From tears to cheers, readers discuss Rachel Reeves and tax rises
The chancellor was seen wiping away a tear after Sir Keir Starmer faced a grilling over a backbench revolt against welfare reform that left a £5billion hole in her plans. We all know politics is a harsh way to earn a crust but no job should ever leave someone so exposed like that.
I hope she's OK and the issue that allegedly caused it is resolved – a Treasury spokesman said it was 'a personal matter'.
I also hope the people said to be involved are able to reflect on what happened. Paddy J Cawkwell, Conisbrough
I'm no fan of Starmer, Angela Rayner or Reeves. In fact, I pretty much despise them. That said, I'm not going to derive any pleasure in seeing anyone close to tears. I hope Reeves feels better soon. Martin Lawrence, South Croydon
The chancellor shed some tears at PMQs on Wednesday. It was not over the genocide in Gaza or the countless children that the UK has helped wipe from the face of the earth through its arming Israel.
Nor was it over the two-tier welfare state that she has helped create, where her 'balancing the books' is on the backs of the sick and the disabled.
I think she was crying because the PM refused to answer a question about whether or not she might lose her role as chancellor. She was crying over a small bump in her lucrative career. Pathetic. Julie Partridge, London
Hooray for a government where so many MPs are prepared to stand up against the boss, their leader, for what they believe is right.
Starmer was forced to cancel his plans to reduce the number of people eligible for personal independence payments 90 minutes before the vote on Tuesday.
I've never seen the Tories make a stand in such numbers and no Tory chancellor would be in tears because none of them would care that much. Angela Singer, Cambridge
Regarding the current debate on welfare reform. While it seems that most politicians (including Labour rebels) agree that welfare reform is necessary, no one has yet come up with a practical solution to achieve it – other than the obvious options of cutting or reducing access to current benefits and/or restricting benefits to new applicants as was intended by this week's original bill.
So, as a result of the government's cack-handed approach up to this point – both on this and the winter fuel allowance – and the strident opposition of its own MPs, which has effectively derailed the current bill, the 'financial consequences' alluded to by cabinet minister Pat McFadden will surely be increased taxes for ordinary people in the autumn budget. Jeremy, London
Once again we are subjected to the sight of the major political parties just 'slagging off' each other's proposals. Why don't they get together and get on with running the country to its best advantage?
This is what the British people need and expect from their elected representatives. Rob, York
I wonder how many more people the Israel Defence Force have killed since rap-punk duo Bob Vylan led the crowd in chants of 'death to the IDF' at Glastonbury on Saturday?
This morning I saw that Gaza hospital director Dr Marwan Sultan, his wife, daughters and son-in-law have been killed.
That's more to add to the tens of thousands, including many thousands of children, the IDF have already killed. This has happened under the leadership of Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Appalling as what Hamas did on October 7, 2023 was, it does not justify Israel killing all these Palestinians, most of whom were surely not active members of Hamas – certainly not the 14,000 children the UN estimates to have died. George, Uxbridge
Timothy Triggs (MetroTalk, Tue) takes issue with my letter saying Reform UK has nothing to offer working people.
He points to their announcement that they would raise the income tax threshold to £20,000. Frankly, I didn't take this seriously, it being such a large rise.
And in defence of their so-called Britannia Card, which would allow non-doms to pay £250,000 to be spared taxes on their foreign earnings, Timothy says millionaires pay a lot of other taxes.
I accept Reform would know, since most of its leaders are millionaires! So let's judge them by their voting record shall we? Minimum wage increase? Opposed. Employment rights bill? Voted against.
As I say – nothing to offer working people. S Coyne, Coventry
Like Dominic (MetroTalk, Wed) I also remember the long, hot summer of 1976 and the drought. More Trending
I'm certain it also affected south-west Scotland as in July that year, as usual, I was on holiday in Ayr, staying with my aunt and uncle, and water use was restricted in the town.
What this meant was, want a bath or shower? Just nip down to the beach – no need for soap, the salt water is good enough! Robert James, St Albans
And with this week's heatwave, all of a sudden, everybody is working from work, because work has air-con. Eddy, Hitchin
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Times
29 minutes ago
- Times
Rachel Reeves's tears were ours after a year of Keir Starmer
Rachel Reeves's tears were at once mortal and mythical. Each droplet running down her face took a point off the pound, set those mysterious dark forces the bond markets howling. She's the goose who lays the golden eggs in reverse: the woman who can leak away her country's wealth with every tear. Poor Rachel Reeves. The first female chancellor is made not of iron but all too human flesh. Will there be conversations now about how women holding this office are a fiscal risk, too mutable to maintain the sphinx-like calm capitalism demands? • Bond yields rise and pound falls as Starmer fails to back Reeves The most unforgiving voices I've heard are in fact those of older women, shoulder-pad-era survivors, who had to spend their careers aping powerful men. Don't give those bastards the satisfaction of calling you 'emotional': keep it all tamped down until you reach the sanctity of the ladies' loo or your own car. Men, I find, just accept that crying is what women do. And it is. Crying is a substitute for smashing phones or hard drinking, for landing punches, shouting or stewing in silence alone. It is our superpower, release valve and restart button, and a key reason suicide is four times more prevalent among men. The mistake is to assume all tears spring from the same source: women cry not out of weakness but rage, frustration, despair or as a last defence to say 'enough now, I can't take any more'. So what was going on at PMQs? To judge from her slump-shouldered, kicked dog mien, Reeves had reached her limit. In her puffy face was every four-hour night's sleep, bleak spreadsheet and bitter meeting. Was the cause, as claimed, 'personal'? If so, one wonders not just why she entered the chamber but why she turned up extraneously the next day in east London at the NHS launch, wearing a ton of make-up and a rictus smile. But then isn't all of our vicious modern politics personal? More revealing is the PM's behaviour. Keir Starmer said later that in the heat of PMQs he hadn't noticed his chancellor's distress — though she'd sat right beside him and he'd turned to her for help finding a reference in his notes. I was reminded of an anecdote in Tom Baldwin's biography about a young Starmer so focused on his law studies he didn't notice burglars in his flat stealing the TV. The story is offered as an example of Starmer's single-minded focus. But now we see a uni-tasking 60-something man without the emotional intelligence to bridge the competing demands of this awful moment, then next day — like a husband hastily buying petrol station flowers — staging a hug of compassion for the cameras. Reeves had endured a year of being marched into battle to make cuts to our untenable, bloated welfare system, whether winter fuel payments or PIP (personal independence payment). Starmer let her argue the case, take the flak, then, because he lacked the charisma, conviction, leadership or nerve to bring enough MPs from his vast majority with him, left her swinging in the wind. Almost all of the government's achievements that Starmer reeled off, as Reeves's lower lip quivered, involved more public spending. Breakfast clubs, free school meals, more social housing and NHS appointments: lovely, safe, core Labour promises. It was Reeves's job, peering down that infamous fiscal black hole, to pay for them all. And against the party's grain she wrestled with difficult choices a Starmer government promised not to balk at. Now she's back at the Treasury, £5 billion short, staring into an abyss. Reeves's tears reflect the national mood on this government's first anniversary. The country, especially those of us who saw in Starmer a chance for dull technocratic calm after a decade of chaos, share her frustration, rage, despair. This Labour government wasn't supposed to fall into the usual traps, wasn't just going to tax business and expand the welfare state, but would re-establish the social contract's first principles. Crime will be punished; if you are severely incapacitated the state will help you, otherwise you must work; control national borders. This is basic governance. And now it is not just hard to deliver logistically or financially but ideologically, too. A group of Labour backbenchers, around 100, are certain they will be one-term MPs. Reform is growing, and an alliance between Greens, Corbynites and Islamic sectarians is spreading in the Midlands and university towns. Untethered from an aloof Labour leader, backbenchers have a choice: uphold a doomed Starmer government they see as right-leaning, or follow their own social justice passions. Yeah, the voters dumped me — but dammit, I stayed pure. After the welfare debacle they are likely to echo Kevin Spacey's character in American Beauty: 'You don't get to tell me what to do ever again.' Starmer's only option, according to Blue Labour's Lord Glasman, is to call their bluff: let's make this a confidence vote, fall in line or we'll call a general election now. As if Starmer, who has bottled out of every battle, has the guts. Meanwhile, an extraordinary 1,000 more people are signed up to PIP every day with the government not even reapplying the basic filter of face-to-face checks, and this week 2,000 more small boat migrants arrived requiring free hotel rooms. Rents rose 7 per cent in a year, firms are holding off hiring because of NI rises, shoplifting is soaring, no one expects the police to investigate a snatched phone or a stolen car. To say the country is broken is to disrespect the legions who work so hard — but it is chronically stalled. If Starmer can't rally his party, Reform will feast upon these problems — and who will be crying then?
Leader Live
37 minutes ago
- Leader Live
What is a proscribed organisation?
On Thursday the House of Lords backed proscribing the group under the Terrorism Act 2000 without a vote. But what is proscription and what does it mean for an organisation to be proscribed? – What is a proscribed organisation? According to the Government website, under the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary may proscribe an organisation if they believe it is concerned in terrorism, and it is proportionate to do so. Under the law this means the organisation commits or takes part in acts of terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes or encourages terrorism (including the unlawful glorification of terrorism), or is otherwise concerned in terrorism. Once an organisation is proscribed it is illegal to join or show support for it. – What does terrorism mean when talking about proscription? As defined in the Act, terrorism means the use or threat of action which involves serious violence against a person, involves serious damage to property, endangers a person's life (other than that of the person committing the act), creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or section of the public or is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system. The definition also sets out that the use or threat of such action must be designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public. Additionally, it must be undertaken for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause. – What factors are taken into consideration when determining whether proscription is proportionate? According to the Government website, the Home Secretary will take into account the nature and scale of an organisation's activities, the specific threat that it poses to the country, and the specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas. The Home Secretary will also consider the extent of the organisation's presence in the UK, and the need to support other members of the international community in the global fight against terrorism. – Which other groups have been designated as proscribed organisations? There are currently 81 international terrorist groups proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 and 14 organisations in Northern Ireland proscribed under previous legislation. The most recent proscription orders concerned Hamas, the Wagner Group, Hizb ut Tahrir and Terrorgram. Other organisations on the list include Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), and various aliases, and al Qaida. – Once an organisation is proscribed, what becomes illegal? It becomes a criminal offence to belong, or profess to belong, to a proscribed organisation in the UK or overseas, or invite support for a proscribed organisation. It is also illegal to express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation, reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organisation, express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation, reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organisation. Other offences include arranging, managing or assisting in arranging or managing a meeting in the knowledge that the meeting is to support or further the activities of a proscribed organisation. It is also an offence to wear clothing or carry or display articles in public in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that the individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation, or publish an image of an item of clothing or other article, such as a flag or logo, in the same circumstances. – Once proscribed, will an organisation remain banned forever? No. The Home Secretary will consider deproscription on application only. The law allows any organisation or any person affected by a proscription to submit a signed, written application to the Home Secretary requesting that they consider whether a specified organisation should be removed from the list of proscribed organisations.
Leader Live
37 minutes ago
- Leader Live
Preferred candidate for chairman of Climate Change Committee announced
The chairman plays a key role in the committee's work of advising ministers on climate targets and reporting to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive all agreed on Mr Topping as the preferred candidate for the CCC role, Mr Miliband said on Friday. Before any formal appointment, Mr Topping will be questioned by MPs on the energy and environmental audit select committees on July 16. Mr Topping is currently a member of the Climate Change Committee and previously held the position of the UK's high-level climate action champion. Following an 18-year private sector career in emerging markets and manufacturing, he worked as executive director of the Carbon Disclosure Project and chief executive of the We Mean Business Coalition. If approved, Mr Topping will replace interim chairman Piers Forster, a leading climate scientist who succeeded former environment secretary Lord Deben in the role in 2023. Mr Miliband said: 'I am delighted to announce the preferred candidate for chair of the Climate Change Committee – Nigel Topping will bring his extensive experience to this role, having already served on the Climate Change Committee for more than two years and as a UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Cop26. 'The CCC plays a vital role advising the UK and devolved governments on our climate targets and this announcement comes at a crucial time, as we deliver our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower with good jobs, energy security and growth for the British people. 'Net zero is the economic opportunity of the 21st century and Nigel's strong business background will help us drive growth on the transition to net zero, unlocking opportunities for Britain. 'I look forward to progressing the appointment in the coming weeks along with ministers in the devolved governments.'
