{"id":2704170,"date":"2026-11-13T00:40:59","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T05:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/labour-fiddles-as-the-uk-approaches-a-welfare-tipping-point\/"},"modified":"2026-11-13T00:50:34","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T05:50:34","slug":"labour-fiddles-as-the-uk-approaches-a-welfare-tipping-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/labour-fiddles-as-the-uk-approaches-a-welfare-tipping-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour Fiddles as the UK Approaches a Welfare Tipping Point"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flabour-fiddles-as-the-uk-approaches-a-welfare-tipping-point%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2704170&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Britain\u2019s welfare bill is soaring-\u00a3330bn now, projected \u00a3431bn by 2031.A Milburn review may favor upfront investment and interventionist youth policies rather than immediate cuts.Tory leader Kemi Badenoch promises \u00a336bn of welfare savings-restoring the two\u2011child cap, cutting sickness\/disability and in\u2011work benefits, and restricting payments to foreign nationals-drawing fierce criticism that it would increase poverty. Critics note long-term political and practical barriers to rolling back entitlements, pointing to rising disability payouts, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judgment-day-new-election-laws-set-to-shape-how-millions-vote-in-november\/\" title=\"New Election Laws to Influence November Voting\">pandemic-era expansions<\/a>, and demographic trends that <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >make large-scale cuts electorally arduous<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"c-blog-post__content s-wysiwyg s-wysiwyg--blog\">\n<div style=\"margin-bottom:30px;\" id=\"elevenlabs-audionative-widget\" data-height=\"90\" data-width=\"100%\" data-frameborder=\"no\" data-scrolling=\"no\" data-publicuserid=\"cb0d9922301244fcc1aeafd0610a8e90a36a320754121ee126557a7416405662\" data-playerurl=\"https:\/\/elevenlabs.io\/player\/index.html\" >Loading the <a href=\"https:\/\/elevenlabs.io\/text-to-speech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Elevenlabs Text to Speech<\/a> AudioNative Player&#8230;<\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/elevenlabs.io\/player\/audioNativeHelper.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">Britain\u2019s welfare bill is out of control. Everybody knows. Even the Labour Chancellor John Healey says it is immoral and unsustainable, though he seems to balk at actually reducing it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The current annual cost of \u00a3330 billion, already more than the entire receipts from UK income tax, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-independent.com\/news\/uk\/politics\/kemi-badenoch-tories-welfare-bill-b3081937.html\">forecast<\/a> to rise to \u00a3431 billion by 2031 according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Next week, the former Labour minister Alan Milburn will publish Labour\u2019s long-awaited answer to the problem of young people getting diagnoses for neurodivergent ailments and ending up on benefits, sometimes for life. Labour backbenchers, who never knowingly support benefit cuts, have been waiting for this with some trepidation. They have read reports that Milburn intends to take benefits from people with conditions like ADHD and autism.<\/p>\n<p>                         <!-- \/22404337467,3946880\/theamericanconservative-Leaderboard-Top -->                         <\/p>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1742316429780-0' style='min-width: 300px; min-height: 50px; max-width: 100%; '>                         <\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the latest intelligence about the Milburn report has eased their anxieties. He is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/uk\/politics\/article\/milburn-review-calls-for-young-people-to-be-taken-off-sickness-benefits-tq5mqbntb?t=1794433653511\">reportedly<\/a> going to call for more up-front investments to fund new, more interventionist policies based on the systems in Germany and Denmark, where youth unemployment is lower. So benefits must go up before they can come down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, getting her retaliation in first, says this is not good enough. Before an invited audience in a disused Westminster church, she promised an old-school <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservatives.com\/news\/conservatives-unveil-plan-to-save-ps36-billion-on-the-welfare-bill\">\u201ctough love\u201d solution<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Were she to win the next election\u2014an unlikely prospect admittedly\u2014the self-styled first-generation Nigerian immigrant, who worked at McDonald\u2019s while studying, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2026\/11\/11\/how-we-will-save-36bn-by-cutting-the-welfare-bill\/\">says<\/a> she would cut in-work benefits by \u00a336 billion. She intends to do this by restoring the two-child benefit cap (scrapped by Labour last year) and by cutting sickness and disability benefits for many mental health conditions. She also says she would deny benefits to foreign nationals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Labour <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/entry\/tory-welfare-cuts-homelessness-misery-labou_uk_6af34596e4b0a8468d8ac105\">called<\/a> this a \u201ccharter for homelessness and misery.\u201d The Child Poverty Action Group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bigissue.com\/news\/social-justice\/tory-plans-to-slash-benefits-for-disabled-kids-will-take-uk-back-to-dark-ages-campaigners-warn\/\">says<\/a> the plan would take Britain \u201cback to the Dark Ages.\u201d Unlike her predecessors, however, Badenoch is not so easily silenced by moral outrage from what is sometimes called the charity-industrial complex. Indeed, she seems positively to invite it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eWrOJIeP0UQ\">speech<\/a>, she said airily that many folk with disabilities can work from home and \u201cpeople with autism can run some of the biggest tech companies,\u201d (presumably referring to Elon Musk). \u201cDouble amputees run marathons,\u201d she declared most controversially. Cue outrage from disability charities. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No one has spoken in such a blunt fashion about welfare since Margaret Thatcher. In 1987 she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.margaretthatcher.org\/document\/106649\">scolded<\/a> critics on the left, who she said tended to \u201cdrool and drivel\u201d about welfare cuts without actually bothering to fix things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Double amputees running marathons is already becoming a negative meme on the left, who point out that paraplegic athletes often rely on benefits to support their achievements. Labour insists that total welfare spending, as a proportion of GDP, is lower in Britain than in many other European countries, and has not risen greatly in the past decade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that is small comfort, given the situation in countries like France. It also ignores the government\u2019s own forecasts of an unsustainable rise in disability and sickness-related benefits\u2014which are already being paid out to one in ten Britons, at a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/uk\/united-kingdom-welfare-disability-payouts-737d77a0\">total cost<\/a> of \u00a3100 billion. A cottage industry has emerged of social media influencers advising people on how to claim their maximum entitlements. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some believe that Britain has inadvertently adopted the idea that a universal basic income is a human right. That has long been a fashionable concept in academia. The irony is that this belief, if such it is, took root largely under recent Conservative governments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After all, it was a Tory chancellor\u2014Rishi Sunak\u2014who devised the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Coronavirus_Job_Retention_Scheme\">\u201cfurlough\u201d scheme<\/a> during the pandemic that paid millions a salary to stay at home and not work. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/speeches\/universal-credit-welfare-that-works\">Universal Credit<\/a>, the complex of proliferating benefit entitlements, was likewise the brainchild of a former Conservative official, Iain Duncan Smith. And, like taxation, the benefits bill reached stratospheric heights under Boris Johnson, the Tory prime minister who also ramped immigration up to nearly 1 million in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So there is some justified skepticism about Badenoch\u2019s promises, for example, to cap full benefits at six months for many unemployed. Would she really freeze housing benefits, which would make homes unaffordable for claimants, and issue <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservatives.com\/news\/conservatives-unveil-plan-to-save-ps36-billion-on-the-welfare-bill\">\u201cback to work cards\u201d<\/a> that prevent them buying alcohol and cigarettes? One suspects not\u2014any more than she is going to turn amputees into distance runners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, \u00a336 billion in cuts wouldn\u2019t put much of a dent in the bill by 2030, especially since the Tory leader has also said she will restore the triple lock, which raises the state pension by average earnings, inflation or 2.5 percent, whichever is higher. Labour has \u201cadjusted\u201d the lock to save some \u00a315 billion by 2030. That cuts the Badenoch Benefit Axe to \u00a321 billion at best, out of \u00a3431 billion. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She is perhaps right to say that it is wrong to punish pensioners who have contributed throughout their working lives, but that just underlines how difficult it is to halt the benefits culture. Once entitlements are given it is almost impossible to take them away without apparent injustice\u2014and without incurring the condemnation of the media and a legion of well-funded charities. It becomes risky politics. <\/p>\n<section class=\"c-subscribe-email\" >\n<div class=\"l-container\">\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__wrap\">\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__head\">\n<h4 class=\"c-subscribe-email__heading\">Subscribe Today<\/h4>\n<h5 class=\"c-subscribe-email__subheading\">Get daily emails in your inbox<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__form-wrap\">      <!-- Begin Mailchimp Signup Form -->      <\/p>\n<div id=\"mc_embed_signup\">\n<form id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" class=\"validate\" action=\"https:\/\/theamericanconservative.us4.list-manage.com\/subscribe\/post?u=442e644c01f8e54e26e4ff3f8&#038;id=f7b67cac40\" method=\"post\" name=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" novalidate target=\"_blank\">\n<div id=\"mc_embed_signup_scroll\">\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__fields\">              <label for=\"mce-EMAIL\" class=\"u-screenreader-text\">Email Address:<\/label>              <input id=\"mce-EMAIL\" class=\"c-subscribe-email__field\" name=\"EMAIL\" type=\"email\" value=\"\" placeholder=\"Your Email\" \/>              <input id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe\" class=\"c-subscribe-email__submit o-button o-button--red-500 o-button--solid\" name=\"subscribe\" type=\"submit\" value=\"Subscribe\" \/>            <\/div>\n<div id=\"mce-responses\" class=\"clear\">\n<div id=\"mce-error-response\" class=\"response\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"mce-success-response\" class=\"response\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>              <!-- real people should not fill this in and expect good things - do not remove this or risk form bot signups-->            <\/p>\n<div class=\"u-screenreader-text\" aria-hidden=\"true\">              <input tabindex=\"-1\" name=\"b_442e644c01f8e54e26e4ff3f8_f7b67cac40\" type=\"text\" value=\"\" \/>            <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/form>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>      <!--End mc_embed_signup-->          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With 25 million people receiving welfare of one kind or another, the numbers are already approaching half the UK electorate, especially if you add 11 million foreign-born immigrants, many of whom were attracted to Britain precisely because of the generous benefits. Then there are the 7 million public-sector employees. They are not of course on benefits. But they, and their public sector unions, support Labour governments, financially and at the ballot box. They typically decry attempts to cut benefits administered by public bureaucracies\u2014as do those employed in the charity \u201cthird\u201d sector.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given the electoral arithmetic it might seem surprising that anyone votes for parties that promise to cut benefits, immigration and the size of the state.\u00a0 Yet Labour only attracted 34 percent of the popular vote in 2024. Reform has led opinion polls for much of the past year\u2014though the party has been careful to avoid becoming defined by benefit cuts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It doesn\u2019t take Claude 5.2 to conclude that Britain could reach a demographic tipping point beyond which it will simply be in no party\u2019s electoral interest to cut the welfare bill.\u00a0 Britain is becoming \u201ca welfare state with a country attached,\u201d as Badenoch puts it, in which only fools fail to exploit the system.\u00a0 This is what everybody knows. And to continue the Leonard Cohen lyric, everybody wants a box of chocolates and a long-stem rose.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Britain&#8217;s welfare bill balloons; debate on cuts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4494,"featured_media":2704171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/tac.imgix.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2268529518-scaled.jpg?auto=compress&#038;crop=faces%2Centropy&#038;fit=crop&#038;fm=jpg&#038;h=630&#038;ixlib=php-3.3.1&#038;q=80&#038;w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[33958,37154,48378,77931],"class_list":["post-2704170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-labour-party","tag-uk-politics","tag-welfare-reform","tag-welfare-state-2"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/tac.imgix.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2268529518-scaled.jpg?auto=compress&#038;crop=faces%2Centropy&#038;fit=crop&#038;fm=jpg&#038;h=630&#038;ixlib=php-3.3.1&#038;q=80&#038;w=1200","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2704170"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2704175,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704170\/revisions\/2704175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2704171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2704170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2704170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2704170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}