disabled

UK government concealing the true scale of benefit cuts for ill and disabled people

Spread the love
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.

Reducing the gap between the basic and incapacity rates of universal credit could mean billions more in cuts for ill and disabled people

The government is downplaying the true scale of planned cuts to social security, according to analysis from the New Economics Foundation (NEF), out today. NEF has calculated that planned overall savings of £6bn from the social security budget could actually result in support for ill and disabled people being slashed by between £7.5bn and £9bn a year by 2029 – 30.

Government proposals leaked last week contained a range of measures totalling over £6bn of savings. These included one major ​“cost neutral” measure that did not contribute to the total savings figure: increasing the basic rate of universal credit (UC) while cutting the additional rate received by people unable to work due to disabilities or poor health. This is intended to reduce the £400-a-month gap between the two rates. However, NEF analysis of Resolution Foundation figures shows that this would likely mean much greater cuts than the £6bn savings figure suggests to support for 1.7 million households with an ill or disabled adult.

Today’s NEF analysis has found that:

  • Closing the gap in monthly payments by £100 would result in cutting an extra £1.5bn in payments to ill and disabled people – equivalent to £73 a month for each person.
  • Halving the gap would result in cutting an extra £3bn in payments to ill and disabled people – equivalent to £146 a month for each person.

When combined with other planned cuts to personal independence payments (PIP), this could result in a total loss of support for ill and disabled people of between £7.5 and £9bn.

This figure does not include the £2bn of cuts to be achieved through changes to the work capability assessment, which were announced by the previous government and included in the autumn budget figures. If the government also proceeds with these changes, it could take the total cuts to around £10bn a year by 2029 – 30.

Tom Pollard, head of social policy at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), said:

“We urgently need honesty from the government about the scale of the cuts they have planned. We have seen a very real increase in the scale and complexity of poor health and disability in the working-age population, compounded by a cost-of-living crisis, crumbling public services and poor-quality, insecure work. We should be tackling these underlying causes and supporting more people to work and live independently where possible. But slashing the incomes of people in this situation will fail to deliver sustainable savings and will make millions of people’s lives even harder than they already are.”

Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingUK government concealing the true scale of benefit cuts for ill and disabled people

Labour declares war on disabled people

Spread the love
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.

https://www.owenjones.news/p/labour-declares-war-on-disabled-people

Is this really what Labour supporters voted for?

Owen Jones

… Keir Starmer’s Labour government has just declared war on some of the most vulnerable people who live in this country – that is, disabled people.

According to leaked proposals to ITV, there will be cuts of £6bn to the social security budget, and £5bn will come from an attack on Personal Independence Payments – that is, PIP. That’s the main disability benefit for adults of working age, providing support of between £1,500 and £9,610 a year.

The eligibility criteria for receiving it will change so that some people with disabilities and long-term illnesses will no longer receive these payments at all. 

…

There has been a longstanding widespread campaign of demonisation against people claiming benefits, portraying them as scroungers, as people who aren’t really eligible. Well, this government policy will cut the amount of support being given to disabled people who nobody disputes need support.

As ITV point out:

Even those with extreme disabilities in the unfit to work category are likely to lose money under new government plans.

PIP isn’t an out-of-work benefit – it goes to people who are disabled or have long-term illnesses who are in or out of work to help cover the extra costs imposed by disability or ill health so that they can live as independent and fulfilling lives as possible – for example, paying for care or mobility needs.

As it is, last year it was reported in the Observer that the government was rejected more than 40% of applications for PIP from people with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and arthritis, and one in four applications from amputees, along with other thousands of applicants from people with cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder and emphysema. They even reject 30% of applicants with Huntingdon’s disease and Parkinson’s.

…

https://www.owenjones.news/p/labour-declares-war-on-disabled-people

Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
Continue ReadingLabour declares war on disabled people

The cuts agenda: disabled people in Labour’s sights

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cuts-agenda-disabled-people-labour’s-sights

HARMFUL RHETORIC: Keir Starmer and Liz Kendall

Far from addressing the causes of ill-health and disability, Starmer, Reeves and Kendall are committed to unleashing more misery for disabled people, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY

In 2016 the UN Committee for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities conducted an investigation into the treatment of disabled people in Britain.

It produced a damning report, which concluded that disabled people in this country faced systematic discrimination on multiple levels.

In 2024, following the submission of evidence by Disabled People Against Cuts and other disability rights groups, the UN investigated Britain for a second time.

In late April the UN committee for disabled people issued a 14-page report which concluded that Britain “has failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.”

It also called on Britain to take measures to prevent disabled people on benefits from killing themselves. At the UN committee hearing in March 2024 it noted how hundreds of disabled people had killed themselves due to sanctions and other repressive measures of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which really should be called the Department for War on the Poor.

Since this UN report Labour has been elected with a landslide majority. Yet in the many Bills announced for the new parliament not one addresses the serious issues raised by the United Nations.

Sadly, both Liz Kendall, new boss of the DWP, and Rachel Reeves the Chancellor, between them have made it clear that people on sickness benefits are a burden on our society and that the money spent on sick people claiming universal credit, employment support allowance (ESA) and personal independence payments (PIP) could be better spent on more “important things” in our society. They have repeated reactionary Tory propaganda which the UN cites as a reason for a spike in disability hate crime which is massively under reported and rarely investigated by the police.

…

Original article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cuts-agenda-disabled-people-labour’s-sights

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, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingThe cuts agenda: disabled people in Labour’s sights

‘This Guy Is a Leech on the Public’: AOC Rips Musk Over Attack on Social Security

Spread the love

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Elon Musk attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House on February 26, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“No matter how many billions he gets in tax cuts and government contracts, it will never be enough for him,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Now he’s going after the elderly, the disabled, and orphaned children.”

Progressive lawmakers and advocates hit back on Sunday after Elon Musk parroted the long-debunked right-wing claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, the billionaire’s latest false attack on the nation’s most effective anti-poverty program.

Musk made the comments during an appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast over the weekend, and the episode has already racked up nearly 8 million views as of this writing.

“Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” Musk said. “If you look at the future obligations of Social Security, it far exceeds the tax revenue.”

The advocacy group Social Security Works noted in response that Social Security—which is 90% funded for the next quarter-century—”hasn’t missed a payment in 89 years” and accused Musk of “defaming” the program as part of an effort to “cut benefits and otherwise destroy Social Security.”

Musk’s comments came as the Trump administration, with the assistance of the billionaire Tesla CEO’s lieutenants, is working to gut the already-understaffed Social Security Administration, an effort that could result in benefit delays and disruptions.

“This guy is a leech on the public,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on social media after a clip of Musk’s remarks on Rogan’s podcast circulated. “No matter how many billions he gets in tax cuts and government contracts, it will never be enough for him.”

“Now he’s going after the elderly, the disabled, and orphaned children so he can pocket it in tax cuts for himself,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “It’s disgusting.”

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote that “a guy who makes $8 million a day off the government thinks seniors getting $65 a day they worked their whole lives to earn is a ‘Ponzi scheme.'”

“Protect Social Security,” Casar wrote. “Fire Elon Musk.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also weighed in on Musk’s comments during an appearance on NBC‘s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, calling the billionaire’s attack on Social Security “totally outrageous.”

“That’s a hell of a Ponzi scheme when for the last 80 years, Social Security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American. Quite a Ponzi scheme,” said Sanders, who called on lawmakers to support his proposal to expand Social Security benefits by lifting the cap on income subject to payroll taxes.

“You lift that cap, we can extend the solvency of Social Security for 75 years,” the Vermont senator said. “And you can raise benefits.”

Last week, as Common Dreams reported, Sanders attempted to pass his Social Security expansion bill through the Senate via unanimous consent, but Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) objected, blocking the legislation.

A previous version of this story improperly identified “Meet the Press” as an MSNBC show.

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.

Continue Reading‘This Guy Is a Leech on the Public’: AOC Rips Musk Over Attack on Social Security

Morning Star Editorial: Return to the real history and real lessons of the Holocaust

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/return-real-history-and-real-lessons-holocaust While the Morning Star’s copyright on this article is respected, I hope that they will excuse me fully quoting it.

Nazi soldiers separate Hungarian Jews on the ramp at Auschwitz-II-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland, May/June 1944, during the final phase of the Holocaust

HOLOCAUST Memorial Day, the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp by the Red Army, is one of the most solemn days in the labour movement calendar.

The industrialised effort to exterminate Europe’s Jews, Roma and Sinti, alongside others the fascists deemed unworthy of life like gay, disabled or mentally ill people, remains the most systematic and calculated genocide in history. It must never be denied or downplayed.

Yet the meaning of Holocaust Memorial Day is increasingly obscured. Partly this is due to the rewriting of history.

Holocaust relativism presents the Nazis’ programme of racist mass murder as just one among many crimes of “totalitarianism,” postulating a false equivalence between Nazi Germany and the country which played the biggest part in its defeat, the Soviet Union.

The result is an equivocation between those who ran the death camps and those who liberated them — something masked in much British media discourse by referring vaguely to Auschwitz’s liberation by “the Allies” rather than the Soviets.

This has already regressed in some quarters into implied support for the Nazis or their local auxiliaries as anti-Russian freedom fighters, as we saw when a Ukrainian Waffen-SS veteran was applauded by MPs in the Canadian parliament, or when Estonia’s Foreign Ministry posted tweets denouncing the 80th anniversary of the Soviet assault on Tallinn, not mentioning the context that Tallinn was under Nazi occupation. Calling out such distortions of history should not, of course, blind us to the manipulation of the memory of the second world war by the present Russian government for its own purposes either.

The removal of context allows the memory of the Holocaust to be deployed cynically by Britain’s rulers too.

The UN resolution establishing Holocaust Memorial Day is clear that its message is a universal one: “The Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities, will forever be a warning… of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.” It also “condemns without reserve all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief.”

This text calls on us to apply the lessons of the Holocaust to all instances of racist persecution and all genocides.

It is disregarded by a British government which will not call out the Islamophobia of the far-right rioters who attacked mosques last summer, and which has been complicit in an assault on the people of Gaza recognised as a genocide by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and as plausibly amounting to one by the International Court of Justice.

Indeed, the memory of the Holocaust is misused to shield the state of Israel from accountability for its acts of war and ethnic cleansing, and it will be interesting to see which British politicians have the courage to condemn Donald Trump’s call this weekend to “clean out” “probably a million-and-a-half people” from Gaza to facilitate its colonisation by Israel.

So far removed are some self-appointed authorities from the reality of the Holocaust as a product of fascism and war that the Anti-Defamation League, quick to accuse Palestine solidarity campaigners of anti-semitism, could only admit to an “awkward hand gesture” when confronted by evidence of a fascist salute by Trump ally and tech tycoon Elon Musk.

Both anti-semitic and Islamophobic hate crimes are on the rise. Confronting that means returning to the real lessons of the Holocaust, as thousands will do at local trade union and political meetings this week, though our government will not.

That does not mean depoliticising it. The Holocaust was political, emerging from the ideology of fascism. When we say “never again,” we must commit ourselves to anti-fascism — which is sadly once again an urgent political cause.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/return-real-history-and-real-lessons-holocaust While the Morning Star’s copyright on this article is respected, I hope that they will excuse me fully quoting it.

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

dizzy: While Musk is correct that Germans should not feel guilt about their ancestors’ actions that’s not reason to erase history, to ignore facts and reality. He is a Neo-Fascist supporting Neo-Fascism.

Elon Musk Expresses Support for Germany’s Far-Right AfD Party—Again

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Return to the real history and real lessons of the Holocaust