Huge thanks to the kind supporter who just donated to Vox Political‘s Ko-fi page for trying to “protect the vulnerable”! Every contribution helps keep this work going — if you’d like to join them: Ko-fi.com/voxpolitical.
While pensioners dominate the headlines, sick and disabled people face a looming £5 billion assault — and nobody’s listening.
The Labour government has reportedly been “rethinking” its deeply unpopular cut to Winter Fuel Payments after its disastrous local election results, but new signs suggest the leadership is resisting even that small concession.
Meanwhile, it remains fully committed to even harsher cuts to disability benefits like Personal Independence Payment (PIP) — and the contrast speaks volumes about political calculation, media failure, and a shameful silence around the rights of disabled people.
Help fund great articles! We’re aiming for £50 to cover research and reporting time this week.
Can you chip in £3 today?
👉 https://ko-fi.com/voxpolitical
Coverage from the BBC, The Guardian, and others has highlighted the fury over the Winter Fuel Payment change.
That’s understandable: it hurt millions of pensioners.
But it already happened.
It already saved the government money last winter — and already impoverished pensioners in the process.
In other words, the damage is done.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The PIP cuts, on the other hand, haven’t even happened yet.
But they’re coming — and they’re set to hit some of the most vulnerable people in the UK in ways that will be deeper, longer-lasting, and far more devastating than any result of Winter Fuel Payment cuts.
Why, then, was Labour even considering only a U-turn on the pensioner policy?
The answer appears to be brutally cynical: pensioners vote in large numbers and lean Conservative, but they also swing.
The local elections proved that Labour can lose those voters.
Meanwhile, sick and disabled people are more likely to vote Labour — if they vote at all — and are too often seen as a ‘safe’ group to target when looking to save cash.
I’ve said it before: it’s austerity by stealth, with a red rosette.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
Labour’s own Welsh First Minister, Eluned Morgan, is now publicly calling out her party’s Westminster leadership for getting it wrong on both counts — yet even her sharpest lines are being boiled down in the press to concern over Winter Fuel Payments alone.
The BBC’s Politics Live programme barely touched the PIP issue, while the Guardian’s otherwise detailed coverage framed the £5bn in planned benefit cuts as a backdrop — not the main event.
This is despite the fact that stage one of the welfare cuts will go to a vote in June, and stage two — including PIP freezes — is planned for the autumn.
So here’s the brutal truth: Labour seems unwilling to reverse a policy that has already done its fiscal work and caused a voter backlash – and it is holding firm on a policy that hasn’t even been implemented yet — meaning there’s still time to stop it — because party leaders think they can get away with it.
This is not just political cowardice; it’s media complicity.
- It is failing to foreground the fact that hundreds of thousands of – perhaps more than a million – disabled people will be disproportionately harmed.
- It is failing to interrogate the human cost of cuts that ministers themselves admit will be “even more painful.”
- And it is failing to heed the warnings from disability rights groups, Labour backbenchers, and even Welsh Labour’s leadership.
The sick and disabled are being left out of the headlines again — just as they were under the Tories. And unless that changes now, they’ll pay the price again too.
If you’d like to support disabled people fighting back against these cuts, sign the petition calling for the cuts to be abandoned and a new National Disability Strategy to be designed instead.
Also follow and share updates from disability rights groups like DPAC (@Dis_PPL_Protest) and Inclusion London (@InclusionLondon).
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Winter fuel payments v disability benefits: media and Labour choose the easy option
While pensioners dominate the headlines, sick and disabled people face a looming £5 billion assault — and nobody’s listening.
The Labour government has reportedly been “rethinking” its deeply unpopular cut to Winter Fuel Payments after its disastrous local election results, but new signs suggest the leadership is resisting even that small concession.
Meanwhile, it remains fully committed to even harsher cuts to disability benefits like Personal Independence Payment (PIP) — and the contrast speaks volumes about political calculation, media failure, and a shameful silence around the rights of disabled people.
Help fund great articles! We’re aiming for £50 to cover research and reporting time this week.
Can you chip in £3 today?
👉 https://ko-fi.com/voxpolitical
Coverage from the BBC, The Guardian, and others has highlighted the fury over the Winter Fuel Payment change.
That’s understandable: it hurt millions of pensioners.
But it already happened.
It already saved the government money last winter — and already impoverished pensioners in the process.
In other words, the damage is done.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The PIP cuts, on the other hand, haven’t even happened yet.
But they’re coming — and they’re set to hit some of the most vulnerable people in the UK in ways that will be deeper, longer-lasting, and far more devastating than any result of Winter Fuel Payment cuts.
Why, then, was Labour even considering only a U-turn on the pensioner policy?
The answer appears to be brutally cynical: pensioners vote in large numbers and lean Conservative, but they also swing.
The local elections proved that Labour can lose those voters.
Meanwhile, sick and disabled people are more likely to vote Labour — if they vote at all — and are too often seen as a ‘safe’ group to target when looking to save cash.
I’ve said it before: it’s austerity by stealth, with a red rosette.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
Labour’s own Welsh First Minister, Eluned Morgan, is now publicly calling out her party’s Westminster leadership for getting it wrong on both counts — yet even her sharpest lines are being boiled down in the press to concern over Winter Fuel Payments alone.
The BBC’s Politics Live programme barely touched the PIP issue, while the Guardian’s otherwise detailed coverage framed the £5bn in planned benefit cuts as a backdrop — not the main event.
This is despite the fact that stage one of the welfare cuts will go to a vote in June, and stage two — including PIP freezes — is planned for the autumn.
So here’s the brutal truth: Labour seems unwilling to reverse a policy that has already done its fiscal work and caused a voter backlash – and it is holding firm on a policy that hasn’t even been implemented yet — meaning there’s still time to stop it — because party leaders think they can get away with it.
This is not just political cowardice; it’s media complicity.
The sick and disabled are being left out of the headlines again — just as they were under the Tories. And unless that changes now, they’ll pay the price again too.
If you’d like to support disabled people fighting back against these cuts, sign the petition calling for the cuts to be abandoned and a new National Disability Strategy to be designed instead.
Also follow and share updates from disability rights groups like DPAC (@Dis_PPL_Protest) and Inclusion London (@InclusionLondon).
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
you might also like
Let’s start the New Year with some hopeful news
More mistakes in the script? Correcting Cameron’s New Year speech
Osborne wants a ‘year of hard truths’. Here’s one: He’s HIDING the truth