The Guardian reports this morning that Starmer is determined to keep up his assault on people with disabilities in the UK. Like Wes Streeting, who yesterday declared himself to know better than doctors whether or not people were suffering with mental illnesses, Stramer thinks it is for him to decide who has a disability or not.
His aim is to save £5 billion a year in government spending - one fourteenth of the benefits budget, and a much higher proportion of spending on the disabled.
So, let's put those figures in context. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility this is the total UK government income and spending forecast for the year 2024/25, and next year will presumably be much the same:
In total spending of £1,276 billion, Starmer wants to save £5 billion by penalising some of the most vulnerable people in our society to force them into supposed work when there are no jobs likely to be available for them. Forcing them into extreme poverty is more likely.
He, and Reeves, who is as clearly indifferently callous, say this must be done.
That is not true.
For example, simply aligning the top rates of income tax and capital gains tax could raise the required funds each year. The Taxing Wealth Report provides the background.
Charging national insurance at the same rate across the income range, instead of cutting it for those in higher earnings, could also achieve that goal.
Alternatively, the Bank of England holds about £770 billion on deposit from commercial banks right now, on which interest at 4.5% is paid, costing £35 billion a year. Cut the rate by one per cent - which is essential for Reeves' growth agenda, and £7.7 billion would be saved. And which is better? Cutting the income of banks, or those with disabilities? Starmer and Reeves clearly favour banks.
I can provide many more options.
Anyone saying Starmer has no choice but to cut disability benefits is lying.
Every minister who goes out and says that will be lying. There exist a multitude of better choices.
But with power comes the opportunity to be abusive, and that is the option Starmer has chosen.
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Please bear with me if the following is a dumb question.
If government spending is matched by government taxation/receipts, where does the money for households, business etc. come from?
The money flows!
And private banks also create money by making loans – about 60% of all that in use in the economy
No Steer Keir is intent on smashing the state, blaming the non workers for overwhelming all state services using the line “only the private sector save us”.
It’s clear that the economy has been tanking for some time, a recession is coming.
This will be the UK’s “disruption” whilst the majority are told a la King Don, the super rich, the City must pay less tax ( and not lose any tax concessions) because they create jobs through the trickle down effect.
The perfect storm paving the way for more extreme right wing policies to be introduced.
What about the UN? They said those with disabilities were being discriminated against? Labour bashed the Tories about that but Labour now chose to ignore the UN recommendations . Surely these cuts to make it harder to claim pip should be illegal under the discrimination act. We are being truly persecuted and it’s cruel.
It’s not as if there are jobs anyway and employers will not employ or accommodate disabled people. So shameful
To paraphrase, the UN was deliberately set up to ensure it would have no divisions of its own. The West is happy to demonstrate that the UN is a toothless ghost of a derided ideal sinking into the past.
Your other post is on callousness – could it be that the position of the politicos is a reflection of the position of voters – whose prejudices McSweeney is very keen to consider & feed into the politcal process. Of course the voters prejudices are fed/manipulated by the UK media – that bastion of truth (irony alert). If this logic chain is half way correct, it demonstrates an inability of the current crop of politicos to come up with narratives that challenge the lazy shite (it is not news) that the media come up with.
Agreed
Your post is correct but Starmer and his cabinet will carry on inflicting pain and misery. They are a disgrace and totally useless.
[…] however, I have noted this morning, about one-third of this sum is paid on government debt owned by the UK government. Give or take, […]
It rather looks as if the now abandoned PIP freeze, was the well known strategy of:
“Announce something appallingly awful (PIP freeze), to create a stir, so that you can publicly, but unattributably, reverse it, but still get away with something really awful that doesn’t sound as bad, but may in fact be worse (£5bn welfare cuts).”
Sarah has a point. It’s not long ago that the UN Rapporteur was condemning the Tory government for its austerity cuts and now Labour – who lied about change – are at it too?
And again, you have Labour advocating AI but telling even disabled people to get to work!!!! And they want to cut NHS England and make more cuts in the Civil Service?
As discussed elsewhere the cuts to the jobs above are just preparations for privatisations, cutting TUPE obligations I bet and making further privatisation attractive to whomever they have been talking to behind the scenes.
And on top of that people who maybe cannot work, or are unable to work unless helped a lot to do so, are being bashed using the preformative cruelty that our age has got used to and will be noted for.
This is why none of it adds up or makes any sense. Because destroying things has only one objective.
To destroy. And that’s it. And then to remake and pretend that it has always been like this, and that the progressiveness in the post war period was just an aberration, a mistake.
No – it had nothing to with backing Israel in Arab/Israeli war when all the oil producing nations were Islamic which resulted in the oil shock – ooh no. Nice job!
No – it had nothing to do with the fact that America or Britain had no real competition after WWII and failed to modernise and compete with emerging defeated nations as they grew stronger economically – ooh no. Well done!
No – it had nothing to do with the increased financial robbery enabled by Western markets that has done nothing but asset strip its own industrial capacity – consumed itself! – ooh no? Superb – you must be proud!
What we are told instead is that the NHS, social security, unions, caring even – was ‘the road to serfdom’ and was unaffordable apparently!!!
Well, bollocks to all that I say.
Apologies for another dumb question.
As HMG, having a sovereign currency, can create money, why does it borrow?
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/05/08/why-we-have-a-national-debt/
Let’s be clear what this government is doing is wrong and inhumane. In Victorian times they had the workhouse’s and talked of the ‘undeserving poor’. As a society I thought we had progressed. Unfortunately the rhetoric and actions from this government has proved me wrong.
Through no fault of my own I have experienced mental health problems for most of my adult life. Believe me nobody wants to experience prolonged ill health mental or physical.
The benefits system in this country is already rigged against the applicant. The process is hostile and at times inhumane.
From my own experience and people that I know the whole process is a minefield and counterproductive. It causes a worsening of peoples health (suicides in some cases) when having to deal with the DWP.
As I have said before everyone matters or should do. This current situation I fear will only worsen the situation for the most vulnerable people in our society.
That it’s the Labour Party doing this is shameful.
What really angers me is the denial that tere is meantal ill health and its impact
I am lucky – I have never suffered serious mental ill healtth. I am almost certainly neuordivergent, but it adds to my life.
I do know too many who have suffered with long term serious mental ill health.
You can take my father’s atitude – “pull yourself together” – which was callous, or seek to understand and care. I choose the second route. Labour is not.
Richard, as usual, you demonstrate your unmatched empathy and compassion to those who suffer with issues that you have thankfully not experienced yourself. I think you are a real unique individual in this regard, as it seems to be human nature to disregard and downplay things that we have not experienced ourselves. As someone who has experienced a lot of mental health issues in my life, I just want to thank you for standing up for people who suffer with these things. I regard myself as lucky, as I have managed to survive, and I think survive is the right word, and currently have what is probably a ‘normal’ mental state. I say ‘normal’ as I am not sure what that would be, but for me it is just being content with everyday life vs being seriously depressed/anxious.
I think you will be remembered one day as being on the right side of history and a campaigner for what is right – and I think this is an amazing achievement – I hope my complements and good intentions have been expressed well enough.
Cheers
Thanks
It’s also the complete lack of awareness that the economic system the government values so much is what is causing so much mental ill health. There has been a push by the previous government to offload mental health awareness onto businesses and employers, which has helped some, but the government needs to accept that if they want a healthy workforce to, let’s admit it, sell to businesses, they need to look after our physical and mental wellbeing. Why is it the government’s responsibility? Because the economy they are presiding over is not compatible with humans. Both parents have to work, for example, families struggle to spend time together, money troubles contribute to divorce rates, we are separated and isolated by work, and surveillance capitalism is constantly pushing its way into our lives, demanding our and our children’s attention. The social and family groups that humans rely on for their mental health are pulled apart and invaded by all-pervasive neoliberalism, an ideology that says society doesn’t exist whilst causing enormous damage to it. It’s the least the government could do.
Than ks fpr this
Much to agree with
Starmer does not represent traditional Labour values.
Starmer’s values are more aligned with the Tories and Reform.
I am more surprised that Labour MPs continue to support him.
There are hardly any labour MPs. All but a handful are LINO.
Thank you for this Richard. I find out writing very helpful in seeing an alternative to this government ‘s proposal.
This morning I have written to my MP Jessica Morden (again). I always have a reply but it usually contains words from Morgan Mcsweeny.
I have asked her to press the executive to focus on taxing the wealthy not cutting or freezing PIP.
Thanks
I contacted my MP, who just happens to be Anneliese Dodds; we should all be appealing to our MPs to push-back against these destructive cuts. I hope you do not mind that I cut and pasted your blog post to forward to her, as I could not think of a better way to make my appeal than to rely on your words and suggestions. This was my message to her:
“As a person who has traveled extensively and volunteered overseas I fully understand the very serious negative impact of slashing our Foreign Aid Budget. I greatly appreciated hearing of your decision to take a stand in response to this mindless cut to our Foreign Aid, and I sincerely hope you will decide to oppose the upcoming cuts to vital disability payments.
There are eminently more logical alternatives for finding the funds necessary to provide public services, support the green transition, and still provide money for UK defence. However, few people articulate this better than author of the Taxing Wealth Report, Richard Murphy. I hope you will take the time to study his report in its entirety, to review the multiple examples of how to make our existing taxation system fairer without resorting to a seperate ‘Wealth Tax’ that would present a bureaucratic quagmire for collection. I am including a copy of his blog post regarding the need to reject welfare cuts and where to find extra funds.”
Perhaps other readers of your blog might contact their MPs using this strategy.
Feel free
She knows me
Thank you for the information on the National Debt.
Might it be reasonable to say that its presentation to the public is not straightforward and that its part in State Education is insufficient?
It is wholly falsely presented
‘Every minister who goes out and says that will be lying. There exist a multitude of better choices’.
Pls include some commentary/thoughts on Stephen Timms (my local MP) who is the current social security and disability minister (and was Chief Secretary to the Treasury).
I have previously tried and failed miserably to get him to understand how government funding actually works and that there are much better choices out there, I even quoted you and your work and suggested he reads this blog. I find it incredibly infuriating and insulting that my local MP is completely ignorant and lying. Suffice to say he does not represent me. Do you have any suggestions as to how I should engage with him? Do you have a template letter that I can forward and send to him?
Unsurprisingly, his website makes no mention of the plans to cut disability spending at all. Rather the latest news item on his website (dated Mar 5) is more self-promotion and details about his sponsorship of an exhibition for carers titled ‘You Cannot Pour from an Empty Cup, – you couldn’t make this sort of thing up. How very apt and ironic.
I don’t know if he has even read the report that is quoted – Love’s Labours: Good work, care work and a mutual economy. On page 20 of the report it says ‘A recent BBC article cites the example of a disabled man who has only 17% of his care needs met by paid statutory provision, with the rest provided by necessity rather than choice by unpaid family members. The disability charity Sense has described this as being “beyond a care crisis, we’re on the cliff edge right now”. (Collinson, A. and Kendall, C. (2023), ‘Mother covers 144 hours of care a week for disabled son’. BBC News, 13 December. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-67691453)
I am utterly disgusted by this man and his antics, charade and sheer deception.
https://www.stephentimms.org.uk/
Last month, Stephen opened an exhibition in Parliament celebrating the work of carers, titled You Cannot Pour from an Empty Cup, on behalf of Theos.
The photographs, taken by Ruth Samuels, show care work as something ‘beautiful and also deeply, particularly human’, rather than ‘unskilled or low–skilled’. The exhibition supports Theos’ report, titled Love’s Labours: Good work, care work and a mutual economy.
Stephen sponsored the exhibition, and spoke alongside representatives from Theos, and Agnes, a carer who featured in a photograph. The exhibition was displayed in the Houses of Parliament’s Upper Waiting Hall.
At the event, Stephen remarked “It is a great privilege to be part of opening this exhibition in Parliament. The work of carers is crucial to the country, and I commend Theos’ for giving carers the respect they deserve yet are so frequently denied.”
Last month, Stephen opened an exhibition in Parliament celebrating the work of carers, titled You Cannot Pour from an Empty Cup, on behalf of Theos.
The photographs, taken by Ruth Samuels, show care work as something ‘beautiful and also deeply, particularly human’, rather than ‘unskilled or low–skilled’. The exhibition supports Theos’ report, titled Love’s Labours: Good work, care work and a mutual economy.
Stephen sponsored the exhibition, and spoke alongside representatives from Theos, and Agnes, a carer who featured in a photograph. The exhibition was displayed in the Houses of Parliament’s Upper Waiting Hall.
At the event, Stephen remarked “It is a great privilege to be part of opening this exhibition in Parliament. The work of carers is crucial to the country, and I commend Theos’ for giving carers the respect they deserve yet are so frequently denied.”
I worked with Stephen at the end of Brown’s government.
It was hard work. Comprehension took time to achieve.
He knows who I am.
[…] comment was made by someone called TomB on this blog yesterday. I hope he will forgive me for lightly editing it for use here, but the sentiments are ones I found […]
Today I read a long (rather) rambling piece on Starmer’s plans to militarise the UK by Ricky from Council Estate Media. Titled : ‘There is nothing you could do that would make me fight for this country
If you want a war, go and fight it yourself’
Essentially it is warning about plans to conscript young people to fight war/s.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-159240615
As the parent of a young man of 24, I do not feel able to dismiss this. Maybe I’m joining dots incorrectly or that don’t exist, but I believe this gives greater context for Starmer’s attack on disability welfare and Streeting’s claims of ‘over-diagnosing’. Young people will not be given the opportunity to use disability or mental ill-health to avoid conscription. It’s one of those moments when I wish someone would prove me wrong.
I can’t
And you may be right