Labour friends with no genuine benefits

SIR KEIR Starmer’s new-found zeal to cut benefits is a mirage: nothing more than a smoke-and-mirrors trick to convince the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that Labour can find savings in order to balance the books.

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For Labour has absolutely no intention at all of cutting the benefits bill - and the only people it hopes to fool are the folks at the OBR, with the pretence it can be trusted with the country’s finances.

It has nothing to do with stopping the extra 1,000 people a day claiming Personal Independence Payments or PIP, the main disability benefit, or finding a solution to the 9.3 million people aged 16 to 64 who are now economically inactive in the UK.