Daily Archives: 31 October 2024

Morning Star: The good, the bad and the ugly in the Labour Budget

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-good-bad-and-ugly-labour-budget

Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.

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So-called austerity is best understood as a massive transfer of wealth — from public to private, from the many to the few, as the fortunes of the super-rich ballooned while Britain endured the longest wage squeeze since the Napoleonic wars.

This is a grotesquely unequal country in which big banks and energy giants post the largest profits in their history, in which the richest 1 per cent own more than the poorer 70 per cent of the population put together, in which millions rely on foodbanks while the number of billionaires increased by a fifth during the Covid crisis alone.

When Reeves gives with one hand and takes away with the other — as PCS leader Fran Heathcote notes she does by offering a 1.7 per cent increase in departmental spending, while setting a 2 per cent savings target for those same departments — she cites pressure on the public finances that could be relieved easily through higher corporation tax, a financial transactions tax or a wealth tax. As Unite’s Sharon Graham notes, a 1 per cent tax on the richest 1 per cent would raise £25 billion, filling the so-called “black hole” in the budget at a stroke.

It is a choice to keep children in poverty with the two-child benefit cap, to pick pensioners’ pockets with the winter fuel payment cut and to continue Tory “reform” of the work capability assessment — estimated to cost over 400,000 people with mobility or mental health problems over £400 a month.

It is a choice to echo Tory hysteria over benefit fraud, when the amount lost to this is less than goes unclaimed in social security payments people are entitled to. Giving the Department for Work & Pensions power to remove money directly from bank accounts will likely increase non-take-up of benefits by people who need them but understandably fear their personal finances being exposed in this way.

And it’s a choice to hike the cost of a bus ticket by 50 per cent while maintaining a fuel duty freeze — when governments across Europe are making public transport cheaper because it is essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-good-bad-and-ugly-labour-budget

Continue ReadingMorning Star: The good, the bad and the ugly in the Labour Budget

Thoughts of the Day 31 October 2024

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Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK's air force has been essential in Israel's mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK’s air force has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA

UK Labour government’s budget by Rachel Reeves doesn’t really matter in the bigger picture. While we have Israel’s continuing genocide (genocides?) with the UK Labour government a major active participant the real big issue is the hugely devastating floods in Spain. ‘This Is Climate Change’: Devastating Flooding Kills More Than 70 in Spain.

The problem is that World governments are going to do very little to address climate change until they are forced to. It’s only getting worse since it’s not addressed despite fossil fuel industries and governments being aware for 60 years. Climate campaigners are imprisoned instead of the real climate criminals.

Continue ReadingThoughts of the Day 31 October 2024

‘Disturbing’ disability benefit reforms in Labour’s budget will see hundreds of thousands denied help

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Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/disability-benefit-reforms-autumn-budget/

These measures will not affect current claimants, but they will impact those applying for the first time from next year, and anyone who comes off the benefit and then later reapplies for it or whose circumstances change

Hundreds of thousands of people with health conditions could miss out on financial support after the chancellor confirmed plans to tighten the disability benefits system.

In her autumn budget, Rachel Reeves said that Labour will honour proposals brought forward by the Conservative government to reform the work capability assessment.

This is an assessment which people with health conditions and disabilities undergo to determine their capability for work and if they will get an extra amount of universal credit.

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Previous figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed that 457,000 people will face lower benefits or higher work search conditions by 2028/2029 as a result of the reforms, which are expected to save the government around £3bn.

Disability charities have called the plans “devastating”. Richard Kramer, chief executive of Sense, said: “The government’s decision today is deeply disturbing for disabled people. They have chosen to continue the previous government’s harmful plans to reduce access to benefits.

“This risks undermining the wellbeing of disabled people, and the consequences could be devastating. Disabled households are living in crisis, their current welfare benefits barely cover the essentials and spiralling food and energy costs have pushed many into debt and despair.

“But instead of choosing to give disabled people proper financial support and beginning to transform lives, the government has played into the dangerous narrative that disabled people should be forced to work and tightened the work capability assessment. They did this knowing that not all disabled people can work.”

The DWP previously confirmed that the reforms will cut the number of people due to be put onto the highest tier of incapacity benefits by more than 424,000 people, equating to a loss of almost £400 every month per person.

“This contemptible measure is purely about saving money at disabled people’s expense. It will force still more disabled people into poverty,” Kramer said. “We are demanding that this dismal decision is urgently reversed. We need the government to realise that benefits are a lifeline and disabled people need more financial support not less.

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https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/disability-benefit-reforms-autumn-budget/

Continue Reading‘Disturbing’ disability benefit reforms in Labour’s budget will see hundreds of thousands denied help