Terrifying language of Starmer’s new minister for the sick & disabled.

Right, so following the Tories having lost the General Election and Labour essentially inheriting the country – if you haven’t seen my video from yesterday explaining that the Tories losing 20% of their vote share over the 2019 Election whilst Keir Starmer’s bunch merely increased theirs by just 1.6% and got 640,000 fewer votes, yet still gained a landslide majority, please watch that for a more thorough explanation of what a joke our electoral system is that Starmer benefits so heavily from circumstances completely beyond his control, yet still here we are, he’s now Prime Minister and therefore has set about building his cabinet and I know many creators are going to have gone through a who’s who of the next government and I have no doubt I will revisit many of them, rancid as they are, as they prove that with the policy decisions to come. But given the lack of disabled representation in government, given as a demographic what a target the long term sick and disabled were under 14 years of the Tories, and my own background as one of thousands of unpaid carers up and down the country, who have given up everything effectively to care for sick and disabled family, I think such families affected by such matters deserve a heads up about who Starmer has just put in charge of the DWP, because I’m afraid you might not want to get your hopes up much, now that Liz Kendall is in charge there.
Right, so that was footage of Liz Kendall there, the new Secretary of State for Work & Pensions complaining to an audience hosted by the think tank Demos, that under the Tories we were basically spending more on benefits than on defence, which implies the expense of one is to blame for the lack of spending on the other, that is how many people will read that, this is how her words matter, and the fact she is the minister for work and pensions shows that the very largest part of her budget, pensions, would be the largest part of that expenditure, but she doesn’t mention pensioners of course, it’s the dogwhistle language of blaming those she believes should be working, though clearly can’t. Many of we in families affected know full well the impact Tory cruelty has had on us, it has been a matter of survival and not exactly survival of the fittest is it? It’s more luck of the draw as to who manages to get a successful Personal Independence Claim or not, who manages to get the Universal Credit premiums, or Employment and Support Allowance if still on the old system, though what exactly Labour would do now isn’t actually very clear. In their 136 page manifesto for example, the word benefits only ever applies to economic benefits. Social Security is mentioned once in relation to cracking down on fraud and Universal Credit is mentioned once, to be reviewed, rather than scrapped as unworkable and mentioned in terms of making work pay and reducing dependence on benefits, whilst in the same section discussing child poverty hitting 70,000, yet this is a party that repeatedly refuses to end the two child benefit cap. The word welfare is mentioned twice, but only in relation to animal welfare, not human welfare.
But what of Kendall herself? People might remember her as one of the Labour candidates to stand against Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. She had the same guy advising her as Keir Starmer did going into his tilt at the Labour leadership and since, Morgan McSweeney and it can be said McSweeney learned from his mistakes with Kendall going into Starmer’s campaign, because Kendall was the right winger, the loud and proud Blairite candidate who ended up getting just 4% of the vote from Labour members. Telling people that Starmer was continuity Corbyn rather than equally right wing as Kendall certainly worked later on, but one thing that marked Kendall out at that point when she was running for leader was to say on the matter of social security, that she was supportive at that time of some of the cuts to benefits that the Tories were bringing in.
So what does she plan to do at the DWP now that she has her feet under the desk? Well, here’s an excerpt from a recent Big Issue article pondering just that:
‘Liz Kendall made her plans for the DWP most clear in the first speech she made as shadow work and pensions secretary in March.
She said one of the key reasons the Tories have failed on the economy is because “they have failed on work” – with the number of people out of work due to long-term sickness at an all time high of 2.8 million.
Kendall claimed that over the last 14 years, the “overwhelming focus” of the DWP has been on benefits and the creation of universal credit. But under Labour, she claimed, the focus would be on getting people into work.
The party’s ‘back to work plan’ includes driving down NHS waiting lists, overhauling Jobcentres to end a “tick box culture” and devolving employment support to local areas.
It also wants to improve the quality of work and “make work pay” – which has become a bit of a Labour slogan this general election campaign. Kendall has said the only way to win back trust is to be cautious with public finances.
“Under our changed Labour party, if you can work there will be no option of a life on benefits,” Liz Kendall said. “Not just because the British people believe rights should go hand in hand with responsibilities.
“But because being unemployed or lacking basic qualifications when you’re young can harm your job prospects and wages for the rest of your life. This isn’t good enough for young people or for our country.”
In her speech, Kendall was especially focused on getting young people – of whom one in eight are not in education, employment or training – into work. She said there would be specialist employment support, new career advisors and work experience, proper mental health support early on, and real opportunities for young disabled people.
She also teased back-to-work plans for the over 50s, “mostly women, struggling with bad hips, knees and joints; often caring for elderly parents at the same time”, although this was not detailed in the Labour manifesto.
Kendall has also pledged to investigate the carer’s allowance scandal, according to The Guardian. She said unpaid carers being left with debt and threatened with prosecution is “unforgivable”.’
There’s a good deal of ignorance here – on the part of Kendall, not the Big Issue, they’ve done sterling work in this article – but that doesn’t surprise me, nor I expect a lot of other people, when disability rights, those familiar with such issues, are woefully underrepresented in parliament. There is still this belief that for so many people they are choosing a life on benefits, this plays well to some of the general public, the Tories have selling this along with their mates in the right wing media hate rags and instilling it in peoples brains for years, and it is ignorant when for some people they may get better, but others, especially if they have severe or life limiting disabilities, that is impossible. Another point worth noting is the rise in claimants which Kendall implies shows the Tories have been soft on benefits? Now their Universal Credit project does have an enormous backlog, it has suffered from delays, yes, delays in helping people worst of all, but given how badly the Tories have handled a number of issues – COVID, which has led to many people suffering from Long Covid, unable to work as a result of that, more claimants because they never took the pandemic seriously, but also years of austerity, years of forcing ordinary working class people to struggle, whilst at the same time decimating the NHS, increasing outsourcing, more of the NHS cash going to shareholders rather than the service, privatisation by stealth, has seen cases of mental health issues skyrocket, whilst overseeing less provision to deal with that growing problem. NHS waiting lists are another similar issue, people waiting for procedures and operations and being unable to work in the meantime and with Labour’s answer to that being to increase private health provision, which will not work, because the private health sector simply lacks capacity, it should be noted that many health professionals work in both the NHS and private practice for example, so bringing more staff, more private health integration, isn’t necessarily going to increase available care, because the health workers themselves in many cases already work both! It’s mad and will just waste money in my view, won’t actually solve much, but coming back to Liz Kendall and getting NHS waiting lists down to get some people back to work who obviously can once treated, she might be being a tad optimistic unless Labour get a damn sight more radical about it and do what must be done – train more staff here, but given that takes years, get health workers back here, who left due to Brexit, the state of the NHS under the Tories and genuinely fix it. Do I believe they will do that? I think the amount of private health donations the likes of Starmer and Streeting have taken makes that abundantly obvious that the answer is going to be no.
Getting work to pay sounds fine, the economy would get a boost with more money in ordinary people’s pockets, instead of so much going to line the pockets of the rich, but if you can’t work due to your health or disability, then this is still a moot point. If this is going to be Labour’s focus, rather than on social security for those who clearly need it, then they are going to continue to fail people.
She spoke of justice for the unpaid carers getting chased for overpayments of carers allowance, this I wholeheartedly support. Having been on that and this channel allowing me to get off it, about a year ago, it wasn’t until I’d been overpaid, that I was allowed to end the claim. I tried to end it before I reached that point and wasn’t actually allowed to and it should be noted that should you go one penny over the earning limit, you are expected to repay the full amount for that week. It becomes a trap when they are supposed to track all of this and yet failed to and then the DWP has come for so many people who did not realise they’d been overpaid. It does need sorting. But, and it’s a big but, Kendall saying that goes hand in hand with saying over 50s need to get back into work and she mentions people having had joint replacements once recovered getting into work and also mentioned that they may be caring for elderly parents at the same time. So there is an implication that carers may be targeted to find work if they haven’t already around their caring duties, or what? Lose their carers allowance? That benefit needs reform, but not that kind of reform.
There is certainly cause I feel for disabled and long term sick people to keep an eye on Kendall. She’s a cause for concern in my view, her rhetoric is that of the Tories who came before her and Labour is all about change as their slogan implied, I’m not seeing it here.
Meanwhile here’s a video recommendation where Keir Starmer last September decided it was a good idea to ditch a promise he had made to the long term sick and disabled to enshrine their rights and bring them into line with UN recommendations. Now why would he do that I wonder? His lies extending to the disabled are I suppose an example of inclusivity, he’s lied to everyone else, why not to them too? And I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.