Latest from New Statesman
New Statesman
10 hours ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
'Why won't Keir Starmer stand up to Israel?'
Every week the New Statesman podcast team answer listener questions. In this episode, editor-in-chief Tom McTague joins Anoosh Chakelian and Rachel Cunliffe to discuss how long the UK government will continue to support Israel after actions in Gaza and Iran; why council tax reform is being 'ignored'; and whether there could be a true 'red Tory' faction in the Conservative party. Listen to the full episode above. To submit your questions, head to [See also: Britain is dangerously exposed to the whims of despots] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
New Statesman
17 hours ago
- Business
- New Statesman
Inside the false economy of Rachel Reeves's welfare cuts
Middle England was 'terrified'. This was the word I heard over and over from people on the street outside Biggleswade JobCentre, a low-slung shoebox of municipal green wedged between The Rose and Good Pheasant pubs – windows reflecting Union Jack bunting in a haberdashery opposite. This is a solid slice of commuterville England: war memorial on the green, mock-Tudor curry house, VE Day posters and Pride flyers plastered about. The government's welfare reforms – removing PIP from future claimants other than for the severest cases – will hit the post-industrial north and coastal towns hardest, better-off parts of Britain like this Bedfordshire market town will face an unexpected embarrassment of circumstances – one that ministers don't appear to have foreseen. A quarter of Personal Independence Payment recipients here in the Mid Bedfordshire constituency work – the highest proportion in Britain. Across the country, over half a million PIP claimants are in employment, at 573,620. Under the government's plans, people in their position, who need help to work, will lose their benefit. PIP, I am reminded repeatedly by claimants I speak to, is 'not an out-of-work benefit'. It was designed to help anyone with a disability or chronic illness, whatever their financial situation, to live an independent life. Taking it away, as the welfare bill still intends to, will hinder the ability of disabled people to keep working. Nearly two-thirds of working people receiving PIP would have to reduce or give up work if they lose it, according to a study by the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, the charity led by consumer champion Martin Lewis – a man who knows a false economy when he sees one. This is despite ministers' rationale for the cuts: that they will incentivise the rising number of 'economically-inactive' people into work. One Biggleswade resident whose PIP helps with her PTSD found that past welfare reductions pushed her into a 'cycle of losing a job and falling into dire straits', warned her carer. 'This is supposed to be a Labour government. Now they're doing what the Tories did, what's the difference?' She's not alone. I hear from people around the country relying on PIP for transport, personal care, domestic work, energy, food, adjustments to their homes, medical equipment, wheelchair costs – all vital for holding down their jobs. 'I'm preparing for retirement – how do I carry on?' asked Bethany Colburn, 31, a senior systems engineer for the aerospace and defence industry in Dorset, who receives £290 a month of PIP to help with her cerebral palsy. 'If my disability benefit gets taken away, I don't see how I get back up.' Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe From contributing to her cleaner and physio, an adapted bungalow, car and savings for a new wheelchair, PIP is 'a fundamental part of my life' and 'the reason why I am where I am and have achieved what I have'. Crying and shaking, she told me that removing or reducing her support would 'pull the rug out from under me – I'm genuinely terrified'. In Oxford, Jo, a 44-year-old retail store manager with impaired vision and complex post-traumatic stress disorder uses her monthly £500 to pay for her bus fare and taxis to and from her full-time job, specialist glasses every six months, magnifying screens and other equipment. She would have to stop working if she lost her PIP. 'It allows you to live a life. That means you can keep that job up,' she told me. 'I'd be worse off not working, so I'd need to go on Universal Credit' – therefore costing the state more. 'We're not all benefits scroungers. Being disabled is expensive.' Labour MPs have been reading stories like these in their inboxes day after day. They also know from their own local labour markets that the jobs don't exist for this hypothetical new workforce of the disabled and sick. 'There just simply aren't enough vacancies to match up to the government's employment ambitions from these reforms, and that's even starker when we look at disability-confident vacancies,' finds Sam Tims, lead analyst at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation poverty charity. 'These cuts, rather than motivating someone to find work, are going to create additional hardship, and that will push people further away from the labour market.' Perhaps ministers assumed voters were still stuck in the New Labour and coalition era of public revulsion towards benefit 'scroungers'. A time of tabloid demonisation, Benefits Street, and George Osborne's 'strivers versus skivers'. Fairness and graft are indeed rooted deep in the British psyche, but life has changed. Many 'strivers' can only do so with the help of the welfare state: one in six people on PIP and four in ten people on Universal Credit work. Covid meant so many more voters and their friends and relatives – across the class and geographical spectrum – came into contact with the social security system. Welfare is mainstream. In the post-pandemic year of 2021, the proportion of Brits who felt benefits were too low exceeded those who felt they were too high for the first time in 20 years, according to the British Social Attitudes Survey. Today, most voters across parties wanted the government to reverse its decision to cut PIP, found More in Common polling. It offends their sense of fairness that someone who cannot wash below the waist, or cook a meal, would no longer be eligible for disability benefit. In Biggleswade, anger throbs beneath the sunshine and hanging baskets. 'Believe me, I'd be back in work like a shot; I'd swap places with anyone,' said Julia, a care worker injured in a car accident who can no longer use her left leg. She had to leave her job because the care home was unable to make reasonable adjustments for her disability. 'If politicians think you're sat on your arse getting handouts, they're out of touch.' [See also: Welcome to HMO Britain] Related
New Statesman
19 hours ago
- Health
- New Statesman
Health promotion must be at the heart of housing
Photo by London CLT Last summer several local government representatives held an emergency meeting with parliamentarians to discuss how councils are haemorrhaging funds to house growing numbers of homeless individuals and families in, often unsuitable, temporary accommodation. The government's answer – building 1.5m homes by 2029 – appears to make sense at face value. But prioritising this national target, and fixating on numbers, misses much more fundamental questions. Questions about whether volume house builders are really going to deliver a sufficient supply of the right homes in the right places. Questions about genuine affordability, about standards, about the types of homes and connection – if employment and services will be accessible. Questions about what it will be like to grow up in these new homes and places – if they will support starting, living and ageing well. This preoccupation with delivering housing numbers also ignores the reality that in many parts of the country, there is a greater urgency to address the poor condition of existing housing stock and neighbourhoods, and the lack of economic opportunities. Referring to regulations and planning as 'blockers' is simply unhelpful, pitting nature and communities against house building. The emphasis must be on setting a clear ambition to work with people and build trust – by investing in new and existing communities, enabling them to take ownership and improve their life chances. We have seen a decline in healthy life expectancy in England – especially for those living in the most deprived areas. Women living in the most deprived areas have 18.2 years less healthy life compared to women in the least deprived areas – an increase in inequality of 17 per cent since 2011-2013. Men, on average, have 17.9 less healthy years in the most deprived areas (a 22 per cent increase compared to 2011-2013) (ONS, 2024). Growing health inequalities are preventing those people from living healthy, happy lives, engaging in learning, and contributing economically. Those working in the built environment sector must prioritise the 'upstream' causes of poor health and better target those determinants to support good health outcomes. This is because we know people living in poor quality homes are twice as likely to have poor health outcomes. We can do better. The building blocks of a healthier, more equal society, and inclusive regenerative economy – good housing and neighbourhoods – are within our reach. The TCPA continue to call on the government and councils to not just prevent harms, but prioritise development, place-based ways of working and better health promotion through better planning. This includes work to ensure future New Towns and communities set inclusive health promotion as their central aim. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The Campaign for Healthy Homes has been two-pronged. Firstly, at the national level, seeking comprehensive legislative reform to raise the standards of housing across all tenures – including new 'homes' produced under permitted development rights. Moving beyond the current fragmented, under-resourced and poorly enforced model that mainly focuses on preventing the worst harms of poor housing, towards a system that positively encourages health. Secondly, we are supporting key groups – local authorities, housing associations, developers – to adopt and apply the Healthy Homes Principles through policy requirements and housing schemes. For example, last year the developer Wates adopted the Healthy Homes Pledge, and Lewes District Council's new council housing policy applies the Healthy Homes Principles to all their future housing schemes. This year six housing schemes were shortlisted for the Health Homes category of The Pineapples award – with winners Hazelmead Community Land Trust in Bridport and Appleby Blue Almshouse in Bermondsey demonstrating it is possible to viably deliver all 12 principles and even go beyond them. Where people live matters, and planning policies shape these places. Over the last decade the TCPA has worked with national and local government to embed consideration of health and well-being into local plans. In 2024, in collaboration with the TRUUD research consortium, we published planning for healthy places; a toolkit of practical evidence, guidance, and inspiration to help local authorities in England create healthier places for everyone. The toolkit, developed with seven local authorities, is designed to appeal to a range of audiences from different professional backgrounds and levels of understanding about planning and public health. We can provide advice, training and act as a 'critical friend' to support planning and public health elected members and officers seeking to embed healthy planning principles into Local Plans, design codes and supplementary planning documents, including developing approaches to health impact assessment. There are many influences on children and young people's health and happiness from the earliest years of life, but where they live – the built and natural environment around them – is crucial. A child's home, the street they live on, their neighbourhood and access to safe and inclusive outdoor and green spaces matters. Being able to be outside, to play, socialise, move and get around independently matters. Feeling welcome, having ownership, being seen and heard in their community, and having a voice in how spaces develop and change over time really matters. The TCPA, alongside partners, are exploring what place-making and keeping looks like when it is re-centred to engage, support, and promote the rights of the child, and developing what this means for national and local planning policy. Later this year, we will be adding new UK case studies and a resource for councils, focusing on embedding the needs of children and young people in local plans. Now is the time for the government and those involved in planning and delivering development to be more ambitious. Now is the time to create and steward places that are designed to improve over time, places where children and people of all ages and backgrounds can thrive. Find out more and sign up to the Healthy Homes Pledge now. Related
New Statesman
19 hours ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
Dishonesty now rules Scottish politics
Photo by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / Alamy Stock Photo Hope is, famously, one of the most powerful words in politics. Every party lays claim to offering it. It helped get Barack Obama elected. It's rarely far from the lips of any politician with something to sell you. So it proved on Wednesday evening, when John Swinney and Anas Sarwar took part in a live event for the Holyrood Sources podcast. The First Minister said he would put independence at the heart of his devolved election campaign, as this was where 'hope' could be found for Scotland. The Labour leader talked of bringing 'hopefulness' back to the nation if he wins in May. A powerful word, but sadly not much more than a word these days. There's not much of it around on the international, national or devolved stages, is there? Voters see a deteriorating global scene, desolated public services and an economy that continues to fail them, and wonder where this hope that their leaders speak of is to be located. Like so many words that are common in political rhetoric, this one has been thoroughly devalued: we don't believe you. Swinney, who has suddenly begun talking about independence again after a refreshing period of silence on the matter, has clearly decided that the best – perhaps only – strategy available to him is to hold out some vague idea that a separate Scotland would be able to do all the nice things that he claims it can't as part of the UK. This is what we might call a bold approach, in that it's neither new nor convincing. It merely takes us back to 2014, when the Yes campaign argued that independence would deliver the best of all possible worlds, and then produced a large, hugely detailed document that managed to answer none of the hard questions about economics and borders. Enough of the population saw the gaps to ensure a win for No. Those pesky questions remain wholly unanswered today. So who is Swinney's message of hope aimed at? Support for independence sits somewhere just shy of 50 per cent, though support for the SNP is well below that now, at just over 30 per cent. There is a hardcore who will be delighted that the First Minister has started banging on about independence once more. There are a lot more whose reaction is likely to be along the lines of 'not now, John!' The fact that the SNP has been in power for two underwhelming decades also makes its claim to offer hope appear somewhat hollow. But even Sarwar, who promotes himself as the new broom that Scotland needs, will struggle to convince. The Scottish Labour leader is hamstrung, for now at least, by the difficulties facing Keir Starmer's government at Westminster. He is quizzed constantly about his views on benefit cuts, on the winter fuel payment, on the conflict in the Middle East. Does he agree with Starmer's position on these issues, or is he with the rebels? He can do nothing about any of it, but is forced to triangulate every time he opens his mouth. He can't afford to tie himself too closely to the Prime Minister's unpopular decisions, but doesn't want to appear disloyal. Hence, he says nothing, repeatedly, at great length. What neither leader seems to grasp is that hope, like happiness, is something that comes as a result of effort, of doing the hard stuff well, of creating the conditions that allow people to glimpse the prospect of a better future. But neither has so far shown themselves willing to have a frank conversation with the electorate about what must be done to build that future. For example, Scotland's failing schools system needs radical reform, in ways that would inevitably provoke fury among the teaching unions and the broader educational establishment. There really is no other way to fix it. But neither Swinney nor Sarwar seem to be up for that particular scrap. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe There is no money, which means the devolved state is in no position to continue to deliver the universal benefits so beloved by the dominant soft left. The state itself has grown like topsy and needs dramatically cut down in size. The population is aging at an alarming rate, and the workforce is predicted to shrink as a proportion over the coming decades. Things are going to get worse, not better; harder, not easier. The data is there, the experts are all saying the same thing, and yet the politicians give the impression they have their fingers firmly stuck in their ears. Jam today, tomorrow, and forever is their retail offer. It is a lie. The disconnect between the daily lived experience of Scots and the Scotland their leaders tell them they inhabit is growing ever wider. It all plays into the hands of Reform and other fringe movements. What's the point in supporting the moderate mainstream if that moderate mainstream repeatedly refuses to do what needs to be done? Where are Scotland's mainstream revolutionaries – its Thatchers, Blairs, Milburns, Goves, even Streetings? Where are the ministers who will seize their departments by the scruff of the neck and deliver a programme of change that at least stands a chance of making a measurable, visible difference? That, I believe, is what it will take to bring optimism back to the nation. People are willing to be led through harsh decisions if the values behind them are clear and the outcomes worth shooting for. Can Scotland's politicians change tack, and start telling the truth about what's required? I wish I could say I'm hopeful. [See also: Inside the SNP civil war] Related
New Statesman
19 hours ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
In defence of Morgan McSweeney
Photo by Karl Black / Alamy Stock Photo This week's Westminster main character is Morgan McSweeney – a high-risk position for any political figure to be in, but particularly dangerous for an unelected advisor. Keir Starmer's election coordinator turned chief of staff has become a lightning rod for Labour MPs' anger at the welfare reform bill – on which the Government now faces a rebellion that is veering on existential – and their frustration in general at how quickly their triumph last July has turned to ashes. The Times led on Thursday (26 June) with demands for a 'regime change', for which we can read 'McSweeney's head on a platter', served with a healthy side dish of humble pie. Criticisms of McSweeney include that he is arrogant, beset with tunnel vision, detached from the parliamentary Labour party and wider Labour movement, and obsessed with Reform to the point of taking Labour's core left vote for granted. Above all, there is anger that his influence over the Prime Minister has pushed a government with a majority that should imbue a sense of confidence into positions that appear weak, indecisive, and markedly un-Labour. Cutting the welfare bill by £5 billion at the expense of some of the most vulnerable people in society epitomises the sense that the government has already lost its way. And Starmer's strategy of holding firm and staring down the left of his party to cement his authority has had the opposite effect. As one minister reportedly put it, 'Morgan is completely off his rocker.' Another MP noted it is rarely sustainable once an advisor becomes a household name. Surely, McSweeney's days must be numbered? A controversial advisor who antagonises MPs, restricts access to the Prime Minister and leads their government into impossible dead ends… Stop me if you've heard this one before. Maybe you're picturing Dominic Cummings and his Silicon Valley 'move fast and break things' approach to governing, or remembering Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill indulging Theresa May's worst bunker mentality instincts. Or perhaps you're casting your mind further back to the rows over such contentious New Labour figures as Damian McBride and Alastair Campbell. If McSweeney does go, he will be the latest in a long line of shadowy power-behind-the-throne figures whose presence in Downing Street became a scapegoat for the travails of the Prime Minister, and whose departure was demanded as proof of a change of course. Cummings is a particularly useful comparison, not in terms of style (McSweeney has so far not vowed to fill Whitehall with 'misfits and weirdos'), but because he too won his boss a glorious election victory which quickly crumbled upon contact with actual government. Writing in the aftermath of his resignation (or sacking – delete as appropriate) in November 2020, almost a year since the election that was meant to stabilise British politics for a decade, Catherine Haddon of the Institute for Government pointed to a 'pattern of botched communications, badly-handled announcements, mixed messaging and leaked briefings which have dogged this government'. If any of that sounds familiar, note the period of calm, decisive, well-communicated government that followed that notorious photo of Cummings exiting No 10 with a carboard box of his belongings. Oh, wait. The concept of the wicked advisor who tweaks the puppet strings and manipulates the poor king into making poor decisions dates back hundreds of years – think Rasputin, Cardinal Richelieu, or the Persian grand vizier Jafar ibn Yahya, thought to be the inspiration for the villainous Jafar in Aladdin. Taking aim at them is a powerful way to signal discontent with a regime without criticising the leader directly. McSweeney himself should know that – look at what happened when he clashed with Sue Gray. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe But zooming out, those baying for the blood of Starmer's chief aide should pause. McSweeney's pedigree is not as a policy advisor but an election strategist. His trademark move is using data to run ruthlessly targeted campaigns. In her book Taken as Red, which chronicles how Labour won the 2024 election, Anushka Asthana points to his work in the 2006 Lambeth Council elections when he realised Labour could triumph by winning over just 6 per cent of Lambeth's total electorate. The fact the 2024 general election campaign was built on a tactic of spreading votes as widely as possible to win the most seats with the slimmest margins (what politics professor Rob Ford has called a 'masterpiece of political jenga') was not some huge error: it was McSweeney's intended aim. A Labour leader who wanted to pursue a different strategy that would make it easier to govern should have hired a different strategist. It is notable, too, that before Starmer had properly settled into Downing Street McSweeney was already plotting the 2029 campaign. It's important to have someone in government looking ahead to the next election; it is not wise to put them in charge. This is not a man who was ever intended to run the country, or to singlehandedly reform Whitehall. Nor is he an expert in comms – something everyone in Westminster agrees the government is truly dire at, and which has been a large part of its failure to sell its reforms to both the electorate and the parliamentary party. On that subject, party management requires another skillset entirely. The welfare rebellion is a case study in how not to keep your MPs onside, with backbenchers talking openly of being sidelined by the leadership. The new 2024 intake complain of being patronised and treated like the children; those already in the Commons talk of being overlooked for jobs, with barely a conversation to make them feel reassured and valued. There is frustration among both groups at the aloofness of the Prime Minister, who rarely turns up to vote himself. While the rebels have fierce ideological objections to disability cuts, at least some of the 120-plus MPs who have signed the wrecking amendment could have been brought onboard with a more conciliatory approach from Downing Street. It is easy to pin this failure for this on an unpopular advisor, but who could seriously expect a campaign guru who sees politics in terms of raw data to be the solution to a fractured and disheartened parliamentary party? That is not McSweeney's job, it is the job of the Prime Minister. If Starmer has devolved that responsibility to a man fundamentally unsuited to it, that is his error. If he cannot tell a compelling story to the country and to his MPs about what he is doing and why, a personnel switch will salvage nothing. Catherine Haddon warned back in 2020 that 'changing the supporting cast is not enough to fix a stumbling premiership'. It would be easy for Starmer to scapegoat McSweeney over the welfare row. Fixing the foundations, to borrow one of the Prime Minister's favourite phrases, will become that much harder. [See also: Labour is locked in a vicious blame game] Related
