Starmer can’t ignore the sickness benefits crisis

Where is the stick? For weeks the government has been trailing its white paper on benefits reform by floating the idea that there would be tough sanctions on claimants who refused to take up work offers. It culminated on Sunday in a double hit – Keir Starmer in the Mail on Sunday and Liz Kendall in the Telegraph – each promising that idlers would no longer have the option of a life on benefits. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ wrote Starmer, ‘we will crack down hard on anyone who tries to game the system, to tackle fraud so we can take cash straight from the banks of fraudsters.’ Kendall added ‘there should be no option of a life on benefits for young people’.

But now the white paper has been published, it seems the tough talk was just a ruse to butter up Mail and Telegraph readers. There is no sign of tough sanctions against welfare cheats, just a bunch of platitudes and reforms which sound totally meaningless.