'Weak' PM 'has blown £4.5bn hole in finances'

LABOUR MPs “smell blood” and will not allow Sir Keir Starmer to get a grip on Britain’s spiralling welfare bill, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has warned.

- By David Williamson

The Prime Minister was last week forced to water down plans to restrict sickness disability benefits.

It has fuelled speculation that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will keep income tax thresholds frozen, so more people will be dragged into paying higher rates.

Mrs Badenoch will use a speech in Liverpool on Wednesday to accuse Sir Keir of being “too weak” to push through “limited reforms that would have made modest reductions to the ballooning welfare bill”.

Warning that he may make more concessions, she will say: “Now that his backbenchers smell blood, there’s almost certainly another climbdown on the two-child benefit cap in the offing.”