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Reeves branded ‘deluded’ by disability campaigners

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reeves-branded-deluded-disability-campaigners

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks to the media about the October inflation statistics from the Office of National Statistics, during a visit to a Tesco supermarket in Earl’s Court, west London, November 19, 2025

CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves was branded “deluded” by disability campaigners today after suggesting an extension to her benefit fraud crackdown will help balance the books in tomorrow’s Budget.

The Labour minister has pledged to extend targeted case reviews, which root out inaccuracies in universal credit claims, with the aim of bringing in an extra £1.2 billion by March 2031.

While she is expected to announce the long-awaited scrapping of the two-child benefit cap at a cost of about £3bn, she is also expected to raise taxes to bridge a multibillion-pound gap in her spending plans.

Disabled People Against Cuts co-founder Linda Burnip told the Morning Star: “I think Rachel Reeves must be even more deluded than we thought if she thinks she is going to raise more money from clamping down on benefit fraud which for PIP has never been more than 0.5 per cent and more recently has been zero. 

“We are already seeing people in receipt of social care having their universal credit claims closed wrongly due to having a separate bank account to pay for their social care which is not their money to spend on other items but which is provided by social services departments to solely fund their care. DWP is a complete shambles and not fit for purpose.

“Reeves also fails to grasp the very basic economic principle that growth of the economy will only happen if people have disposable income to spend.”

Fran Heathcote, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union which represents job centre staff, added: “A government serious about economic growth should fix the broken social security system and ensure that those with the broadest shoulders contribute more through a fair tax system. 

“There is far more to be gained from going after the billions of tax avoided or evaded by wealthy individuals or large businesses.”

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Article continues at https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reeves-branded-deluded-disability-campaigners

Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.

Morning Star Editorial: Yes, tax the rich – but the key question is who owns Britain

Continue ReadingReeves branded ‘deluded’ by disability campaigners

Chancellor must scrap the two-child cap ‘in full’, TUC warns

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/chancellor-must-scrap-two-child-cap-full-tuc-warns

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks to the media about the October inflation statistics from the Office of National Statistics, during a visit to a Tesco supermarket in Earl’s Court, west London, November 19, 2025

CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves must scrap the two-child cap “in full” at the Budget as seven in 10 of the 4.5 million children living in poverty in Britain have at least one working parent, the TUC has warned.

The union body called on Labour to ditch Tory cruelty on Wednesday, with its analysis published today revealing that working people are just £12 a week better off in real terms than they were when the financial crisis hit in 2008.

Public service workers, meanwhile, are no better off compared to 2008, with real pay the same.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said the Chancellor must tackle the child poverty emergency by delivering a “living standards Budget.”

He said: “Households up and down the country are still suffering a painful Tory pay hangover — leaving this Labour government with lots of ground to make up.

“That’s why Wednesday is a crucial moment to show ministers are on the side of working people by making affordability a top priority.

“That means a clear plan to bring down energy bills for households. It means action to make work pay by showing ambition on the minimum wage. 

“And it means tackling the child poverty emergency by scrapping the two-child benefit cap in full.”

Polling by the TUC also reveals 83 per cent of the public believe no child should be living in poverty in Britain.

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Article continues at https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/chancellor-must-scrap-two-child-cap-full-tuc-warns

Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
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.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Continue ReadingChancellor must scrap the two-child cap ‘in full’, TUC warns

NHS failing to cut waiting times as promised in recovery plan, report warns

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/19/nhs-failing-waiting-times-recovery-plan-pac-report

More patients than promised in NHS England’s recovery plan are still waiting more than six weeks for an X-ray or scan. Photograph: Lankowsky/Alamy

Public accounts committee finds Labour’s progress ‘appears to have stalled’ despite billions of pounds in investment

The NHS has failed to cut waiting times as promised in its recovery plan despite billions of pounds in investment, the public accounts committee (PAC) has warned.

The influential parliamentary committee’s verdict raises serious doubts over whether Labour can fulfil its key pledge to voters to “fix the NHS” by ensuring that patients can once again get hospital care within 18 weeks by 2029.

In a scathing report, the cross-party PAC warns that improvements in providing faster tests and treatment have “stalled”. And it criticises Keir Starmer and the health secretary, Wes Streeting, for ordering a costly, unplanned reorganisation of the NHS in England. It said this could damage care and was reminiscent of the shambles surrounding the HS2 rail project.

Far more patients than promised still have to wait more than 18 weeks for non-urgent hospital care – sometimes for more than a year – and more than six weeks for an X-ray or scan, it found. “Progress in reducing waiting times appears to have stalled, with the total elective care waiting list standing at 7.4m clinical pathways,” the report says – about 220,000 fewer than when Labour took power in July 2024.

The PAC’s conclusions will alarm ministers, who are keenly aware that the public’s top priority is to see NHS waiting times fall, and that Reform UK has recently supplanted Labour as the party that voters see as having the best policies on healthcare.

Its gloomy verdict contrasts sharply with the upbeat picture of progress in the NHS during Labour’s 16 months in power that Streeting painted last week.

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/19/nhs-failing-waiting-times-recovery-plan-pac-report

… Reform UK has recently supplanted Labour as the party that voters see as having the best policies on healthcare. …

??? It’s remarkable that the electorate is so poorly informed …

Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Nigel Farage attacks the NHS
Nigel Farage attacks the NHS
Nigel Farage reminds you that he's the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
Continue ReadingNHS failing to cut waiting times as promised in recovery plan, report warns

Drop ‘dangerous and damaging’ private finance plans for NHS, Chancellor warned

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/drop-dangerous-and-damaging-private-finance-plans-nhs-chancellor-warned

Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivers a speech in the media briefing room of 9 Downing Street in central London, ahead of the Budget later this month, November 4, 2025

ACADEMICS and campaigners have called on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to drop “dangerous and damaging” NHS private finance plans ahead of the autumn Budget next week.

The government is considering new PFI-style deals to build “neighbourhood health centres” under plans to move care from hospitals into community settings.

In their 10-year NHS plan, ministers set out the possibility of relying on public-private partnerships (PPP) to fund the centres, fuelling concerns that taxpayers could be left footing the bill for high borrowing costs.

Campaigners gathered outside the Department of Health and Social Care yesterday in a protest organised by We Own It to demand a halt to the plans.

The anti-privatisation group has also co-ordinated a letter, signed by 50 academics, which calls on Ms Reeves to “abandon this dangerous and damaging proposal and fund public services through direct taxation or borrowing.”

Signed by figures such as Lord Sikka, the letter calls the arguments for private finance “bogus” and warns Ms Reeves that “using private capital in the NHS is no different from a family buying their home using a payday loan.”

Campaigners have warned about the dangers of risking a repeat of disastrous PFI (private finance initiative) schemes, in which private firms funded the building of hospitals, while high-interest repayments were made over the long term.

Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research found that for just £13 billion of investment, the NHS was landed with an £80bn bill.

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Continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/drop-dangerous-and-damaging-private-finance-plans-nhs-chancellor-warned

Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the "hard times".
Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.
Continue ReadingDrop ‘dangerous and damaging’ private finance plans for NHS, Chancellor warned

Corridor care ‘new normal’ in England for one in five NHS inpatients

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/09/one-in-five-inpatients-hospital-corridors-england-cqc-survey

The proportion of patients who said there were always enough nurses on duty improved from 55.7% in 2023 to 57.9% in 2024. Photograph: Jeff Moore/PA

Findings of CQC survey from November 2024 lead experts to say waiting in such settings has become normalised

Corridor care has become the new normal in England, experts have said, as a national survey found that one in five patients admitted to hospital had to wait in such settings.

The report by the Care Quality Commission also found that nearly 10% of patients waited more than 24 hours to be admitted to hospital and 17.5% waited 12 to 24 hours.More than half of all patients waited more than six hours.

Nearly half waited in a treatment bay, but 18% had to wait in a corridor, 31% in a waiting room and 1%, or 361 patients, said they had to wait in a storage room or cupboard in November last year.

The CQC’s chief inspector of hospitals, Dr Toli Onon, said trolley waits were regrettable and must not become the norm. She said it was great to see improvements since but that reports of lengthy waits and patients whose health had deteriorated was a real concern.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/09/one-in-five-inpatients-hospital-corridors-england-cqc-survey

Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves - the very poorest and most vulnerable.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.
Continue ReadingCorridor care ‘new normal’ in England for one in five NHS inpatients