Benefits
Can you really give back your pensioner perks?
This weekend, Iain Duncan Smith sparked a furore when a Sunday Telegraph interview quoted him as saying he would ‘encourage everybody who reads the Telegraph and doesn’t need [their winter… Continue reading
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Why don’t Labour talk about welfare reform?
Philip Collins is shackled by the epithet ‘Tony Blair’s former speechwriter’; shackled because his columns prove him to be his own man. His latest (£) is a carefully argued critique… Continue reading
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Welfare Reform is this government’s most difficult but most popular policy.
I always enjoy Peter Oborne’s columns not least because his opinions are as entertaining, predictably unpredictable, quixotic and changeable as his cricket captaincy. This is not a bad thing. This… Continue reading
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George Osborne’s benefits speech – full text
George Osborne’s speech is below. As you will see, it is a bold defence of the government’s policies on tax and welfare, including the 50p rate cut. There was a… Continue reading
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Two versions of Osborne’s benefits speech
The Times’ Sam Coates picked up on a couple of discrepancies between the text of George Osborne’s Morrisons speech sent out by CCHQ, and the one published by the Treasury.… Continue reading
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Osborne and IDS promise a ‘better deal’ for working families. But a better deal is not necessarily a good deal
As Fraser says, the welfare changes, cuts to legal aid and so forth, which have come into force today, have got a universal thumbs-down in the left-wing press. I expect… Continue reading
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How will the Tories sell more welfare cuts?
David Cameron is making noises about further welfare cuts as he tours India, reports the FT’s Kiran Stacey. This isn’t surprising: the PM has got a gaggle of Cabinet ministers… Continue reading
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The Myth of the Immigrant Benefit-Moocher, Part Two
I am afraid, dear reader, that I have misled you. Yesterday’s post on immigrants and benefit-claimants contained an inaccuracy. I repeated a claim I’d seen in the Telegraph that there… Continue reading
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Webb vs Byrne on the ‘bedroom tax’
One of the most frustrating things about being a policymaker must surely be when something that sounds so very sensible and straightforward in your ivory tower ends up being a… Continue reading
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Labour opposes benefit cuts: for now, anyway
Last night’s debate on the bill capping benefit rises at 1 per cent was far more revelatory than it might first have appeared. It wasn’t Labour’s conclusion that the Tories… Continue reading
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Former housing minister calls for review of benefit rises bill
The Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill returns to the Commons this afternoon for committee and remaining stages. As I reported last week, rebel backbench Lib Dems, the Labour front bench team… Continue reading
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Lib Dems and Labour to push for changes to benefits uprating bill
Round two of the row over rises in benefit payments is on the way, with Lib Dems and opposition parties tabling a series of amendments to the government’s legislation. I… Continue reading
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Follow Lynton’s yellow brick briefing
The benefits debate in Westminster will rage on long after today’s vote in the Commons. It’s not just a straight row between the government and opposition over who is really… Continue reading
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Ed Balls reverses over his own progress on fiscal responsibility
The battle-lines over the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill — which faces its second reading in the Commons this afternoon — have been drawn. Labour has tied its opposition to the… Continue reading
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Sarah Teather dents the Coalition’s unity message by announcing her benefits rebellion
Coupled with Lord Strathclyde’s resignation over the way the Coalition worked in the House of Lords, Sarah Teather’s announcement that she will rebel against the government tomorrow is extremely poor… Continue reading
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Why the Tories aren’t worried about the benefit wars
The government has just published the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, and everyone’s pointing to polls which underline their own point about whether limiting the rise in benefits payments to 1… Continue reading
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Ed Miliband vs the working class
Who’s on the side of the strivers? Is it George Osborne, who’s cutting benefits in real terms for the next three years, which he defends as ‘being fair to the… Continue reading
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Why Ed Balls is so confident about benefit wars
The debate over benefit uprating will run and run because both sides think they are winning. George Osborne thinks the public resent generous benefits rises. Liam Byrne and Ed Balls… Continue reading
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Liam Byrne interview: The welfare system is ‘completely out of whack’
Liam Byrne is a modernising, Blairite Labour MP, and in case you were in any doubt about that, he conducts his interview with Coffee House sitting next to a framed… Continue reading
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Will he, won’t he? Ed Miliband makes noises about benefits war
Ed Miliband is ready to wage war with David Cameron and George Osborne over the Welfare Uprating Bill, which will see benefits rise by 1 per cent a year, rather… Continue reading
29 Comments