Tories promise end to benefit freeze next year. So what? That’s exactly when it was expected to end.
Therese Coffey: A meaningless non-announcement.
The Conservatives have promised to end the benefit freeze – next April. Is this another promise that will last until the end of the election?
They really must think we’re stupid. The benefit freeze was always intended to end next year. This is a meaningless non-announcement.
Once benefits do start to rise again, they will only keep pace with rising prices. There will be no increase in living standards.
Initiatives like the £10m fund to help slightly-disabled people into work means those who need extra support will continue to be left behind.
And look at the nonsense Therese Coffey spouted in support:
“We’re clear the best way for people to improve their lives is through work.” Rubbish! If that were true, no working people would be claiming benefits – but under Conservative rule, increasing numbers are having to do just that.
“Our balanced fiscal approach has built a strong economy, with 3.6 million more people in work since 2010.” Rubbish! Productivity is down, and work doesn’t pay.
“It’s that strong economy which allows us to bolster the welfare safety net by increasing benefit payments for working-age claimants now.” Rubbish! The promise is to increase benefits in April – if there’s a Tory government by then.
And why should there be?
Labour will abolish the benefits freeze immediately.
Not only that, it will scrap Universal Credit and put an end to the two-child limit on child benefit.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Margaret Greenwood pointed out the holes in the Tory offer: “Nobody will be fooled by this cynically timed announcement, which even now will leave the benefits freeze in place until next April.
“Harsh, punitive Conservative policies like the benefits freeze, the two-child limit and the five-week wait [for Universal Credit] have created a society where people are being forced to turn to food banks in ever-increasing numbers just to survive.
“We will ensure that our social security system genuinely protects people from poverty as it should.”
Source: Tories announce end to benefit freeze in move criticised as cynical | Politics | The Guardian
Are we supposed to feel grateful? It should have never been frozen in the first place, and no one is mentioning the fact that UK Benefits are already underpaid by 40% to begin with, as stated by the Council of Europe five years ago!
Tories hay more like toerags that arse wipe pulled behind ships of old. Let’s be clear promises are made to be broken how many times has Boris done it. But aktion T4 to cull many more under their rule under their benefits denial. Oh dear promises hay jeff3
I wonder how many of the “3.6 million more people in work since 2010” are 1950s born women, denied their pensions at 60 and so being forced to continue working. In Tory speak that’s “a balanced fiscal approach building a strong economy”
I’m sure there are 3.6 million people “in work” as companies fire full time workers and replace them with zero hours contract workers who they force into bogus “self-employment”.
I doubt it once the elections over it will be forgotten,if the tory get in again,they have a track record of lies.
Wow 1.7% £10-£11 per month for me. Wonder what I’ll spend it on?
The biggest issue that I can see with the upcoming snap (yet again) election is Brexit. People on both sides are completely fed up with the whole mess that the Tories have created over the past three and a half years. Yet they may well be stupid enough to vote Tory yet again in the hope that the Tories vague promise of “getting Brexit done” may actually be fulfilled this time.
Personally, I think making no deal effectively impossible as a potential option has actually made things worse. It means that the only other “options” left is to either accept the universally loathed really bad deal (for us), or just revoke Article 50 and act like the past few years never even happened (except, they did, so consequences).
The result of the above is that the Tories have backed themselves into a corner where delivering Brexit, as originally spouted back in 2016, is now effectively impossible. So staying in has become the only “choice” both sides have.
I really hope that the British public might actually grow a brain and realise that a true Labour administration under Corbyn is their only realistic chance of both short term and long term survival. Unfortunately, a populace that has been systematically programmed for decades under neo-liberal rule not to think but just react to whatever the Tory MSM says indicates otherwise.
A Labour government would also – of course – negotiate a different deal. The elements of it are already in place as Labour negotiators have been discussing such a deal with EU representatives for three and a half years.
So it isn’t a choice between the bad Tory deal and remaining; it’s a choice between Labour and Conservative – as usual.
That may well be, but my concern over whether the British public would vote reasonably, based on each individual party’s policies and so on, or whether their vote would be based primarily on Brexit still stands.
The possibility that the nightmare that is a Tory majority might still be able to go ahead with a no deal hard Brexit after all may yet sway many voters towards them, even the ones who personally can’t stand them.
I think your fear is common across the UK. All we can do is keep publicising reasons to support a better way.