After 14 years of austerity, many sick and disabled people hoped things would get easier under the new Labour Party government. Instead, they’ve had pretty much weekly threats from Keir Starmer’s team. If we lived in a country in which the media wasn’t completely biased towards a system in which the rich get richer and the unfortunate get shafted, you’d expect some sort of pushback from the BBC. Instead, their flagship interviewer Laura Kuenssberg is seemingly pushing for Labour to do even more harm via the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cutting Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
As columnist Andrew Fisher noted:
And some of those people getting additional money will be disabled people in work – and it is that extra support (through PIP) that enables them to work at all!
— Andrew Fisher (@FisherAndrew79) March 9, 2025
Media and political alignment on DWP PIP
Kuenssberg was interviewing Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. Watching the clip, you can see that the two are basically in agreement that sick people receiving DWP PIP money from the state is intolerable.
Twitter user Saul Staniforth described this as “pitching the sick against the unemployed”:
#BBCLauraK pitching the sick against the unemployed.
Its not the sick vs the unemployed. Its the super rich versus the sick, the unemployed, the low paid, the elderly, people struggling to pay their bills, and everybody else too. https://t.co/oVmibpIaWJ pic.twitter.com/JeqvteVoTn
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 9, 2025
This is how Kuenssberg puts it to McFadden:
Is it fair that you can get as much as an extra £400 a month in benefits if you’re sick rather than somebody who’s out of work looking for a job? Is that fair?
McFadden responded:
What’s not fair is for millions of people to be left on long term sickness benefits with… no prospect of work, which is not good for them and it’s not good for the taxpayer.
The idea that McFadden and Labour are presenting is that there are legions of people in the UK who were maybe a bit sick at some point but are only still on benefits because the government forgot to take them off.
If you or anyone you know claims DWP PIP or other health-related benefits, you’ll know what horse shit this is. These benefits are barely enough to survive on; of course people who can physically seek work do so once they’re able to.
In many instances, people actually take jobs even when it’s incredibly damaging to their health.
As bad as Labour’s argument is, thought, Kuenssberg takes it a step further when she asks:
Is it fair for the taxpayer that some people can get more money if they’re on the sick rather than looking for a job?
Fisher was right – people don’t get more money because they’re “on the sick”, as Kuenssberg puts it; they get more or less money based on their specific needs. If someone is able to look for work, they probably have less extreme needs than someone who cannot seek work.
This isn’t complicated.
And really, the only reason you’d push this argument was because you thought people who can’t work shouldn’t be entitled to anything.
There have, of course, been several regimes in history which decided that the state needed to be increasingly hostile towards disabled people – you can probably guess the name of the big one which took this ideology to its natural conclusion.
Cuts on top of cuts
Two days earlier, Fisher and others commented on Labour’s leaked solution to the sickness problem:
Government to incentivise people to work who they have found unfit for work.
Orwellian.https://t.co/QTFs7Um9ga
— Andrew Fisher (@FisherAndrew79) March 7, 2025
Will be hugely controversial as even those very clearly unable to work will be seeing cash cuts to their benefits. It’s a massive overhaul. Hearing that around £1bn of savings will be ploughed back in- through employment support investment 3/
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) March 7, 2025
The Canary’s Steve Topple reported on the situation on Friday 7 March:
The Labour Party-led Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is set to introduce a controversial package of welfare reforms aimed at saving over £6 billion, which will include significant changes to how disability benefits are administered.
Yet, as it has done previously in the past year, the Labour-led DWP decided to leak the news to the mainstream media late on a Friday, as opposed to putting out an official announcement. It that’s not contempt for chronically ill and disabled people, it is unclear what is.
He noted:
Under the proposed changes, £5 billion is expected to be saved by tightening eligibility for DWP PIP, which is designed to support those with additional costs due to disability. In addition, PIP payments will be frozen next year, meaning they will not increase with inflation, affecting approximately four million chronically ill and disabled people.
Four million.
That’s so many people that most people in the country will know someone who’s affected.
There will be many who are shocked to discover that their friends and relatives are affected, having bought into the propaganda that there really are millions out there who are scamming the system. So this isn’t just demonic on an ethical level; it’s also incredibly short-sighted politics.
In other words, it’s classic Starmer.
Topple also wrote:
As some people pointed out, DWP PIP is already difficult to get. The Canary recently reported that nearly half – over 330,000 – of claims for PIP were rejected last year alone.
Individual testimonies illustrate the potential impact of these changes. Carol Vickers, who has multiple disabilities, expressed her concern that the loss of PIP would affect her ability to maintain employment, stating that she feels targeted by government policies aimed at disabled people.
As one person pointed out:
Ripping PIP away will be catastrophic for disabled people
Rumoured £6bn cuts to disability benefits @AnushkaAsthana https://t.co/dpaZqaJqkW
— James Taylor (@Jamestaylor2) March 7, 2025
Former Labour shadow chancellor and current MP John McDonnell was among those who spoke out over the DWP PIP controversy:
Let’s be clear, these proposals are not so called “savings” they are cuts in benefits to many of the poorest in our society. They will cause great hardship & suffering. This is not what any Labour government was elected to do. I will oppose & join with others campaigning against. https://t.co/vFvgEwnjzg
— John McDonnell (@johnmcdonnellMP) March 7, 2025
Sicko nation
What Labour have planned for sick and disabled people is truly disgusting, and it’s going to affect enough people that many will see Labour as the new ‘nasty party’. When that happens, remember that the BBC didn’t just go along with it; they arguably pushed Labour to go further on DWP PIP
With the majority of people experiencing worsening living conditions, who are the real burden on Britain? Is it the people who had fuck all yesterday and will have even less tomorrow, or the people who have everything now and want it to double every year from now until the collapse of society?
We think you know the answer to that, but you’re not going to hear it on the BBC.
Featured image via BBC
