This is a headline in The Guardian this afternoon:
The report says:
Labour's flagship child poverty strategy has been delayed until at least the autumn amid concerns at the top of government that the financial cost of key proposals outweighs the political benefit, even though tens of thousands more children will fall into poverty as a result.
They added:
[T]he Guardian has been told that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer's chief of staff, have pushed the strategy back to at least the autumn budget and possibly later. Reeves is understood to be concerned about the cost implications while McSweeney has questioned the political benefits.
I have one reaction.
They are total bastards.
No other description is appropriate.
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Cruel and utterly unnecessary. That’s going to destroy any last vestiges of public confidence in the government’s commitment to social equity. Now is time for Labour MPs with any kind of conscience to make their move. This cannot go on.
Bastards indeed, Richard, I totally agree, but breathtakingly stupid with it!
Are they trying to destroy the Labour brand? Is Moron McSweeney a secret Tory, even Reform, voter and adherent?
As John Maynard Keynes said words to the effect that “we can afford anything we need to do” . Also words to the effect that “When the facts change, I change my mind.”
Yet here we have two, frankly moronic, people doubling down on their flawed understanding of government finance and the economy, making society fit the Procrustes’ bed of fiscal rules and black holes, when it should be the other way round – government expenditure fitting social need, as is entirely possible.
And to make matters worse, this will go down very badly with the electorate – as indeed it should – and effectively does Reform’s work for it. Imagine what a meal Reform will make of this!
As I asked above, are Reeves and McSweeney secret supporters of Reform, because that is what they are in effect?
They might as well be…..
Worth adding the full quote, I think
“Assuredly we can afford this and much more. Anything we can actually do we can afford. Once done, it is there. Nothing can take it from us. We are immeasurably richer than our predecessors. Is it not evident that some sophistry, some fallacy, governs our collective action if we are forced to be so much meaner than they in the embellishments of life?”
and also in the same talk
“Where we are using up resources, do not let us submit to the vile doctrine of the nineteenth century that every enterprise must justify itself in pounds, shillings and pence of cash income, with no other denominator of values but this. ”
– THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES: VOLUME XXVII: ACTIVITIES 1940-1946: SHAPING THE POST-WAR WORLD: EMPLOYMENT AND COMMODITIES: EDITED BY DONALD MOGGRIDGE
Thank you
The nastiness of McSweeney, Reeves, Johnson, Farage & Co knows no bounds. When trying to comprehend the considered cruelties of this ruling class aka Thatcher’s children, I do not underestimate the seductive driving motive of indulging pure spite.
I’m pretty sure people voted for Labour with an expectation that they wouldn’t be crushed under a spreadsheet of cuts.
Mentioning spreadsheets, I liked Aurelien’s line recently, “ (Has it ever struck you, by the way, what a “spreadsheet” is? It’s a sheet you spread over yourself and hide under to escape from reality, just like you used to do as a child.)”
“I’m pretty sure people voted for Labour…”
There was no ‘for’ – Labour only ‘won’ because people voted AGAINST the Tories.
And ‘expectations’ were pretty much on the floor from well before the election – they promised ‘do nothing’ and they delivered ‘do nothing’.
Farage must be laughing his head off.
Your mention of spreadsheets reminded me of a recent comment by Aurelien,
“ Has it ever struck you, by the way, what a “spreadsheet” is? It’s a sheet you spread over yourself and hide under to escape from reality, just like you used to do as a child.”
With the recent economic news going the wrong way for a “fiscal responsibility” prisoner like Reeves, this was entirely predictable.
The cost of child poverty may of course be reduced if enough children die before the strategy is rolled out.
Morgan McSweeney is clearly weighing up the cost of saving a child’s life, against the likelihood of losing a vote to Reform UK, as political fallout for being “woke”, and decided he values votes above children’s lives.
Angry? Oh yes.
Surprised? No.
Morgan McSweeney doesn’t like children, does he? Whether they are British, Palestinian or those affected by slashing and misappropriating our aid budget.
He is a truly despicable man.
But then MPs who sit on their hands and put up with it are despicable too.
Agreed
They can’t even look after their own finances.
https://labourlist.org/2025/05/labour-balance-books-finance-woes/
Whilst I agree with many of the sentiments expressed & I am on record on this blog wrt McSweeney-tod, could it be that we are missing summat?
“McSweeney has questioned the political benefits”
Let’s assume he has.
LINO is obliged to operate in a media-cesspit (Torygrap, Daily Heil, GBTrash etc). It is not difficult to see how the media-cesspit would spin LINO action on child poverty (= the undeserving poor – “why don’t they get a job the idle buggers etc etc). Obvs, McSwiney has swum in the cesspit, is indeed a creature of it. I’m not making excuses for Mr McSwine but it takes two to tango and I’d suggest that no action on child poverty etc is reflective of how the UK news cesspit would spin it all = political benefits. I appreciate that this will leave a very sour taste in peoples mouths – & is a consequence of a failure to reform the UK media cesspit (and its ownership structures).
That’s not good enough Mike. You are talking about a decision that will blight or destroy hundreds of thousands of childrens’ lives forever.
I thionk Mike is trying to explain it, not condone it.
You are too polite, you clearly missed an adjective F@&$#ing Bastards!
Seconded.
I cannot but help thinking that our political class is engaged in a form of retribution against ordinary, everyday people.
Agreed
Totally agree with you Richard.
Imagine what it would be like if the UK were a country where what mattered to politicians was not the political benefit, but the social and human benefit.
I think most of us, other than the politicians themselves, don’t, deep down, care who is power, or what they call their party, so long as what they do is of benefit to the majority of citizens and to the quality of their lives. That’s what mots of us try to vote for in elections and that’s why so many simply don’t bother to vote, because they expect to be stitched up anyway, regardless of the outcome.
Absolutely agree you conclusion that “They are total bastards.”
Might amend it to “… total, selfish bastards”.
…the cost of everything and the value of nothing…
Politics should be about social and human benefit.
They know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Am too upset about this to say more.
How much more crushing annoucements are they going to make? Rumours of the winter fuel reverse yesterday – the devil will be in the detail there.
Agreed
Pitchforks are on the left as you go through the entrance at Mole Valley Farmers Country Store at Standerwick
I can imagine my late Tory to the Core but morally driven father spinning in his grave over this
I just don’t understand anymore – surely doing something about child poverty would add to popularity by Labour doing what it was voted in to do. It’s not just despicable but utterly incompetent and unbelievably stupid. I don’t want the Conservatives back nor do I want to see Reform getting more MPs but Labour is going about making this happen with every breath it takes by sticking to its wretched fiscal rules.
“Labour’s flagship child poverty strategy has been delayed until at least the autumn amid concerns at the top of government that the financial cost of key proposals outweighs the political benefit, even though tens of thousands more children will fall into poverty as a result.”
I had to read that 5 times before I could really grasp what it means.
Our LABOUR government is concerned about financial cost and political benefits when considering a policy to prevent CHILDREN suffering the effects of poverty.
Ye gods and little fishes. I don’t think BASTARDS is an appropriate word to use. Uncaring, entitled, ignorant murderers may come close.
I have to be restrained sometimes…
The ‘c’ word comes to mind for me.
@ Cyndy Hodgson.
Engrld coined the term “social murder” for such behaviour, as follows:
In “The Condition of the Working Class in England,” Friedrich Engels coined the term “social murder” to describe the systematic and preventable deaths of working-class individuals due to poor living and working conditions. He argued that societal structures, particularly those of capitalism, were responsible for these deaths, and that those in power, aware of the consequences, were complicit.
Here’s an article looking at this term more closely, in light of current events.
https://marxistsociology.org/2022/09/why-a-19th-century-concept-of-social-murder-is-very-much-relevant-today/
I really do think Morgan McSweeney is fully earning the moniker “Moron McSweeney”.. This approach is electoral madness, quite apart from its immorality.
Surely the first responsibility of any government is to ensure the wellbeing of the most vulnerable members of the community which it governs?
I think so
It used to be the first responsibility…
The sub-heading caught my eye: a debate between money and votes – is no-one thinking of the children? Words fail me…
Me, too.
Just when you think LINO couldn’t get any scummier; they do. Of course, they’re weighing the political benefit of scrapping the 2-child benefit cap – they’re LINO after all!
They’re lower than a snake’s belly.
I wouldn’t spit on the bastards if they were on fire.
This Labour Government does not understand that the vast majority of people are not callous, uncaring and heartless. Most people are not bastards. They care about pensioners having to decide whether to heat or eat and they care about ten of thousands of children living in poverty. Most people are kind. Most people feel for the plight of others. And, most of all, they know in their bones that non of this is necessary. You are absolutely right to call them bastards and I’m confident that most would agree with you
Thank you
Thank God this is being said out loud. Ain’t it the truth!
Incompetence of the highest order at every press release, but then I suppose it’s what we get for voting in career politicians. It’s always them first, forget about everyone else. Look at the freebie trail and golden tax free pensions stitched up for those more equal than others.
Even Reform couldn’t make such a hatchet job of government.
I’m struggling to find something to say that would accurately reflect the strength of my emotions.
In early 2021, I wrote an article about Keir Starmer. I said that every statement he made sounded as though he were speaking lines which he had learnt off by heart, playing a character for whom he had no feeling in a mediocre amateur production. I described him as inauthentic, saying that was why people instinctively distrusted him; and that the complete absence of fire in his belly made him susceptible to manipulation.
I see no reason to alter that assessment.
Much to agree with, as RM tends to say.
I just can’t understand how, after years of waiting for a labour government, we end up with an administration that is indistinguishable from a Thatcherite one.
I really don’t know.
No amount of spreadsheets or analysis or argument will get us out of this space. We need a visionary. A person that can capture imaginations and tell us a story about who we are. Starmer warns about becoming an island of strangers, but offers no narrative that brings us together.
I’m hopeful, but not optimistic.
The only island of strangers I can see is by Parliament Square.
I can answer that, actually. The policies put forward from 2015-2019 were incredibly popular; half a million people joined the Labour Party. The right wing of Labour, personified by Mandelson and Tom Watson, were implacably opposed to this outbreak of genuine socialism. They set up a separate office to work against the democratically elected leadership; including by spreading the “antisemitism” accusations. They took money from the 2019 election funds and injected it into pro-right seats, ignoring the pro-left seats.
Unsurprisingly, Labour lost.
Six months PRIOR to the election, McSweeney set up a private group, having chosen Starmer as his favourite. They plotted how to win the inevitable leadership contest when Labour inevitably lost the election.
Starmer won the leadership on 10 pledges to follow the previous manifesto. As McSweeney despised the left, Starmer reneged on all his promises within a year.
Starmer/McSweeney then purged the Party of every single member who had ever supported the previous leadership; trawling through social media up to ten years before, and expelling hundreds and hundreds on trumped up charges of antisemitism and support for groups proscribed by Starmer – even though their support was from 10 years before the groups were proscribed.
McSweeney: “Expel Corbyn. Expel his followers. Change the rules so no one from the left can ever run for leadership. Show the Flag. Sing the National Anthem”
(I’m quoting)
McSweeney worked for Mandelson in the 2000s, btw.
And here we are. McSweeney runs the country. His wife, Imogen Walker, newly elected in 2024, was immediately made Reeves’ PPS. No experience. Sue Gray, with decades of experience in Whitehall, had to be ousted so McSweeney could be Chief of Staff. McSweeney with no experience of Government, Whitehall, actual politics, or policy making. Relying on focus groups to give him ideas.
We’re fu*ked. Unless McSweeney is himself ousted, which he won’t be. Starmer relies on him to tell him what to think and say every day. Reeves has Mrs McSweeney to keep her in line.
Only my opinion, obvs.
No, Hannah, not just YOUR opinion. But that of many of us who were either in Labour or observing during those years.
It’s no comfort to know see those who mocked us for our protests as the sabotage took place, now squealing like stuck pigs as they realise what a ruthless incompetent cruel lying disaster Starmer is.
What puzzles me is why I sussed Starmer out at his leadership hustings, yet it took another 5 years for the penny to drop for all those who supported this “forensic” lying leader who would supposedly rescue Labour (from the mess he himself had helped to create) by fooling the electorate and the country, the way he fooled party members.
I expected nothing less from a government that feels no remorse when watching the footage from Gaza, knowing what they have done to facilitate that killing field.
Here’s a bit more insight into this tale of staggering, uncaring negligence.
Scrapping the Two-Child Benefit Cap would cost approximately £2 billion annually and could lift around 350,000 children out of poverty.
Removing Both the Two-Child Limit and the Benefit Cap would cost about £3.9 billion per year and potentially lift 600,000 children out of poverty by 2030.
A comprehensive strategy, implementing a broader set of measures—including increasing child-related elements of Universal Credit above inflation and enhancing benefit take-up—could cost up to £10.4 billion annually, aiming to reduce child poverty by 1.2 million children by 2030.
But the Child Poverty Action Group estimates that child poverty costs the UK £39.5 billion annually in lost tax revenue, increased welfare spending, and additional public service costs.
So investments in reducing child poverty would actually lead to substantial long-term savings! Not to mention improved health outcomes, higher educational attainment, and increased economic productivity.
The Government must change course. Backbench rebellion required now. No ifs or buts.
Thank you.
Much to agree with.
Might this postponement be a form of “Soft Eugenics”?
“Soft eugenics is the weaponisation of policy and law to create conditions of exclusion and suffering, targeting vulnerable populations with austerity measures, limited access to education and healthcare, and the stripping away of rights and life-sustainable income. It does not eliminate the “undesirable” but ensures their long term marginalization and, in some cases, their slow destruction.” [From the article below]
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/05/23/tears-of-blood-eugenics-disposability-and-the-war-on-children/
I think it is
SEND policy is part of that, I fear.
The assisted dying chambers factor into this. Not coincidentally, I think.
I’ve just re-read the (revised) Guardian article you quoted.
Nowhere in either the original article nor the revised version does anyone mention the actual reality of child poverty as experienced by the chiildren, or the benefits (to the children) of reducing it.
In the terms of the article, it’s simply a trade-off between the financial cost of addressing it, and the political benefits of reducing it.
Even those quoted as decrying the move dont actually talk ABOUT child poverty. The children don’t get a look-in.
Then I began to wonder whether the writers and commentators behind the Guardian article either knew or even cared about the children (who are of course all in need of more “grit” rather than financial support, according to our dear leaders).
Thanks to Channel 5 we all think we know about the feral children of the feckless undeserving poor, because we’ve seen them so artfully portrayed on Ch5’s regular offerings of “poverty porn” unreality TV.
But anyone working on the front line knows how cruelly distorted such programs are.
Perhaps we could balance them with some shared stories here about real children in poverty, detailing the human tragedy, rather than the political version told by Guardian senior journalists which can’t see past the abacus on which McSweeney balances financial cost and political benefits while entirely ignoring the damage done to not-yet-fully-formed unique human beings.
One of the strengths of this blog is its ability to humanise “topics” with real-life personal stories (as illustrated in recent responses to RM’s “linear/non-linear thinking” post.
Hunger, cold, shame, diseases such as ricketts, stunted growth, reduced brain development, social exclusion, bullying, ill-fitting worn-out clothes, lack of transport, family conflict, parental exhaustion & anxiety, debt, bailiffs, moneylenders, evictions, energy cut-offs (usually officially unmonitored as they occur on pre-pay meters), home-alone risks while parents work all hours – I could go on.
Perhaps this Barnardos 2024 report will help (they run some of the few remaining
Surestart centres).
https://www.barnardos.org.uk/research/empty-plates-and-cold-homes-what-its-grow-poverty-2024
But for senior journalists, and politicians “child poverty” is simply a topic, an item on a vote-winning priority list, a financial/political balancing act. At least, that’s how they write and talk. (With the exception of Frances Ryan and one or two other, usually female and junior journalists).
What’s missing?
What is the glaring great black hole in this politico-financial dystopia?
Morality
Compassion
Empathy
Human decency
A sense of right and wrong
A recognition of other people’s human rights
A concern for social justice that produces outrage and focussed action
Courage
Selflessness
These are the things that used to motivate people to go into public service, including politics. But apparently, no longer.
If we lose them, then we stop being human beings, and dystopia is here already.
Very much to agree with.
I just received this bit of information from the Open Democracy newsletter.
“We can reveal that US banking giant JP Morgan told Rachel Reeves the bank would leave the UK if taxes increased.
Jamie Dimon was among several industry leaders to personally meet with Reeves last autumn, amid speculation that the chancellor planned to raise tax on banking profits to
help fill a £22bn “blackhole” in public
finances.
Let them go…
They do not add value
To us, no, they are completely extractive economically. But they obviously held some value to Reeves, enough to betray us all for.
Good riddance. JP Morgan can go wherever they want. Call their bluff.
The core of the Starmer project has three people key to everything and a seeming hierarchy from the top: McSweeney -> Reeves -> Starmer. It seems that Starmer is subservient to (certainly) McSweeney and Reeves (but also pays deference to Cooper).
That is the essence of the Starmer project: Kier Starmer being the figurehead (and ‘battering ram’) of the far right of the Labour party to sweep away Corbynism, and expunge and obliterate anything left of Corbynism (and now to destroy anything of the soft left).
McSweeney is said to be motivated to his core of a hatred of the left (apparently he went into politics inspired by the Good Friday Agreement – but how long is it before he ‘advises’ Starmer that this be sacrificed ‘for votes’ i.e. in ‘floating’ the idea of leaving the ECHR?). The guy has no morals.
So instead, we get repulsive anti immigration rhetoric, endless forests of union jacks, Starmer rarely seen without being flanked by people in military uniform, and becoming the new ‘nasty party’.
Very sad.
In what manner was McSweeney politically inspired by the Good Friday Agreement ? Is it the subsequent success of anti socialist parties like the DUP ? Or the legal black hole for any successful prosecution of war crimes or environmental destruction ? Perhaps he is an old style Irish blue shirt who wishes heartily for a return to the era of British Imperialist governance across Ireland. If so, and he wishes to pull the UK and Northern Ireland out from under the human rights protections of the ECHR, he and Starmer might well seek to deploy the old authoritarian playbook’s ‘national security’ argument: https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/closing-the-back-door/
Labour Bastards are showing their true colours on all fronts.
Today’s Times has an article saying that ministers” believe the growth in education, health and care plans ( EHCPs) is unsustainable and want to reserve access to only those with high and complex needs”.
Currently over 570,000 children have a EHCP.
The reasoning? To cut costs.
Another ploy to hammer our young people and their families.
LINO is definitely following the Heritage Foundation handbook.
Might you mail me a copy of the article?
We’re learning, aren’t we, that LINO’s sole purpose is to make people’s lives miserable whilst ensuring their own lives want for nothing.
Time to extend the Trade Descriptions Act to cover political party names – there is absolutely no sense in which Starmer’s party is a Labour party and it is deliberately misleading to the electorate. Corporate Profit Party would be a more appropriate name.
On a somewhat tangential note I made a tweet comment on Dan Neidle’s comment on Angela Rayners leaked proposals for tax increases and referred to your TW report proposals .
He called them ‘tosh’ and Murphy a ‘crank’. Not a very objective reply .
I tweeted some of your main proposals – asking if he did indeed see them all as ‘tosh’
See Dan Neidle for what he is: a man who served the interests of the ultra wealthy and made himself very wealthy doing so. Of course he does not like me. He never has. He hated tax justuce.
I can’t find that.
What is the link?
[…] Friday, I described Labour as bastards. I don't regret doing so. No one seemed to disagree with me. I did so with regard to the plan […]