Thursday, November 01, 2018
Now Labour are lost in confusion over benefits policy
It hasn't been a good week for Corbyn's Labour Party. They continue to be badly split over Brexit, with the leadership still lined up behind the Tories in taking us out of the EU, they are arguing amongst themselves over John McDonnell's support for tax cuts for those earning more than £50,000 a year, and now they have lost themselves in a fog of their own making on benefit policy.
The Independent reports that the Shadow Chancellor insisted only last week that Labour would fully uprate benefits, which are currently frozen for four years, until at least 2020. However, he has now been contradicted by a spokesperson for the Jeremy Corbyn, who said the party might not increase payments in line with inflation, which would leave some of the poorest people facing real-terms cut.
The paper says that the row echoes a similar one at last year’s election, when the party’s manifesto failed to give a commitment to ending the benefits freeze. Yet Labour itself has highlighted how the policy is likely to strip £13bn of support from claimants over four years, far more than the £9bn estimated by the government:
Mr Corbyn went on the attack at prime minister’s questions in the Commons, saying: “The benefit freeze takes £1.5bn from 10 million low and middle-income households.
“A low-income couple with children will be £200 worse off. For them, there is no end to austerity. Labour would have ended the benefit freeze.”
But afterwards, asked precisely what Mr Corbyn meant, his spokesman said the policy was to “move off the freeze”, declining to say it meant inflation-proofed upratings.
“That means you start to increase benefits again,” he said, adding: “A freeze means off. If you turn it on again, you can turn it on to different degrees.”
Once more Labour's failure to think through its policies and co-ordinate statements has left it wanting. Without that sort of message discipline the party's attempt to provide an effective opposition will fail as the media will end up talking about their failings rather than those of the Government.
The Independent reports that the Shadow Chancellor insisted only last week that Labour would fully uprate benefits, which are currently frozen for four years, until at least 2020. However, he has now been contradicted by a spokesperson for the Jeremy Corbyn, who said the party might not increase payments in line with inflation, which would leave some of the poorest people facing real-terms cut.
The paper says that the row echoes a similar one at last year’s election, when the party’s manifesto failed to give a commitment to ending the benefits freeze. Yet Labour itself has highlighted how the policy is likely to strip £13bn of support from claimants over four years, far more than the £9bn estimated by the government:
Mr Corbyn went on the attack at prime minister’s questions in the Commons, saying: “The benefit freeze takes £1.5bn from 10 million low and middle-income households.
“A low-income couple with children will be £200 worse off. For them, there is no end to austerity. Labour would have ended the benefit freeze.”
But afterwards, asked precisely what Mr Corbyn meant, his spokesman said the policy was to “move off the freeze”, declining to say it meant inflation-proofed upratings.
“That means you start to increase benefits again,” he said, adding: “A freeze means off. If you turn it on again, you can turn it on to different degrees.”
Once more Labour's failure to think through its policies and co-ordinate statements has left it wanting. Without that sort of message discipline the party's attempt to provide an effective opposition will fail as the media will end up talking about their failings rather than those of the Government.
