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Welfare pays more than work for 600,000 households

Rise revealed by Conservative analysis will provoke calls for overhaul of £155bn benefits budget Daily Telegraph 03/05/26 More than 600,000 households received more in benefits than the average worker’s salary, the first analysis of its kind has revealed. The figures show that 625,618 households were each given more than £32,200 in welfare payouts last year – the average annual salary of a British worker after tax – despite the introduction of a benefits cap. The analysis, by the Conservatives, also revealed that 16,000 of those households received more than £60,000 in welfare payments – almost twice the average annual take-home pay. The figures will provoke calls for an overhaul of the £155bn benefits budget and for reform of the welfare cap to ensure that “work always pays”. Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to cut welfare spending in order to bolster Britain’s defence budget, with Labour preparing to unveil its defence investment plan “within weeks”. Neil O’Brien, the shad...
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Starmer is always the wrong man at the wrong time

Since I last wrote, two Jewish men were stabbed in broad daylight. The news is sickening, another sign that the British Jewish community is now expected to accept fear as a fact of daily life. As David Frost has written in The Telegraph, “this has happened because we have let it happen”. The national terrorism threat level has now been raised to “severe” – indicating that the authorities believe an attack in Britain is “highly likely”. Telegraph Politics Annabel Deadman 01/05/26 In response to the stabbings, Starmer pledged more money for police patrols in Jewish areas and more barricades for synagogues, schools and community centres. There were the usual platitudes over tackling the “root causes”. By which you can be 100 per cent certain that he does not mean the presence in this country of thousands of people for whom hatred of Jews is quite literally a matter of faith. The pattern is all too familiar; when West Midlands Police decided to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending...
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Streeting ready to launch leadership challenge against Starmer

The PM was alerted to the Health Secretary’s intentions after a staff member accidentally texted details of his plans Daily Telegraph 01/05/26 Wes Streeting has the backing of enough Labour MPs to launch a leadership challenge within days, The Telegraph has learnt. The Health Secretary has recruited more than 81 MPs – the minimum required to trigger a challenge – and is now contemplating his next move. Sir Keir Starmer was alerted to Mr Streeting’s intentions when a Downing Street staff member was accidentally texted details of his plans, including the “five pillars” of his campaign and his “PFG”, meaning plan for government. Some of Mr Streeting’s supporters want him to strike as soon as next Friday, the day after the local elections, to capitalise on the anger among Labour members at what are expected to be disastrous results for the party. He could either announce a formal leadership bid or resign from the Cabinet in the hope that others will follow and force Sir Keir to ste...
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Tony Blair’s state pension plan is bewildering in its complexity

Can we really expect the Government to estimate the life expectancy of every individual in the country? Daily Telegraph 01/05/26 The proposals by the Tony Blair Institute for radical reform of the state pension system are well-intentioned, but – in several ways – would be a complete disaster. For starters, they would involve a shocking degree of intrusion into our private lives. The institute proposes that citizens build up rights to a pension via a flexible new “Lifespan Fund” which includes provision to draw it early to fund periods of caring or retraining. Entitlement to a pension would be based on age, health and years of contributing. Under these plans, a person in average health would be entitled to a payout similar to today’s new state pension. This would be from the point at which their life expectancy stood at 20 years (currently around 67, but likely to rise). Someone in worse health could get that same pension earlier, and someone in better health would have to wait ...
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Green Party candidates arrested over anti-Semitism

Social media post allegedly by candidate for Clapham Town claimed synagogue attacks ‘were revenge’ Daily Telegraph 30/04/26 Two Green Party candidates have been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred for allegedly posting anti-Semitic comments online. Saiqa Ali, who is standing in Streatham, in the borough of Lambeth, and Sabine Mairey, the candidate for Clapham Town, also in Lambeth, were detained by Metropolitan Police officers on Thursday morning. One of the social media posts by Ms Ali shows an image of an armed man in a Hamas headband under the slogan “resistance is freedom”. The militant group is a proscribed terrorist organisation. A post by Ms Mairey includes a picture of a man holding a placard that reads “ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-Semitism, it’s revenge” above a picture of two children that it says have been “murdered by Israel”. She also suggested that Israel was worse than Nazi Germany with a photo of Auschwitz which said the Nazis “had to hide what...
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The Golders Green attack was sickeningly predictable

The sewers of Jew hatred have burst. Time for action. Spiked 29/04/26 Jews have been stabbed in Golders Green. Are you sickened, horrified, appalled? I should hope so. The more troubling question is: are you surprised? To our eternal shame, I don’t think anyone can claim to be. Just after 11am this morning, British Jews had their worst fears realised. Again. A little more than six months after Jihad al-Shamie slashed at worshippers at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, an attack of savagery that left two dead, Jewish blood has now been spilled on the streets of Jewish north London. The suspect reportedly slashed at someone outside the synagogue on Highfield Avenue, before turning down Golders Green Road and stabbing a ‘visibly Jewish man’. A man in his 70s and another in his 30s are in hospital. The alleged knifeman, 45, was tasered and arrested. It’s now been declared a ‘terrorist incident’. The usual caveats, legal backcovering and journalistic restraint apply...
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Labour MPs defy Starmer and demand ethics inquiry

Daily Telegraph 28/04/28 Labour MPs have demanded Sir Keir Starmer refer himself to the privileges committee over the Mandelson scandal. Backbenchers have said that despite pressure from No 10, they will not vote to protect the Prime Minister from an ethics inquiry over claims he misled MPs. The crunch vote is seen as a vote of confidence in Sir Keir’s leadership, after the Prime Minister held a meeting with MPs on Monday urging them to back him. John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn, said Sir Keir should refer himself to the committee to clear his name. “When you’re under attack like this you don’t run from the attack, you run to face it,” he told the Commons. Andy McDonald agreed, adding that the Prime Minister had made it clear “he has not misled this House. So in those circumstances, would it not be the right thing to do to embrace this process and wipe the floor with the critics that put these things to him?” Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Sou...
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