Disabled Labour MP breaks down in tears over party's welfare cuts
Marie Tidball, MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge since 2024, explained that she felt compelled to join politics after the Conservatives' series of severe spending cuts and tax increases when they were last in government.
Ms Tidball, who was born with a congenital disability affecting all four limbs, condemned Labour's proposed cuts and confirmed that she would be voting against the bill.
The bill would see changes made to personal independence payment (Pip) and the health-related element of universal credit.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Wimbledon umpire takes action after player complains of ‘dangerous' spectator
Security at Wimbledon is 'absolutely critical', the tournament's operations director has said, after a player raised concerns about a spectator during the championship's first day. During her match on Monday, the world No 33, Yulia Putintseva, raised security concerns to the umpire about a spectator whom she described as 'crazy' and 'dangerous' and asked for them to be ejected. 'Take him out, because maybe he has a knife and he will attack after, I don't know,' Putintseva said to the umpire during her match against Amanda Anisimova. Wimbledon's operations director, Michelle Dite, said on Tuesday that if players had any concerns, they 'absolutely' should be brought to light. 'We would rather know about these things, and that is what happened yesterday, and the chair umpire then had some really good communication as planned,' said Dite, adding that it was not a stalking incident. A person present at the match told the Athletic that the spectator at issue had been speaking in Russian about the war in Ukraine. Putintseva, who was born in Russia, changed to represent Kazakhstan in 2012. A Wimbledon spokesperson declined to say if the spectator was ejected. 'Security was in the area. The issue was dealt with,' he said. The incident is the latest surrounding security measures after a man who was given a restraining order in Dubai in February for stalking Emma Raducanu was blocked from buying tickets for the championships this month in the public ballot. Dite said: 'Protocols were followed. The matter was dealt with.' On Tuesday morning, more than 10,000 spectators queued outside the grounds with fans and umbrellas to watch British players including Jack Draper, a top contender for the men's singles championship. On Monday, more than 13,000 people entered the grounds after queueing in the heat, some overnight, as opening-day attendance jumped to 42,756 from 40,514 last year. Protesters on the ground's outskirts called for a boycott of Wimbledon's banking partner, Barclays, over ties to Israel's war on Gaza. Temperatures on Tuesday reached 34.2C (93.6F) by early afternoon, as spectators frequently sought shade and were encouraged to hydrate after a woman collapsed while watching a match on Monday. Dite, discussing the incident on Monday during which Carlos Alcaraz interrupted play to hand a struggling spectator a bottle of water, thanked the returning Wimbledon champion for his support and acknowledged there had been a delay in the medical response. 'Yes, it did take a while, but this lady had fainted, so it needed to be managed very carefully. I know there was a bit of delay but we all work very hard,' said Dite. 'It takes a while sometimes to just assess the situation,' she added. 'And thanks to Carlos for his support for going to get some water.' Daniel Evans was the first British player to go through to the second round of Wimbledon on Tuesday after defeating Jay Clarke in an all-British clash. Draper eased into the second round after his opponent Sebastian Baez retired injured, while wildcard Jack Pinnington Jones completed a straight-sets victory over Tomás Etcheverry. Six Britons – Clarke, Heather Watson, Johannus Monday, Jodie Burrage, George Loffhagen and Francesca Jones – suffered first-round exits.
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
The royal gravy train must be halted
The news that the royal train is to be retired to a museum by 2027 was the public relations equivalent of a tethered goat: an enticing morsel designed to distract attention from less palatable aspects of the royal finances. Faced with the royal family's booming income at a time of hardship for many Britons, officials who guard the royal image clearly decided something had to be offered up. Consigning the train's nine carriages to history was an obvious choice, a painless sacrifice. Costing some £1 million to maintain annually, it was rarely used, enjoying just two outings last year, costing £78,000. It will come as news to most taxpayers that such an extraordinary vehicle still exists, and that they have been shelling out seven figures for it to mainly languish in the sidings. But the royal financials released this week are concerning for the information they do not contain. • King Charles net worth — Sunday Times Rich List 2025 Two sets of figures were released, one relating to the monarchy as a whole, and another to the income of the Prince of Wales from the Duchy of Cornwall. In contrast to the rest of government, where balancing books is a neuralgic issue, the royal finances are in rude health. Since 2011, when David Cameron concocted a ludicrously generous funding formula for the sovereign grant, the annual payment to the monarchy, its value has soared. From £31 million in 2013 it will be £132 million in each of the next two years. Even when money for the £369 million refurbishment of Buckingham Palace is subtracted there will still be tens of millions left to fund royal operations. The sovereign grant formula is bizarre. Some 260 years ago, George III surrendered the earnings from the crown's hereditary lands in return for a stipend. Those assets became the Crown Estate which, despite its name, has nothing to do with the monarchy. Under the Cameron arrangement the grant is calculated at 10 per cent of Crown Estate profits, with a 2 per cent temporary uplift for the palace works. Licence earnings for offshore wind farms on the estate-owned seabed have seen profits rocket to over £1 billion. This is a temporary boost for the estate but not for the royals. The 2011 agreement includes a 'gold ratchet' that means the grant can stay the same or go up, but not fall. Together with his £27 million income from the Duchy of Lancaster the King is well provided for. Even though the palace knows the Crown Estate is a national, not a royal, asset it persists with the fiction that it is. Supposedly, its surrender in the 18th century is still providing a net gain for the public. A spokesman said this week: 'The sum surrendered by the King is far greater than the sum returned as the sovereign grant, and thus there is no additional burden on taxpayers.' To this fantasy is added the secrecy of Prince William over the tax he pays on income from the Duchy of Cornwall. Once public, the amount is now simply described as the 'highest rate'. The duchy is a 'private estate with a commercial imperative'. That means a company, surely? Yet it pays no corporation tax or CGT. It also makes charities, schools and the NHS pay for using premises. William's desire to be a champion for the underprivileged is undermined by this profiteering. Just like the Crown Estate, the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are national assets, not 'private' ones. It is time for the government to consolidate all three into a National Estate and pay working royals simple stipends while maintaining royal infrastructure. The gravy train must end.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Starmer wins vote on UK welfare reform but suffers damaging rebellion
LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer won a vote on his welfare plans on Tuesday at significant political cost as he suffered the biggest parliamentary rebellion of his premiership and was forced to back down on key parts of the package. After his lawmakers pushed him into a series of embarrassing U-turns to sharply scale back plans to cut benefits, lawmakers in the House of Commons gave their initial approval to a package of measures Starmer says are vital to securing the future of the welfare system. But the scale of the rebellion - with 49 Labour lawmakers voting against the reforms - underlined the prime minister's waning authority. A year after winning one of the largest parliamentary majorities in British history, Starmer has seen his personal approval ratings collapse and been forced into several policy reversals by his increasingly rebellious lawmakers. "It's been a bumpy time tonight," work and pensions minister Liz Kendall told reporters after a session of parliament when lawmakers took turns to mostly criticise the planned changes. "There are definitely lessons to learn from this process." Starmer came into office last year promising his big parliamentary majority would bring an end to the political chaos that defined much of the Conservative Party's 14 years in power. But the revolt over the welfare bill underlines the difficulty he has pushing through unpopular changes. In the run-up to the vote, ministers and party enforcers known as "whips" had been locked in frantic last-ditch lobbying of undecided members of parliament to try to win their backing. In a further concession to rebels about two hours before the vote, the government said it would not finalise changes in eligibility for a key benefit payment until a review into the welfare system had been completed. Paula Barker, a Labour member of parliament, called the attempt to pass the plans "the most unedifying spectacle that I have ever seen". In the end, the government suffered by far the biggest rebellion of Starmer's premiership, eclipsing the 16 members of parliament who opposed an infrastructure bill earlier this month. Mel Stride, the opposition Conservative Party finance policy chief, described Starmer's team as "a government that's lost control", only able to pass the legislation by having "ripped the heart of it out". Labour lawmaker Henry Tufnell said by agreeing to the concessions Starmer had shown "he's willing to take on board these criticisms that people have raised." Almost 90 disability and human rights groups before the vote urged lawmakers to vote down the legislation. The proposed reforms are designed to reduce the cost of Britain's growing welfare bill, which the government has described as economically indefensible and morally wrong. Annual spending on incapacity and disability benefits already exceeds the country's defence budget and is set to top 100 billion pounds ($137 billion) by 2030, according to official forecasts, up from 65 billion pounds now. More than half of the rise in working-age disability claims since the COVID-19 pandemic relates to mental health conditions, opens new tab, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank. The government had initially hoped to save 5 billion pounds ($6.9 billion) a year by 2030 by tightening rules for people to receive disability and sickness benefits. But after the government conceded to pressure from its lawmakers, it said the new rules would now apply only to future applicants, not to the millions of existing claimants as had been proposed. Analysts estimated the savings would likely be closer to 2 billion pounds. It was not clear how the additional last-minute change would impact the hoped-for savings in the welfare reform package. Opposition politicians said the government would now have to raise taxes or cut government spending elsewhere to balance the public finances in the annual budget later this year. The government has said there would be no permanent increase in borrowing, but has declined to comment on possible tax rises. While Starmer is under no immediate threat, and the next election is not expected until 2029, his party now trails behind Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK in opinion polls. John Curtice, Britain's most respected pollster, said this week that Starmer was the most unpopular elected prime minister in modern British history, and that voters still did not know what he stood for a year after he was elected.
