Share this post:
Today is a strange day for me: it’s the one-year anniversary of the day I parted ways with the woman Vox Political readers had known for years as “Mrs Mike.”
We were together for 24 years.
For 17 of those, I was her full-time carer — a role I stepped into in 2007 when I left behind my career as a newspaper journalist.
I didn’t know then that I’d spend the next decade and more not just helping her navigate life with a serious illness, but fighting a government machine that seemed hell-bent on punishing her for it.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
In 2012, when she was wrongly placed in the Work-Related Activity Group for Employment and Support Allowance, I began challenging the Department for Work and Pensions — and stumbled into a scandal the government wanted buried.
My Freedom of Information requests eventually revealed that 2,400 people had died within a short period after being denied ESA.
That figure would later balloon when the contents of private DWP reports were leaked: between 2011 and 2019, more than 100,000 claimants died following decisions by the DWP — more than were killed under Nazi Germany’s Aktion T4 programme.
And the UK government’s Department for Work and Pensions had been lying about it to us all.
These are not just statistics.
They are a record of avoidable death, state violence, and political cowardice.
And now, it is happening again — under a Labour government.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The government has confirmed that Keir Starmer is announcing a “compromise” on his government’s deeply regressive Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
After more than 120 Labour backbenchers backed an amendment that would have sunk the proposals, Labour is now offering a fudge: current claimants, like Mrs Mike, will keep their benefits.
But new claimants — people who become sick or disabled in the future — will face a cruelly narrowed test, fewer support options, and a system designed not to help, but to cut.
I should be relieved. After everything we endured, it’s a comfort to know she won’t be stripped of the independence she fought so hard to keep.
But I am not relieved.
I am furious.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
This so-called compromise is no compromise at all.
It is a betrayal.
It is a reversal of the very idea of universal support, of equal treatment, of justice for all.
The – Labour – government is proposing that two people with the same condition, the same level of need, the same lived experience of disability will be treated differently depending on when they happened to get ill.
One will be helped.
The other denied.
This isn’t “reform.”
It’s a quiet return to the worst kind of austerity: invisible, incremental, and brutal.
It’s the kind of change that doesn’t make headlines now — but will fill coroners’ reports in years to come.
And worse still, the test Labour is using to separate the “deserving” from the “undeserving” is deeply flawed.
A person who needs assistance across multiple activities of daily living — but doesn’t score four points in any single descriptor — could lose out entirely.
Someone with fewer total challenges, but who hits the magic number in one category, may qualify.
Don’t forget that the system as it is already routinely refuses the majority of claimants, forcing them to seek “mandatory reconsideration” or even resort to a tribunal in court to get the award that they deserve.
And how many current recipients are going to find themselves being reassessed – and offered less – before the new rules come into effect, just so the DWP can cut funds for people who would not suffer repeat assessments afterwards?
It’s a farce.
It is a tick-box game played with real people’s lives.
What is being proposed here isn’t a more “fair” system.
It’s a rigged one — designed to manufacture lower benefit rolls, not reflect actual need.
Some Labour MPs — those who backed the original amendment — seem to think this is a victory.
Let me remind them: defending current claimants while abandoning the rest is not a win. It is an abdication of moral responsibility.
It’s saying, “We got ours. Good luck to the rest of you.”
It’s pulling up the ladder after a select few have climbed it, and the Devil take the hindmost.
It is not what I fought for.
I don’t believe it is what Mrs Mike would want either.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
She and I may no longer be together, but we remain on good terms.
We both know the value of the support she received — not as a “handout,” but as a lifeline.
To sit back now and let that lifeline be pulled away from others just like her would be a betrayal of everything we fought for together.
So no, Keir Starmer. You don’t get to dress this up as a compassionate fix.
This is calculated cruelty in disguise — and those of us who still believe in fairness for everyone will not let it pass quietly.
A deal that doesn’t include the next person who gets sick, the next person who becomes disabled, the next person who needs help — isn’t fair at all.
If Labour’s plan for disability benefit cuts didn’t need to be scrapped before, it certainly does now.
The whole system needs to be re-thought, from Square One, in consultation with disabled people, their carers and doctors, and disability rights organisations.
Here’s what we need to do about it:
-
Write to your MP — demand they oppose this bill and support a full, participatory review of the benefits system. Use TheyWorkForYou.com to find your MP and send your message.
-
Share your stories — publicly or anonymously — to show the human cost of a system designed to deny. You can share it here by emailing [email protected]
-
Support grassroots disability rights organisations like DPAC, Black Triangle, and others who’ve been leading this fight for years.
-
Join the conversation. I want to hear from you — about your experiences, your ideas, your demands.
This campaign isn’t just about one benefit or one policy.
It’s about building a society that values all of us.
Keir Starmer may think he has ended the rebellion against his cruelty. But he’s wrong. The rebellion has only just begun — and if justice still has a place in the United Kingdom, it will not end until every sick and disabled person is treated with dignity, equality, and respect.
Share this post:
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:
Fairness for some is injustice for all: why Labour’s disability benefits ‘compromise’ must be rejected
Share this post:
Today is a strange day for me: it’s the one-year anniversary of the day I parted ways with the woman Vox Political readers had known for years as “Mrs Mike.”
We were together for 24 years.
For 17 of those, I was her full-time carer — a role I stepped into in 2007 when I left behind my career as a newspaper journalist.
I didn’t know then that I’d spend the next decade and more not just helping her navigate life with a serious illness, but fighting a government machine that seemed hell-bent on punishing her for it.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
In 2012, when she was wrongly placed in the Work-Related Activity Group for Employment and Support Allowance, I began challenging the Department for Work and Pensions — and stumbled into a scandal the government wanted buried.
My Freedom of Information requests eventually revealed that 2,400 people had died within a short period after being denied ESA.
That figure would later balloon when the contents of private DWP reports were leaked: between 2011 and 2019, more than 100,000 claimants died following decisions by the DWP — more than were killed under Nazi Germany’s Aktion T4 programme.
And the UK government’s Department for Work and Pensions had been lying about it to us all.
These are not just statistics.
They are a record of avoidable death, state violence, and political cowardice.
And now, it is happening again — under a Labour government.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The government has confirmed that Keir Starmer is announcing a “compromise” on his government’s deeply regressive Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
After more than 120 Labour backbenchers backed an amendment that would have sunk the proposals, Labour is now offering a fudge: current claimants, like Mrs Mike, will keep their benefits.
But new claimants — people who become sick or disabled in the future — will face a cruelly narrowed test, fewer support options, and a system designed not to help, but to cut.
I should be relieved. After everything we endured, it’s a comfort to know she won’t be stripped of the independence she fought so hard to keep.
But I am not relieved.
I am furious.
Get my free guide: “10 Political Lies You Were Sold This Decade” — just subscribe to our email list here:
👉 https://voxpoliticalonline.com
This so-called compromise is no compromise at all.
It is a betrayal.
It is a reversal of the very idea of universal support, of equal treatment, of justice for all.
The – Labour – government is proposing that two people with the same condition, the same level of need, the same lived experience of disability will be treated differently depending on when they happened to get ill.
One will be helped.
The other denied.
This isn’t “reform.”
It’s a quiet return to the worst kind of austerity: invisible, incremental, and brutal.
It’s the kind of change that doesn’t make headlines now — but will fill coroners’ reports in years to come.
And worse still, the test Labour is using to separate the “deserving” from the “undeserving” is deeply flawed.
A person who needs assistance across multiple activities of daily living — but doesn’t score four points in any single descriptor — could lose out entirely.
Someone with fewer total challenges, but who hits the magic number in one category, may qualify.
Don’t forget that the system as it is already routinely refuses the majority of claimants, forcing them to seek “mandatory reconsideration” or even resort to a tribunal in court to get the award that they deserve.
And how many current recipients are going to find themselves being reassessed – and offered less – before the new rules come into effect, just so the DWP can cut funds for people who would not suffer repeat assessments afterwards?
It’s a farce.
It is a tick-box game played with real people’s lives.
What is being proposed here isn’t a more “fair” system.
It’s a rigged one — designed to manufacture lower benefit rolls, not reflect actual need.
Some Labour MPs — those who backed the original amendment — seem to think this is a victory.
Let me remind them: defending current claimants while abandoning the rest is not a win. It is an abdication of moral responsibility.
It’s saying, “We got ours. Good luck to the rest of you.”
It’s pulling up the ladder after a select few have climbed it, and the Devil take the hindmost.
It is not what I fought for.
I don’t believe it is what Mrs Mike would want either.
Six books are gone – 44 to go!
Just click on the image, make your donation
and provide your details!
She and I may no longer be together, but we remain on good terms.
We both know the value of the support she received — not as a “handout,” but as a lifeline.
To sit back now and let that lifeline be pulled away from others just like her would be a betrayal of everything we fought for together.
So no, Keir Starmer. You don’t get to dress this up as a compassionate fix.
This is calculated cruelty in disguise — and those of us who still believe in fairness for everyone will not let it pass quietly.
A deal that doesn’t include the next person who gets sick, the next person who becomes disabled, the next person who needs help — isn’t fair at all.
If Labour’s plan for disability benefit cuts didn’t need to be scrapped before, it certainly does now.
The whole system needs to be re-thought, from Square One, in consultation with disabled people, their carers and doctors, and disability rights organisations.
Here’s what we need to do about it:
Write to your MP — demand they oppose this bill and support a full, participatory review of the benefits system. Use TheyWorkForYou.com to find your MP and send your message.
Share your stories — publicly or anonymously — to show the human cost of a system designed to deny. You can share it here by emailing [email protected]
Support grassroots disability rights organisations like DPAC, Black Triangle, and others who’ve been leading this fight for years.
Join the conversation. I want to hear from you — about your experiences, your ideas, your demands.
This campaign isn’t just about one benefit or one policy.
It’s about building a society that values all of us.
Keir Starmer may think he has ended the rebellion against his cruelty. But he’s wrong. The rebellion has only just begun — and if justice still has a place in the United Kingdom, it will not end until every sick and disabled person is treated with dignity, equality, and respect.
Share this post:
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