The forthcoming week will be quite an interesting one, although we have no appointments scheduled as such. But Monday sees a particular anniversary the details of which shall be revealed in due course. As Meg and I listened to the repeat pf the 'Question Time' program yesterday, one of the panellists made the telling point that 'there is always money for a war but not for the poor' This is because the UK is certainly going to increase the proportion of its GNP to 2.5% to deal with the threat to us all in Europe posed by Russia but, at the same time, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is due to announce cuts to disability payments in which as many as a million of us may see cuts in disability benefits. Something has to be done about the burgeoning disabilities bill which we, as a nation, probably cannot afford but we are all fearful where the axe will particularly fall. I suspect that new claimants for PIP (Personal Independence Payments) will be one source of cuts, the other source being those of working age who are claiming disability benefits, often because of poor mental health and the long tail of the population who are still suffering the after effects of the pandemic. The difficulty here is that PIP does actually help to get some of its recipients back into work again, but the axe may not fall with sufficient precision so cutting the disabilities bill may have unintended consequences. Past history reveals that swinging the axe does not always work. When PIP was introduced in 2013, it was thought that the total saving would be of the order of £1.4bn but the actual savings turned out to be about £0.1bn. PIP was introduced in 2013 to replace the old Disability Living Allowance with the intention it would lead to savings of £1.4bn a year relative to the previous system by reducing the number of people eligible. PIP was initially projected to reduce the number of claimants by 606,000 (28%) in total. Yet the reform ended up saving only £100m a year by 2015 and the number of claimants rose by 100,000 (5%). Another attempt in 2017 to limit access to PIP was also reversed. The reason was that many people appealed against refusals that had been triggered by the tightened eligibility criteria. Also, the emergence of cases in the media which seemed unfair meant ministers, often under pressure from their own backbench MPs, ultimately ordered the eligibility rules to be relaxed. There is considerable unease in the Cabinet over the proposed measures and there may be a massive revolt amongst Labour MPs with as many as 80 being a figure that is bandied about which could almost threaten the huge majority that the Labour Party is enjoying at the moment. There is a lot of speculation swirling around that money will be saved by freezing the level of payments to be made in 2026 rather than uprating the benefits in line with inflation which would be an effective cut, but it is possible that Downing Street may have backed off this proposal in view of the considerable unhappiness of the vast majority of Labour MPs.
It was good to arise at the more 'normal' time of 8.00am for the carers this morning which means a 6.00am start for myself. After breakfast, we knew that we would probably make the trip down the hill to meet up with our friends in Wetherspoons but, of course, I had to ensure that Meg was well and truly strapped and wedged into her wheelchair so that we do not have a repeat of the incident of a week ago when she slumped out of the wheelchair. We knew that there two vital supplies that we had to purchase before out meeting, one of them being a supply of chocolate biscuits not for myself but for our University of Birmingham friend who may well call round in the morning. The other commodity of which I had run out is printer paper but the price of this seems to have risen enormously in the last year or so, in order to eke out supplies, I am rummaging through past printouts to see if there are any that I can utilise by printing on the reverse of the paper. I am pleased to say that the trip down and up the hill was uneventful, but the weather could have been a little more kind to us. When we got home.I started to prepare the lunchtime meal which was fairly simple to make, being a quiche that just needed heating up in the oven. I accompanied this with a portion of primo cabbage prepared the other day and then parboiled some carrot which I finished off with some petis pois, laced with a drizzle of honey and then finished off in the microwave oven. This afternoon and this evening, there are three Six nations contests to enjoy, the two critical ones being France vs. Scotland which France needs to win to secure the championship and the other being Wales vs. England which has proved to be quite a tight match over past few years.
Beth Rigby for Sky News is making the point today that Keir Starmer, in his efforts to reform the state of public services in the UK is heavy on rhetoric but light on detail, but the symbolism of abolishing NHS England was clear for all to see as this prime minister is borrowing from a Conservative playbook in an effort to improve services through deregulation, public service cuts and a bonfire of red tape. Whether a 'slash and burn' approach to public services improves efficiency in the long run is open to the question. Some analysts are making the point that abolishing NHS England at a stroke is liable to make personnel obsess more about what redundancy package they are to receive than put their hearts and minds into what a reorganised NHS administration should look like. The public services have been hollowed out by successive cuts and by below inflation pay increases in the past few years so the morale of many public service workers is so low that further attacks upon the service may not yield the benefits envisaged.
© Mike Hart [2025]