandchildren “they can’t afford it”. So, with declining male fertility and affordability issues, where will all the taxpayers be to support the retiring baby boomers?
Wow…staggering re grandchildren
Mind you, I hope mine (if any) do not arrive for some time yet
Concerningly, we aren’t alone with this problem of collapsing birth rates. Here’s Peter Zeihan on China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Me2G6FJZMI
so it doesn’t look as if we or the USA will be outsourcing much more manufacturing over there. This makes me wonder if we still have the necessary manufacturing knowledge here to create all a mature society needs, or whether it’s been lost in the rush to save short-term manufacturing costs by outsourcing. It really does look as if short-term thinking, or rather lack of thinking in general, is coming back to bite us in the arse.
I’m hearing now Russia’s been raiding Ukraine for children. Very far-sighted of them, I’d say, given that children may well soon become universally regarded as a valuable commodity in themselves. How should we describe any similar raids, kid rustling? Or should we stick with kidnapping?
The PRC had draconian one-child policies in the later 20th century, with very severe penalties for families who broke the rule; because the population was growing fast; and especially severe for the second born children. The success of the policy was probably doubtful; but in any case rising living standards changed social and family priorities. The outcome was that China successfully halted the birthrate growth, and npw has the real difficulties that go with a falling birth rate.
Britain, however already has a declining biirthrate, and is still implementing a policy that is implicity designed to reduce the rate further. This is a catastrophic way to conduct public policy. It is imbecilic; apart altogether from its appalling consequences for child poverty.
In Scotland the two-child benefit cap is “mitigated” by the Scottish Government, I understand through Discretionary Housing Payments. You tell me if the mitigation fully covers the need. The problem is that the Scottish Government works to an immovqble, effective Budget cap that restricts the ability of the government to undertake large unexpected costs (for example mitigating penalties decreed by Westminster), without robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is a very bad way to partially fix a problem that quite simply should not be allowed to exist in Britain anywhere; increasing child poverty anywhere in Britain should be, ‘beyond the pale’.
Here’s a piece from the Bella Caledonia blog giving (inter alia) views from a Scottish perspective on Starmer and his policies/lack of policies: https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2023/07/17/beyond-the-pantomime/
A lot to agree with there
Anyone can change their mind but it is perhaps more important to consider why they have opinions at all, changed or not. There appears to be some evidence that changing this Tory policy might lose a few votes, or, at least lose more votes than it gains. The people the policy affects are children of the poor and since the poor vote less than the rich and children don’t vote at all this may well be the case.
However, at some point you have to say “Popular or not I am going to promote the policies I believe are right!” One major problem is that it has got to the point for Starmer that even if he changed his mind again and opposed the Tory benefits policy, he could not say that in justification and be believed.
Sadly, if YouGov is to be believed, you are right about public attitude to the 2-child policy.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/07/11/fa421/1
That’s from a week ago and it’s, therefore, possible that Sir Kid Starver saw before making “his” view known.
Depressing
It is a very basic question. I wonder how many of the people responding understood what it means? And how many think that our social security system is too generous.
He couldn’t be believed now if asked for the time of day. How can he ever be an effective PM? How could other nations have any faith in his faith in negotiations? The world has seen the consequences of positioning obvious and inadequate liars in the land’s highest office; how can it possibly benefit us now to field to the world stage yet another one?
@ Bernard Hurley. Mindlessly Starmer has adopted fiscal conservatism a sword he’s going to die by!
Hot from the bunker under Liebore central office, the vile- Liebore slogan that Sir Kid Starver will use in the 2024 election:
“What do we want? Nothing! ‘When do we want it? Now!’
Said slogan aimed at persuading Jeremy Clarkson et al to vote liebore.
As for Jamie Driscoll This interview was interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8pJ9tAmwiQ
It is not difficult to see how he raised circa £40k plus ……….in under 2 hours. He seems a decent sort & fairly straight talking. He seems part of the future for politics.
As for Sir Kid Starver, he is not really a politician – he keeps make unforced errors probably because the imbeciles that tell him what to say & think are far too doctrinaire and far too frightened of the vile-tories to differentiate themselves. In the case of Kid Starver changing his mind, ta-da: Sir Kid Starver in flip-flops. Vile-Liebore working hard to open up attack lines for the vile-tories. Kids eh!
Your slogan is now on Twitter – shamelessly borrowed I am afraid
No shame there – I nicked it off the BTL on Novara Media – wonderful stuff –
working together we can get some memes going that will make Sir Kid Starver & co wriggle like crazy.
They are few, we are millions.!! – let’s turn the flames up & make ’em squirm.
@ Mike Parr. How ironic that Sir Kid Starver is just a kid himself in his thoughtless adoption of fiscal conservatism! This applies to all the other parties, however. Bring back grown-ups and down with faux political parties!
Jamie Driscoll hits it on the head with Starmer. Here is a rather dim politician who’s made so many u-turns and broken so many pledges you wouldn’t want to trust in his ability to tie his own shoe laces!
We were in the North Yorkshire Moors at the weekend, and we drove through Pickering to get on the old Roman Rd to Whitby (a highly recommended and beautiful route BTW).
As we passed through, we could not help seeing the large self-conscious advert for the local food bank in the center of town opposite the new Lidl store (it also has a Co-op). Hunger amongst the steam trains and the beautiful moors. It hasn’t always been like this though when we used to take the kids there for a train ride or two in kinder times?
I watched Jamie Driscoll last night on C4 news. I was impressed despite Jackie Long who kept interrupting him (what’s wrong with her BTW?). He questioned how could anyone be in politics and not be using hope or thinking about bringing hope to the nation. There are alternatives. But are we to be allowed them?
Whether Kid Starver or Stymied, the Laboured leader is out of whack I think with his party and the country.
But that’s because his new funders and his fellow knights are also out of whack. They are are still pursuing their endgame – to establish food banks, perma-austerity, perma-poverty, AI etc., (Read John Warren above – he sets out the road map there).
The aim is to break labour – working people – Richard does not have to say this on a daily basis – but its still the plan. All this is about Capital’s version of what liberalism and freedom is. And it is all exclusively for Capital. It is about freeing up THEIR money and enabling THEIR world.
Labour are being set up only to normalise what we’ve had from the Tories. They are going to be allowed into power on that basis. That’s the deal that has been struck.
Laboured are going to be the Tory Continuity Party really, giving the Tories time to get their act together for another go and to finish the job.
We’ve had faux ‘end of history’ moments before. But this war against working people to free capital of its obligations has been going on for some time. When I was at school, I was told that the working week would be shorter and there would be more leisure time.
Well, just like Capital is not going to tolerate the French retiring early, there will no shorter working weeks for labour nor more leisure time – indeed not even enough money to enjoy the leisure time if it ever comes to be. Just like how Capital worked in that crucible of Neo-liberalism – the North American slave-state South – that is how it is going to be. We are going to be slaves or like our ancestors, going to be a pool of latent labour hired and fired on a day by day basis in the name of ‘economic efficiency’ for Capital.
Whether this agenda is the end of history or not really depends on what working people choose do to next, in the face of the obvious onslaught that is to come.
Which I hope you’ve all worked out by now?
Thanks
Enjoy Pickering and Whitby
I have not been for some years – since taking our boys on trains there – but lovely places
Up there next week – annual cricket tour Eskdale .
First ever holiday as a kid at an ” ‘aunty’s ” B&B Whitby.
Somehow we have got to believe people wont just continue to suffer quietly
Starmer should be aware of nicknames. Sir Kid Starver will stick with him as much as Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher.
So, right now we have the Tories thinking about abolishing inheritance tax as a vote winner.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/15/no-10-reportedly-in-talks-about-scrapping-inheritance-tax
The tax raises more than £7bn a year to help fund public services.
If the Tories do this, how will they fund it? My guess is they will cutback public services further. It’s what Tories do.
I would suggest Labour oppose this and instead look to raise £1.25billion more in inheritance tax from the super rich, who let’s face it will not go hungry. They then have the money to fund this. Is it really that difficult?
If they can’t or won’t then seriously what is Labour for?
I am working on a new report on wealth taxes right now….
I couldn’t find any reference to The Lies We Tell Ourselves publication mentioned in a previous comment on Ekklesia’s website, but they did address the two-child rule directly in this letter to Damian Green, when he was SoS for social security, including:
“We would echo the remarks of Rachel Lampard, Vice-President of the
Methodist Conference who said, “The two-child rule takes a knife to the social security
safety net and hundreds of thousands of the UK’s most vulnerable children will fall through
the gap created.” ”
http://old.ekklesia.co.uk/sites/ekklesia.co.uk/files/open_letter_to_damian_green_0.pdf
Well said by them
I think it’s this one . I posted earlier.
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/truth_and_lies_report_final.pdf
I think this may be the Ekklesia link that you couldn’t find: https://old.ekklesia.co.uk/node/18086
It leads to an article by Paul Morrison, ‘Truth and lies about poverty, benefits and welfare,’ which appears to be an abstract of the documents (also by Paul Morrison) to which Ian Stevenson refers, and provides links.
Dr. Tim Morgan’s latest piece is excellent. He is always worth reading and, I think, he is right.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2023/07/18/259-the-way-we-live-next/
Hold on to your hats.
Very good
Mark Meldon. Thanks for this link. Really interesting.
There certainly seems to be a move towards population control. Some years ago in a discussion with actuaries regarding life expectancy in the UK, it was pointed out to me that a significant increase occurred after the 1960s/70s and this was attributed to installing central heating in homes to replace coal fires. This reduced cases of lung disease and pneumonia etc, as well as giving a feeling of well-being.
We now have a situation where many pensioners and those with low incomes can no longer afford to turn on the central heating and they will be dreading the thought of a cold winter.
It is painfully sad to think that we have allowed this country to sink to these depths.
Hi Richard, thank you very much for explaining many difficult topics so simply.
With regret I will no longer read and support this blog because of the comments (not yours) about Russia that are allowed to be displayed. I have been learning Russian for several years, visited Russia a few times and co-edit a blog about clmate/environmental science in and around Russia.
I will highlight one recent report I found which may be of interest, its in English Shirov, A.A., Kolpakov, A.Y., Gambhir, A., Koasidis, K., Köberle, A.C., McWilliams, B. and Nikas, A., 2023. Stakeholder-driven scenario analysis of ambitious decarbonisation of the Russian economy. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Transition, p.100055 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rset.2023.100055
I am aware that only one view is put forward here by commenters who I assume have limited access to different views about Russia, pre 2022 as well as now and not prepared to find out whether accusations of anything are actually true or not. It’s too tiring to try and counter everything and I don’t think this is the place. I have been more of a reader than a commenter here myself.
I will try and find another way to support your amazing effort in trying to educate us financially and I sincerely wish you well.
I readily admit that I have no idea what the substance of your complaint is, and you do not explain it, which makes your comment pretty cryptic.