Liz Kendall claimed yesterday that the benefits budget will fall by £5 billion by 2029, which is mysteriously the supposed sum by which it is being suggested that the Office for Budget Responsibility thinks Rachel Reeves will miss her balanced budget targets in 2029.
The OBR projections for the economy are, I can guarantee, wrong. They are not only wrong, but are massively so. Every budget for four years hence is. That's a statement of fact. National budgeting cannot even come close to being that accurate. There are vastly too many factors involved for there to be any chance that such a forecast is right within £50 billion or more that far out. After all, who knows what will happen in the meantime?
Nonetheless, Liz Kendall, in an act of performative cruelty delivered with such obvious delight that she could not stop quite literally shouting all day, even when she reached television studios, decided to deem all people under the age of 22 fit and healthy for work, even when very obviously they are not. And she deemed a great many more people to not have needs requiring support to ensure they can quite literally live.
The plan is that large numbers of people - maybe a million or more of them - who receive Personal Independence Payments (PIP) will have some or all of the daily living expenses element of their support withdrawn.
The claim is that this will remove an obstacle to work, which is where, apparently, dignity in life is to be found. Kendall obviously knows nothing about the many shit jobs people are forced to take on minimum wages, working for overstressed and abusive managers, themselves overworked and overstressed by organisations - including the DWP - to achieve goals that have as their core objective the dehumanisation of those who work for them.
Kendall, callously and with indifferent contempt, refused to provide the details of who will be impacted yesterday. My confusion on this point when listening to her was not by chance. It was created by her choice. The result is massive stress for many people least able to manage that stress.
But they can do the maths. If £5 billion is to be saved, some from under 22s, but most from about 1 million PIP recipients, then each such PIP recipient involved will be maybe £4,000 a year worse off.
Kendall is a very wealthy women. This sum is maybe a weekend away with a shopping trip thrown in for her. A little discretionary spending, in other words. For the average PIP recipient - and I know what I am talking about from personal experience – this is a sum more than big enough to break a household budget to the point where making ends meet becomes virtually impossible, not least because many of those living with disabilities have significantly higher costs of living than other people do, of which fact it would appear that Kendall is entirely unaware.
The commentary offered by Kendall to justify her actions, including the claim that the benefits system prevents people from working – which is completely untrue in the case of PIP because it is payable independent of a person's employment status – was profoundly offensive. It played to the lowest common denominator of the Reform agenda, which denies that such a thing as mental ill health exists. My anger at her behaviour is real, unlike her faux outrage.
Any Labour MP is free to vote for this if they so wish, but they should forever thereafter hang their heads in shame, whilst carrying a heavy burden on their shoulders for the rest of their lives, because they will be responsible for the calamitous consequences of this action. I will not forgive them.
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We’re about to find out which Labour MPs are LINO. This is surely a line that genuine Labour people cannot cross?
“Any Labour MP is free to vote for this if they so wish” – will they even bother to turn up? – few in the chamber yesterday – but why bother eh! It’s only about disabled people – do they even vote? (this is me internalising what might pass for LINO MP thought processes – as developed under the reign of the dear leader).
We know that Starmer is a-political and the McSweeney team does the political thinking for him. Bean-counting is doen by Reeves. Given the trivial amounts involved (vis-a-vis overall gov spending) it would seem that keeping Reeves & her team happy was more important than the political blow-back (which McSweeney & co may have discounted on the basis that UK society is evolving towards I’m alright Jack/everyman for himself and devil take the hindmost). What a charming place the disUnited Kingdom is evolving into – a sort of USM(ango) mini-me – with the current crew able to do pretty much what they want.
Why do Labour focus on the welfare bill?Again. A particularly rightwing trope. Why do the not consider tax evasion, which is vastly more. Why are they not boosting, rather than cutting, HMRC? Why are they ignoring welfare for the rich, tax reliefs gained only by the rich? Why do they not improve the NHS, rather than cutting, to get people into work?
If they want to get people into work why not significantly raise the minimum wage? Why not levy employer’s NI on higher earners rather than low wage jobs? Why not provide a universal minimum wage, rather than a tax allowance, which helps the wealthy more? Henry Ford knew a century ago that high wages lead to customers with money who can buy your products.
I can only conclude it’s because Labour are stupid and mean. I don’t say that litely, but I’m struggling to come up with another explanation. I don’t think the electorate are stupid. They are unlikely to forget the incompetence and cruelty of this Labour government.
They are not stupid.
They only exist to win for themselves – and if being callous achieves that goal then callous they will be.
Richard,
As you rightly point out of course almost all that money spent on PIP gets spent back in the real economy – the figure recently was that about 20% of all new cars are leased by Motability.
So we are going to end up with £5 billion less spent.
Thats going to do the economy a power of good (not)
I keep hearing people described as “economically inactive” or some such. As it is impossible for anyone to live without receiving and spending money, how can they not be active in the economy? The phrase is shorthand for some really offensive views which the speakers are trying to hide.
Agreed
Thank you to Richard and readers.
Kendall and her City financier husband live in a posh part of town. Since she became an MP, she has claimed hundreds of thousands of pounds in utility and other bill support.
If one watches Kendall’s speech without the sound on, she embodies the nastiness and preachiness* that affects much of Labour since the Blairite take over. A description much used by foreign correspondents who engaged the government after the 1997 election.
A friend and counterpart, ex Fed and Bank of England official (so well connected), London food bank volunteer and pro-Palestine campaigner, told me a couple of days ago that this is the beginning and designed to send a signal to the markets, donors, future employers and US investment community. My friend added that the same US investors hoping to take over much of the British state hope to profit from UK and EU rearmament and have begun to place their advisors* in the national security apparatus around Europe.
*Beginning with Fiona Hill here and may be soon to include retired military professionals turned Wall Street consultants like David Petraeus and James Stavridis.
It is not just callous, it is also incredibly stupid policy and more evidence that LINO is unable to think strategically or holistically.
A lot of people affected by the removal of the care component are likely to have eligible needs under the Care Act and receive a care package. Adult social care is not free, it is chargeable and PIP is taken into account and clawed back by councils as a contribution to care.
Most if not all will still require care no matter what LINO says. So the full burden of cost will fall on already stretched past breaking point local councils.
Not just evil but also stupid with serious knock on effects and all for nothing more than a rounding error when looked at in context of the overall spending of the state
Thanks for pointing that out – appreciated.
Mr Stewart: “already stretched past breaking point local councils”
Perhaps that is the point?
LINO narrative: “look local gov is not working, its broken so we are going to fix it”…..or words to that effect..
Total reform of local gov – more centralisation (bigger local govs – easier to control) the gradual erosion of local democracy. LINO MPs have proven very easy to control. Bigger local govs’ fewer councillors – ditto. Impose the sort of discipline that LINO central office meets out to those that step out of line. All done on the basis of reducing costs to UK serfs.
Enter the Enterprise Zones….. Solent EZ stretches over the New Forest . Plymouth stretches over Dartmoor. Fiefdoms are being created under our noses……
I’m reading The Deficit by Emma Holms, where she explores how our current economic system has evolved into one that systematically overlooks and undervalues acts of care. Care work is largely excluded from economic calculations because it cannot be easily quantified or commodified. Instead, the dominant mechanistic model of the economy assumes that all individuals should behave in predictable ways to fit into the capitalist machine— or face exclusion. As a result, those who are disabled, those who care for them, and those who work in caregiving roles find their contributions dismissed as insignificant, simply because they do not generate profit.
In this model, if you are disabled or a carer, you are seen not as a contributor but as a cost—a liability that must be minimised rather than a valued part of society.
This thinking is inhumane, and I believe the majority of people—apart from the psychopaths in charge—understand this. My only worry is that if there is no alternative to Labour by the next election (as they are very likely finished), we may end up with something far worse.
Much to agree with
“I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.” said Neal Kinnock in 1983.
Attacks on the benefits system are ultimately about keeping worker’s noses to the grindstone, claimants are just collateral damage – though increasingly, they and those in employment are one and the same.
I speak as an ex-welfare rights adviser in a TUC Unemployed Workers’ Centre who retired early to do more politics.
Thank you for your wonderfully clear – and legitimately angry – posts Richard, keep them coming.
Thanks, Sarah – and I remember Kinnock saying that.
Not sure if the link will work but worth a try…
That’s a link to your computer
I have removed it
What I cannot get over is how ‘1984’ this is all getting – forever wars, fascism to mould peoples souls, the suffering of the people (poverty,ill health), the abuse of language, extreme power by the central state, public punishment and admonishment for not being aligned with the body politic, a state where there is essentially one political party in control (the Rich).
All made real not by anything politically Left, or any opponent of capitalism but brought to you by the apostles of freedom – the Right!!
Incredible isn’t it, how things have turned out.
I wonder what Orwell would make of all this?
Talk about being duped!
I watched PMQs today. So far as I could make out, there were 3 questions about how disabled people were going to be affected by this stuff. Starmer didn’t answer a single one in a meaningful way – just went on about how the last governing party had been in place for 14 years, and that was all the answer he gave.
I just looked up my stuff on Benefits and Work about when my Tribunal was, and what it said.
I was awarded enhanced rate for both daily living and mobility. “It is inappropriate to fix a term.”
This was apparently 7 years 9 months ago!
But I’m still left worried that they will take PIP off me now – from my past experience DWP are really unpleasant people to deal with, and if they can screw you they will. It took me 2 years to get to Tribunal back then, and of course Motability took my car back.
I’m in the very lucky position that husband could buy a car that it was possible for me to sit in (I haven’t driven for many years now as I didn’t feel safe to drive – I still miss it, I really did love driving) and I was able to make a small contribution to his costs.
What really worries me is how frightened people who don’t have that possibility must be feeling. To lose PIP will be a huge problem for huge numbers of people. I really can’t express how much I loathe Starmer and his cronies in his government. They should get a dose of their own medicine and lose their livings and see how well they do on the small amount of benefits available to “ordinary” people.
I understand how you feel, Maggie.
Watch tomorrow’s video, which we’ve mnopw recorded.
But, Maggie, like Torsten Bell, Starmer and his cronies have mortgages to pay! You really shouldn’t wish for them to be in the same boat as welfare, sorry, benefit claimants.
https://youtu.be/C9Jo_HCiZvU?si=KTSyRFzbuSH5dBx3
Thanks. See the blog now.
But, Maggie, like Torsten Bell, Starmer and his cronies have mortgages to pay! You really shouldn’t wish for them to be in the same boat as welfare, sorry, benefit claimants.
https://youtu.be/C9Jo_HCiZvU?si=KTSyRFzbuSH5dBx3
Thanks. Now on the blog.
Thank you Mr Simon Everett! That response is tyipical of the excuses Liebor make. He didn’t really answer Victoria Derbyshire’s questions, other than agreeing he couldn’t live on £70 a week. Lets hope he loses his job and has too… Oh, but he’s older than 22, so it won’t be that bad for him. He really needs a few lessons in compassion for those who aren’t in his well payed fortunate position. Grrrfrr!