Enforcing £12bn welfare cuts (and a lot more beyond that if the deficit is really to be eliminated) is draconian and callous as a means of making the poor subsidise the rich so that the latter can walk away free of any liability, but no-tax-increases in this Parliament doesn’t end the matter. It doesn’t preclude […]
Posts under ‘Benefits’
However silly no-tax-increases are, they should cut tax reliefs to pay off deficit
May 30th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.
Aspiration: what’s in it for the 20 million in poverty?
May 23rd, 2015 by Michael Meacher.According to the official Office of National Statistics’ latest report, 19.3 million persons in the UK had an income below 60% of the national median at some point during 2010-13. That is nearly a third of the entire population, and a higher proportion than for the EU as a whole. The UK figures are even […]
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If you think Ed Miliband was too leftwing you weren’t paying attention
May 14th, 2015 by Diane Abbott.It is alarming how quickly the myth has taken hold that Ed Miliband lost the general election because he was too “leftwing”. On the one hand, it might seem a reasonable guess at all the reasons for our failure. Miliband is, after all, the son of one of the 20th century’s most distinguished Marxist academics. But in […]
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If Osborne cuts £30bn as promised, he can’t achieve his deficit reduction targets
May 12th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Osborne is now mooting an emergency budget within the next few weeks to lay the foundations for the £30bn fiscal consolidation (aka cuts) to be announced in the autumn spending review. It is made up of £12bn welfare cuts, £13bn reductions in departmental expenditure (aka cuts in public services), and £5bn in tax avoidance measures. […]
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Tories make tenants and homeless pay for social housing give away as election bribe
Apr 15th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.The desperate search for shrinking votes has pushed Iain Duncan Smith into yet another spectacular own goal. His latest pet idea is to extend the Right to Buy to Britain’s 2.5m housing association tenants. However, whilst social homes are owned by Councils, this latest Tory brainwave means selling off housing association assets which are private property […]
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Another hit for low-paid workers revealed – one of Osborne’s £12bn hidden benefit cuts
Apr 2nd, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Following my post on the further £12bn welfare cuts promised by Osborne if the Tories win, I received an email from one of those persons who read it, Sue Tuke, with some devastating new revelations about how the proposed cuts to Universal Credit when self-employed claimants miss their monthly targets will likely be part of […]
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£12bn more cuts will crucify poorest in society and are not necessary
Mar 31st, 2015 by Michael Meacher.So the Tories are able to tell us that Labour plans to cut the deficit (which they have never seen) will increase costs by precisely £3,028 per household, a figure now definitively rubbished by the Institute of Fiscal Studies and which the Tory party chairman has now admitted is mere “guesswork”. Yet they can’t tell […]
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Does the party of the welfare state talk tough because it doesn’t know where the centre ground is?
Mar 29th, 2015 by David Osland.Sometimes I suspect that not a syllable escapes the lips of Rachel Reeves unless it somehow encapsulates the pitch for the latest Channel Four eat the poor documentary while simultaneously disgusting a sizeable chunk of Labour activists. Most recently, her declamation that Labour is not the party of the welfare state and doesn’t represent those out […]
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Labour should promise radical reform to rules for disability benefits
Mar 29th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.No section of the population has suffered worse abuses from the government over the last 5 years than disabled people – those who are least able to bear it. They are subject to assessments about their capability to work, enforced by Atos at the behest of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), which in […]
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Why we should say NO to welfare cuts in the next Parliament
Mar 22nd, 2015 by Michael Meacher.There is an auction taking place on the size of the welfare cuts to be imposed in the next 5 years. The Tories are arguing for £30bn cuts in the first 2 years to 2017-8 via no tax rises, £12bn in welfare cuts, £5bn in extra corporate tax evasion revenues, and bigger departmental cuts (up […]
