Analysis Patrick Butler Earnest promises fail to mask brutal effect on the poorest

Liz Kendall's disability benefit reforms statement, along with £5bn of cuts, felt like Labour's latest attempt to answer the question that seems to arise when it tackles a thorny social policy issue and delivers bad news, namely: how is this different from life under the Tories?

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Kendall tried to accentuate the positives. She said Labour would fix the mess of a social security system they had inherited, getting rid of perverse benefit incentives and toxic fit for work tests, and bring in more safeguards. There would also be increases to the basic rate of universal credit.

Unlike a year ago, when Rishi Sunak announced the Tories' proposals to cut a soaring disability benefits bill, Kendall was careful not to invoke culture-war stereotypes. There was no suggestion this was all the fault of mental health culture "going too far".

Had reform of a system everyone knew was not fit for purpose been the extent of the changes made by Labour, you suspect all would have gone well.

Overshadowing it, however, was Kendall's confirmation of the bad news: a £5bn-a-year reduction in disability benefit spending by the end of the decade.