Rachel Reeves delivering her spring statement in the Commons. Photograph: House of Commons
Labour is braced for a backlash from its MPs over welfare cuts called ‘appalling’ by a foodbank charity
Rachel Reeves was accused of balancing the books at the expense of the poor in her spring statement, as official figures showed three million households could lose £1,720 a year in benefits.
The chancellor confirmed welfare cuts of £4.8bn, but insisted the government’s priority was to restore stability to the public finances in the face of rising global borrowing costs.
Economists warned Reeves could be forced to come back with more tax rises in the autumn, with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) saying that any tariffs imposed by Donald Trump may upend their forecasts.
…
Ruth Curtice, the director of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said while Reeves was right to balance the books, she was “wrong to do so on the backs of low- to middle-income families, on whom two-thirds of the welfare cuts will fall”.
Helen Barnard, the director of policy at the food bank charity Trussell, said: “The insistence by the Treasury on driving through record cuts to disabled people’s social security to balance the books is both shocking and appalling. People at food banks are telling us they are terrified how they’ll survive.”
…
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
TORY 2015/LABOUR 2025 SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: (Above) Workers and disabled people protesting outside Norfolk County Hall against Norfolk County Council cuts to services on October 2015Photo: Roger Blackwell/flickr/CC
DR DYLAN MURPHY asks why Labour is continuing the Tory war on the disabled, when viable alternatives have been spelt out in detail
IN LATE February of 2025 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a damning report into the failures of Labour to address income inequality and the deepening levels of poverty in the UK.
The UN committee criticised Labour for failing to address “income inequality or reducing poverty,” which hamper “the progressive realisation of economic, social and cultural rights.’’
Ironically enough, the UN called on Labour to increase spending on housing, health, education and social security in order to reverse the huge damage caused by blue Tory austerity from 2010 to 2024. Since this call the red Tories in power have announced their intention to make massive cuts to public spending across all government departments except defence and maybe health.
On the issue of social security, over which Labour is determined to make killer cuts, the UN expressed serious concern about the impact of blue Tory austerity which had “resulted in severe economic hardship, increased reliance on food banks, homelessness, negative impacts on mental health and the stigmatisation of benefit claimants.”
Of course, food bank usage under Labour continues to grow as does the stigmatisation of benefit claimants which Starmer and company have engaged in with relish over the last few months.
Starmer, Reeves and Kendall seem to take a sadistic glee in attacking the disabled through the platforms of the Tory media using ultra right-wing rags such as The Telegraph and Sun to stigmatise the sick and disabled.
The biggest irony in this recent UN report is its call for Labour to actually increase the value of disability benefits such as PIP so that the UK can meet “the recommendations made by the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.”
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 explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves arrives to meet students on the carpentry course during a visit to Bury College in Greater Manchester, March 20, 2025
…
Fourteen years of Tory rule have cut services to the bone. The notion that “efficiency savings” can slice off further billions without worsening already degraded services is absurd.
Ironically, the cuts are intended to fund increased military spending — though if there is a department renowned for waste it is the Ministry of Defence. The MoD is repeatedly excoriated by the public accounts committee for the huge sums squandered on projects that end up delayed by years or not delivered at all.
Current Defence Secretary John Healey, when in the shadow cabinet, published a report identifying billions it had overspent on projects and billions more paid for cancelled contracts with its often extortionate suppliers. The report noted that the MoD had even been fined £32.6 million by the Treasury for its “poor accounting practices.” Yet it is this department which is having more billions thrown its way.
As for extortionate suppliers, the evidence is plain that besides tying institutions from hospitals to schools into contracts forcing them to repay PFI debts worth multiples of the original loans, many such agreements also tie them into inflexible and costly servicing contracts.
Outsourcing services is massively inefficient, yet remains the norm, despite Reeves’s one-time promise to deliver “the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation.”
As the Prison Officers Association (POA) points out of outsourced prison maintenance, we end up paying through the nose for “crumbling cells, compromised safety and rodent-infested jails.”
“We do not for one minute accept that the privatised model of prison maintenance is more cost effective than insourcing … it is completely delusional to claim it provides best value for the taxpayer,” POA general secretary Steve Gillan observes.
Clearly value for money is not Reeves’s priority — corporate profits are, including at the Treasury’s expense.
Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
In short, this doesn’t happen and is part of a frenzy of demonization of disabled benefits claimants whipped-up by the right-wing including Labour Health Secretary Wes Steeting. The Guardian explains:
Queen Elizabeth inspects the classic Invacar, as she hosts a ceremony to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Motability, at Windsor Castle in 2017. Photograph: Richard Pohle/AFP/Getty Images.
A common refrain in the coverage – “Do you want a free new car?” the Times’ Alice Thomson asked – but one which misses a central point: the Pip funding that goes to Motability is money that customers would have been getting anyway.
If they weren’t getting a car, they’d have it to spend on something else. And if they want a more expensive car – perhaps needing a bigger vehicle for essential equipment, perhaps shockingly able to have preferences despite also having a disability – they have to make a down payment out of their own pocket.
The cars are new, meanwhile, so that they retain a significant resale value at the end of the lease. “It’s just not true that it’s ‘free’,” Carew said. “And because it comes out of an existing Pip award, it’s at no additional cost to the taxpayer.” Scrapping Motability wouldn’t save a penny from the benefits bill.
…
So where did this story come from?
Allegations that Motability is infested with people making bogus claims have existed for manyyears. Hardy perennial though the story is, it’s also worth tracking the genesis of the latest iteration. Part of the timeline is familiar enough: first a fascinating Bloomberg piece focusing on Motability’s impact on the car market, then the Daily Mail, then everyone else.
Before that, though, the story gained momentum in a stranger corner of the internet – through a couple of rightwing X accounts, @loftussteve and @maxtempers, with fewer than 28,000 followers between them. The anonymous user behind Max Tempers, in particular, has been banging the drum since at least December, when he suggested that claimants should only be allowed to drive a hideous old car with MOTABILITY written on it. A few weeks later, a post of his about grooming gangs was shared by Elon Musk, and became the ground zero of a whole other dodgy social media frenzy.
As the Motability story went viral, it got picked up by accounts like Politics UK, a popular X news source, and later by prominent users like GB News’ deputy political editor Tom Harwood, who even borrowed Max Tempers’ idea for a car of shame. With crushing inevitability, after the Daily Mail piece, Wes Streeting told GB News the story showed why the welfare system needs reform.
