Starmer says cost of sickness benefits 'devastating'

"The cost of tax exemption for assets is devastating"
The next prime minister to say this fixes the economy. Go.

Would you like some Tory Light with your order?
- I'll take a main of Labour, hold the Labour and also, could you leave out all left please and add some extra ring wing, thanks!
  
  con pizza with right wing

Good thing we can tax the billionaires then, now can’t we?

I think he’s got the wrong part of devastating.
Cutting the meagre money ~~hundreds of thousands~~ millions rely on to survive and surely causing excess deaths in the process is devastating.
- Millions. But yeah agree entirly.

A month ago he told us of his plans to “Unleash AI” To ‘increase efficiency’ - a phrase long proved synonymous with cutting jobs.
Would love to know what work he expects people to do when they’re kicked off sickness benefits.
Perhaps they will leave their wheelchairs behind and become bricklayers.
He is delivering a future inequality instead of alleviating it.
It’s all just so incoherent. I would settle for anyone who had the inclination to build functional society for the future, instead of the staid old ideas of slavish adherence to neoliberal economics. Academia is yelling out that they have seen the end of that road and it does not look good.

"The cost of 0 VAT on financial services is devastating. "
And only used by the wealthy.
Why should someone who needs an accountants time get it tax free. But needing a plumbers time dose not.

Disabled and ill peons don't hand out shares and consultancy jobs to politicians.
Disability benefit claimants can't fight back with armies of lobbyists and lawyers, like the US based companies such as Amazon and Meta who not only avoid paying billions in tax every year, but get paid by UKgov to "invest in infrastructure" they need to profit from UK consumers.
"The Labour Party" are choosing to take from the poorest and most needy and give it to giant multinationals, as the Tories before them.
- Relevant reading, published today 20/03/2025;
  https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmselect/cmtrans/770/report.html
  They know being disabled is harder, far more stressful, and more expensive, they simply don't give a fuck.
  Edit: They know way more than the horseshit they're feeding us about it, and they refuse to publish the reports that poke holes in their excuses.
  https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/dwp-delays-publication-of-vital-pip-evidence-until-after-green-paper-and-spring-statement/

Disabled people already don't make enough to live off of,and they can't do anything about it. They already live in poverty, how much do we want to make them suffer?
Going after them and adding more stress is just terrible.
He should be ashamed of himself. He is going to kill people, blood on his hands.

Is there any chance of a rebellion within Labour over this?
- With Reform neck and neck with Labour, not a chance. The UK's first past the post system means every lost vote for Labour is a vote for Reform. Labour voters aren't going to risk a Reform government. Of course, the next election is many years away, and much can happen in that time.
  
  Good point. I guess there's no strong unified opposition within Labour on this doing anything at the moment?

I'm sure there's no other way to get more money into the government. No possible way.

Absolute fucking pig of a human.

How much does this guy get paid?

You know what costs more?
Plague.

The UK longs for the 1800s. And they are going to try to go back.

This is a terrible situation, since two unpleasant things are true at once: the benefits system is riddled with fraudulent claims and mismanagement, but there are also people with genuine disabilities who absolutely rely on these benefits.
- the benefits system is riddled with fraudulent claims and mismanagement
  
  It's not. It's a dog whistle by anyone opposed to social programs.
  The reality is that, although there is abuse in all systems, the level of that abuse is negligible to the point of being a rounding error.
  The goal is to punish everyone for the sake of that small percentage that abuses the system.
  This is not unique to the UK it's the same song and dance everywhere.
- The benefits system, relying as it does on privatisation from top to bottom, haemorrhages cash, this is truth.
  Go find out how much actual cash goes in.
  Then find out how much of that actually ends up in claimants' hands.
  Then, finally, realise the scale of the problem.
  
  Did you know that if you're renting, you can get that rent paid by benefit?
  That rent goes to a landlord who uses that rent to pay the mortgage on the property, maintain it (lol), and some profit.
  If, however, you "own" your home and are responsible for paying the mortgage and maintenance, the best you can get is a loan to cover the interest only. You must pay this loan back with interest if/when you sell your home.
  They'll happily pay over the odds for "rent" costs to landlords, but they won't pay less than that to you for your mortgage.
  They're happy to pay a mortgage, just not to you, the benefit claimant.
  The whole system is rigged to take from the poorest and filter it all to those who have more than enough.
- the benefits system is riddled with fraudulent claims
  If this was true. These actions in no way address such claims. They are purely about making it harder for genuine claims to actually pass the process, and paying less to those that remain. Absolutely nothing in this plan addresses false/fraudulent claims.
  Also, while some fraudulent claims exist, riddled is totally false. The Tories have spent their whole time in office trying to prove your statement. Yet the cost of implementing their extra checks has been hugely more expensive than any claims cancelled.
  You like much of the nation have fallen for the media and channel 4 propaganda.

- Man, there is a lot that you can correlate with economic stagflation. High residual nitrogen in soil. Gay marriage. Sales of left-handed ukeleles.
  Why specifically choose welfare?
  More to the point; do you know what happens to sick people who become poorer? They get sicker and become more expensive to look after. Check out the public cost of helping a disabled person keep some independence versus the cost of looking after them in hospital or a care home.
  These people won't magically disappear if you pull the rug on them.
  The issue is health, not welfare.
  
  They shouldn't get sick in the first place. The focus should be on prevention, that's what is cheaper and more helpful.
- It’s broadly accepted that austerity is the primary cause of stagnation.
  Krugman, Stiglitz, Chang, Piketty etc etc have all explained how cutting welfare weakens demand, which in turn prolongs a period of stagnation.
  The time to cut welfare, if you have a hard on for hurting the poor, is when the economy is booming.
  
  Cutting benefits is not austerity.
- So you’re okay with abandoning millions of disabled people to starve?
- The welfare spending provides an oversized return in productivity. What is common to all the low spenders - low life expectancy.
  
  What is common to all the low spenders - low life expectancy.
  Low spender here. In my case, I don't need much that I don't already have and have opted out of consumerism to a large extent. So no, it's not common to all low spenders, unless your definition of "low" is something extreme like under £1 a day.
  
  The welfare spending provides an oversized return in productivity. What is common to all the low spenders - low life expectancy.
  I don't think this is correct. Prevention provides outsized benefits, but unless benefits lead to a return to work, they do not result in increased productivity. I'm happy to be proven wrong if you have a source. I think this is a moral discussion rather than an economic one.
  
  Increased life expectancy should come with proportionally increased retirement age. Which is also a very unpopular policy. Otherwise you end with an aging population and the whole mess we're in today.
- Citation needed
- 'people don't like it when the government decides to cull the vulnerable ' this isn't some reduction of pocket money to lazy teenagers, this is literally the cutting of people's basic needs. How would you feel if i took away your ability to feed and house yourself?