Is Labour really going to crack down on benefit cheats?

I can’t fault Keir Starmer for his piece in the Mail on Sunday today promising that Labour will crack down on idlers and benefit cheats. But does anyone really believe that Labour is really going to get on top of the explosion in out of work benefits?

‘Don’t get me wrong’, the Prime Minister writes. ‘We will crack down hard on anyone who tries to game the system… There will be a zero-tolerance approach to these criminals.’ Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall is due to announce on Tuesday measures which will supposedly achieve this and cut the £137 billion a year welfare bill. 

Trouble is that whenever the Conservatives announced plans to trim the benefits bill Labour accused them of heartlessness. When, in October 2021, Boris Johnson’s government withdrew the temporary £20 a week bonus which it had added to Universal Credit payments during Covid, Starmer himself accused the government of ‘turning on the poorest in our society’.