Keir Starmer

The UN blasts Labour for its failures to address income inequality and poverty

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/un-blasts-labour-its-failures-address-income-inequality-and-poverty

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 2015 Photo: 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.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/un-blasts-labour-its-failures-address-income-inequality-and-poverty

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.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Continue ReadingThe UN blasts Labour for its failures to address income inequality and poverty

Why should people with disabilities get a new car for free on top of their benefits?

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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:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/24/monday-briefing-motability-myth

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.

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So where did this story come from?

Allegations that Motability is infested with people making bogus claims have existed for many years. 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.

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Read the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/24/monday-briefing-motability-myth

Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.

Continue ReadingWhy should people with disabilities get a new car for free on top of their benefits?

Labour plan for £2bn in Whitehall cuts will hit frontline services, union warns

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/23/labour-plan-whitehall-cuts-rachel-reeves-frontline-services-pcs-union

Wednesday’s spring statement has been overshadowed by where the cuts are due to fall, with some departments asked to model cuts of up to 11%. Photograph: pxl.store/Alamy

‘You can’t cut your way to growth,’ says PCS head as Reeves confirms move to cut administrative costs by 15% by 2030

Rachel Reeves’s planned cuts of £2bn to government departments will hit frontline services from jobcentres to HMRC phone lines and efforts to cut the asylum backlog, a union has said.

On Sunday the chancellor confirmed plans to seek a 15% reduction in admin costs across Whitehall, amounting to about £2bn a year, by the end of the decade. She said this would also result in about 10,000 job losses in the civil service, although this was not a target.

As she prepares to give her spring statement on Wednesday, Reeves is under pressure to balance the books in line with her fiscal rules, meaning some departments are in line for spending cuts to avoid more tax rises or higher borrowing.

But the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) warned her that there would be consequences for public services after 15 years of underfunding by the Tories.

Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the PCS, said: “You hear that every day from the public, that they wait too long on the phone when they try to make tax payments, jobseekers rushed through the system in just 10 minutes because there aren’t enough staff to see them, victims of crime waiting until 2027 to have their cases heard in the courts as well as the backlog in the asylum system which results in additional hotel costs.

“The impact of making cuts will not only disadvantage our members but the public we serve and the services they rely on. We’ve heard this before under Gordon Brown when cuts were made to backroom staff and [the] consequences of that were chaos.”

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/23/labour-plan-whitehall-cuts-rachel-reeves-frontline-services-pcs-union

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.
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.
Continue ReadingLabour plan for £2bn in Whitehall cuts will hit frontline services, union warns

All UK families ‘to be worse off by 2030’ as poor bear the brunt, new data warns

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/22/all-uk-families-to-be-worse-off-by-2030-as-poor-bear-the-brunt-new-data-warns

[UK prime minister Keir Starmer poses in front of soldiers. He] has vowed to put more money in the pockets of working people, but those on lowest incomes are predicted to be hardest hit financially. Photograph: Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street

Living standards for all UK families are set to fall by 2030, with those on the lowest incomes declining twice as fast as middle and high earners, according to new data that raises serious questions about Keir Starmer’s pledge to make working people better off.

The grim economic analysis, produced by the respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), comes before the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, makes her spring statement on Wednesday in which she will announce new cuts to public spending rather than increase borrowing or raise taxes, so as to keep within the government’s “iron clad” fiscal rules.

In December, the prime minister announced a series of new ­“milestones” that he said would be passed before the next general ­election, which is likely to be held in 2029. The first of these was “putting more money in the pockets of ­working people”.

But with many Labour MPs already deeply concerned over Reeves’s plan to raise about £5bn by cutting ­benefits, including for disabled ­people, evidence that living standards are on course to fall markedly under a Labour government – and to decline most for the least well off – will add to the mood of growing disquiet in party’s ranks.

The JRF analysis rests on a ­realistic assumption that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will adjust its forecasts in line with the Bank of England and other main forecasters when it makes them public on Wednesday. The OBR is expected to halve the expected growth rate for this year from 2% to about 1%.

In what it describes as a “dismal reality”, the JRF said its detailed analysis shows that the past year could mark a high point for living standards in this parliament. It concludes that the average family will be £1,400 worse off by 2030, representing a 3% fall in their disposable incomes. The lowest income families will be £900 a year worse off, amounting to a 6% fall in the amount they have to spend.

The JRF also said that if living standards have not recovered by 2030, Starmer will not only have failed to pass his No 1 milestone but will also have presided over the first government since 1955 to have seen a fall in living standards across a full parliament.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/22/all-uk-families-to-be-worse-off-by-2030-as-poor-bear-the-brunt-new-data-warns

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”.
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.

dizzy: Despite being intended as satire, my satire is proving very prophetic, even correct. 26/3/25. That’s not correct is it? While satire was an intention, it’s clear that the intention of many instances was to project into the future.

Continue ReadingAll UK families ‘to be worse off by 2030’ as poor bear the brunt, new data warns

Reeves plans new cuts as economy sags

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reeves-plans-new-cuts-economy-sags

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during a meeting at Downing Street in London with regulators. She is expected to use the meeting to announce more detail on how the Government will cut the cost of regulation by a quarter and set out plans to slim down or abolish regulators themselves, March 17, 2025

CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves is set to announce a huge new programme of spending cuts as unemployment rises and anger at Labour’s assault on disability benefits mounts.

She will use her spring spending statement next week to unveil a fresh austerity programme as the government continues to rule out tax rises on the wealthy as an alternative.

Despair is turning to anger among backbench Labour MPs and trade unions at the government’s course, which is already seeing Labour plunge to record lows in the opinion polls.

Ms Reeves’s death-wish economics come as official statistics showed joblessness increasing, including among young workers.

Unemployment is up by 0.1 per cent, with a youth unemployment rate of 12.9 per cent.

Commenting on the figures, Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “The labour market figures today highlight the cruelty of the government’s reforms to disability benefits.

“Unemployment is rising, and the wider measure of underemployment is now at 4.75 million with only 816,000 vacancies in the economy — meaning there are already nearly six people chasing every vacancy.

“Those figures exclude disabled people currently deemed unable to work or with only limited capacity for work.

“The reality is that the government’s proposals will not help disabled people off of benefits and into work, but off benefits and into deeper poverty.”

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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reeves-plans-new-cuts-economy-sags

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.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Continue ReadingReeves plans new cuts as economy sags