Starmer cannot ignore the sick pay crisis

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

But now that the white paper has been published, it seems that the tough talk was just a ruse Mail and Telegraph readers. There is no sign of tough sanctions against welfare fraud, just a lot of platitudes and reforms that sound totally pointless.