LINDA PENTZ GUNTER condemns Starmer’s willingness to let children go hungry and the elderly shiver while pouring billions into doomed nuclear projects that won’t address the climate crisis
THE Keir Starmer Labour government won’t scrap the two-child benefit cap because, it claims, the country can’t afford it. Doing away with this punitive measure would lift close to half a million children out of poverty at an estimated cost of £3.6 billion a year.
On the other hand, the Starmer government is perfectly happy to scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, because doing so saves money — an estimated £1.4bn this financial year. That potentially life-saving support will now be stripped from as many as 10 million eligible pensioners.
That’s £5bn saved, on the backs of children and the elderly, two of the most vulnerable segments of our society.
Instead, the Labour government has now announced it will assign almost this identical sum — as much as £5.5bn in life support — to the planned 3,200 megawatt (MW) two-reactor Sizewell C nuclear power plant project on the Suffolk coast.
Apparently, it’s perfectly fine to let children go hungry while pensioners shiver in the dark in exchange for an entirely futile energy project that will keep no-one warm anytime soon, if at all.
An elderly lady with her electric fire on at home in Liverpool
PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced shouts of “shame” during PMQs today as he defended moves to cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners.
Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak asked why the Prime Minister preferred to fund pay rises for train drivers rather than maintain the payments.
Sir Keir struggled to respond, robotically repeating that the Tories had bequeathed him a £22 billion black hole in the public finances.
He said “no prime minister wants to do what we have to do” as he argued the “tough decision” was required to “stabilise our economy.”
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People in England and Wales not in receipt of pension credit or other means-tested benefits will lose out under the policy, which MPs are expected to vote on next week.
It is expected to reduce the number of pensioners in receipt of the up to £300 payment by 10 million, from 11.4m to 1.5m, saving around £1.4bn this year.
Introducing a wealth tax would indicate this is a progressive government. But that seems unlikely
Taking as his theme the need to “fix the foundations” after “14 years of rot” under Tory rule, new Labour prime minister Keir Starmer this week delivered a message that should bring discomfort to everyone in the months and perhaps years to come.
Those “14 years of rot” are of no surprise to voters; indeed, they helped ensure a landslide Labour victory in the election in July. But Starmer’s plans to resolve them appear likely to be far harsher than many voters expected.
The chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeve, has made numerous hints that hard times are ahead. Her October budget will be uncompromising in its commitment to raising revenue to help fill a fiscal hole reckoned to be around £20bn – but much of this money seems likely to be taken from the poorer sections of society, not the rich.
Labour will retain unpopular policies introduced by the Conservatives – the ‘bedroom tax’ and limiting child benefit allowances to the first two children, for example – while introducing its own cost-cutting measures, such as reducing the winter fuel allowances for many pensioners.
These actions contribute to a growing sense that the Starmer government will prove to be decidedly right-of-centre in a country beset with deep divisions of wealth and poverty. Some areas may see an improvement, such as labour rights, but even there, it is a matter of the devil in the detail.
One area where the government does apparently have cash to spash, though, is military spending, which is set to be substantially increased despite the manifest failures in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and the deeply unpopular Israeli wars on Gaza and the West Bank.
Labour’s attitude to Israel is certainly unlikely to change, with the Department for Business and Trade reporting on efforts to strike a new trade deal with the country, saying: “Our teams will be entering negotiating rooms as soon as possible, laser-focused on creating new opportunities for UK firms.” An official from the British Embassy in Israel also recently wrote of the “tremendous opportunity for collaboration between Israeli and British companies”.
A full-scale Strategic Defence Review is also underway, and there are few if any indications that it will start by addressing the grievous failures of the past two decades. If previous experience is anything to go by, it will likely also omit the main challenge to international security: climate breakdown. Without that, the review will not be worth the paper it is written on. Net zero secretary Ed Miliband may be doing his best to maintain the idea of a green transition but the issue would be sidelined by any major increase in government spending.
On the domestic front, less than two months into the new Labour government the contrast between Food Bank Britain and the ludicrous levels of runaway wealth is apparent. It was coincidentally yet powerfully illustrated just four days before Starmer’s pre-budget speech, by a full-page property advertisement from Sotheby’s in the Financial Times.
Of the seven properties on sale, one was a relatively modest three-bedroom apartment in Chelsea, on sale for a mere £5m, while the others included a six-bedroom house in Belgravia offered at £18m and a nine-bedroom/five-bathroom place near Regent’s Park for £20m. Another Regent’s Park number was on sale for £25m million, which at least had 7 bathrooms for the 6 bedrooms. Trumping all was a triplex number in Knightsbridge – £50m with exclusive access to Hans Place Gardens.
While we have to wait for the October budget announcements, we can be reasonably sure that there will be some attempts to raise modest amounts from the wealthier sectors of society, possibly involving changes in capital gains and inheritance taxes. But the best indicator of a changed government would be one willing to bring in wealth taxes, especially those directed at the super-rich.
Onee of Britain’s largest trade unions, Unite, recently proposed a 1% per annum tax on those with net assets of over £4m, which would include property, shares and bank holdings but not mortgaged property. That is estimated to yield £25bn a year but would be bitterly opposed, with the Daily Mail informing us that: “Millionaires are looking to flee the UK in their droves to escape Labour’s tax raids – with a record number of wealthy Britons tipped to leave the country this year.”
As things stand, the budget is expected to include substantial cuts in public spending that could be at least partly avoided by such a wealth tax, and it is worth noting that some European countries such as Switzerland and Spain have already introduced them. At least Britain’s wealthy won’t be fleeing “in their droves” to those countries.
If adopted in October, in even a modest form, a wealth tax would be a reasonable marker for a progressive government. If not, then an opportunity will be missed for placing Labour in a more progressive place in the political spectrum than currently seems at all likely.
Keir Starmer confirms that he is continuing Tory policies and that he’s proud to be a red Tory.Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Group calls for more MPs to join and vows to campaign on issues such as austerity and two-child benefit cap
Jeremy Corbyn is to form an official parliamentary alliance with four independent MPs who were elected on pro-Gaza platforms – issuing a call for more MPs to join.
The group will have the same number of MPs as Reform UK and the Democratic Unionist party, who each have five MPs, and more than the Green party and Plaid Cymru on four.
Promising to fight austerity and campaign on issues including the winter fuel allowance, the two-child benefit limit and arms sales to Israel, the group also explicitly invited MPs to join them, a reference to seven rebel Labour MPs suspended by the party for voting to axe the two-child benefit cap.
Corbyn, a former Labour leader, was elected as an independent MP for Islington North after being barred from standing as a Labour candidate at the last election. The group will also include the MPs Shockat Adam, Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohamed.
The MPs said: “We were elected by our constituents to provide hope in a parliament of despair. Already, this government has scrapped the winter fuel allowance for around 10 million pensioners, voted to keep the two-child benefits cap, and ignored calls to end arms sales to Israel.
“Millions of people are crying out for a real alternative to austerity, inequality and war – and their voices deserve to be heard. As individuals we were voted by our constituents to represent their concerns in parliament on these matters, and more, and we believe that as a collective group we can carry on doing this with greater effect.
“The more MPs who are prepared to stand up for these principles, the better. Our door is always open to other MPs who believe in a more equal and peaceful world.”
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Responding to Keir Starmer’s speech in which he said that the Labour government has inherited a £22bn black hole in the nation’s finances, as well as a “societal black hole”, co-leader of the Green Party Carla Denyer MP said:
“Enduring more economic pain and hardship isn’t what people voted for. They were told they were voting for change. Not voting for things to get worse before they get better. Labour needs to be honest about the fact that they could choose to make things better for everyone if they were bolder and braver.
“What is being framed as tough choices is actually about political choices. People don’t need a constant reminder that the Tories broke Britain. They need a new approach, not misguided fiscal rules that are set to make things worse.
“We must generate the funds needed for investment by shifting the burden away from the poorest onto the wealthiest. Labour’s refusal to tax the super-rich shows that business as usual is very much still in business.
