uk politics
Susan Hall Voted to Raise Council Tax Despite Condemning Sadiq Khan for Doing the Same
Susan Hall, the Conservative Party candidate for London mayor, voted for a 2023 hike in council tax as a councillor in Harrow despite condemning Sadiq Khan over his capital-wide tax rises.
Harrow has the third highest average rate of council tax of any London borough at over £2000 from April 2024, according to analysis by the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporting Service. Hall was previously highly critical of Harrow’s high rates of council tax when Labour controlled the council, telling the Harrow Times in 2017 that, “Labour’s mismanagement of Harrow’s finances are punishing our residents with yearly tax rises”.
In February, Hall’s council increased council tax by the maximum legal amount, 5%, boosting the local authority’s coffers by £7.69 million.
Hall defended herself over the the increase when questioned by Byline Times, saying she had been absent for the vote, and added: “I’m not going to comment on [council] tax…It’s the first meeting I’ve missed in 18 years. I can be forgiven for missing one.”
Hall is in line to receive a 35% increase in her councillor allowance this year after the licensing committee that she chairs approved an increase from £2500 a year to £4,382. On this matter she told Byline Times: “I’ve got thoughts on that, of course I do, it’s just who I share them with.”
In 2023, Hall was present to vote on the rise of Council Tax, and voted in favour of an increase of 5.9%.
That motion also included an increase in the Councillor’s allowance from a base rate of £8,561 to £9,063, a rise of 5.9%.
Hall did is yet to respond to requests to comment from Byline Times.
Hall attacked Khan on X, formerly Twitter, over London-wide council tax hikes (for the so-called Mayor’s precept) on 23 January 2023 - one month before she voted to increase council tax in Harrow.
Giving context to the tax increase in their budget document, council bosses wrote: “The Council’s revenue support grant has reduced from £50.5m to £1.825m (after accounting for the Council Tax Subsidy Admin Grant of £256k which is now subsumed into RSG).
The Council does receive other grant funding to support services, in 2022/23 this totalled £366m. However, these grants are all ring-fenced to areas of activity and cannot be used to support the core budget, for example the Dedicated Schools Grant of £143m.
It went on: “… is increasing exponentially creating unfunded budget pressures […]. The impact of this is that the Council is heavily reliant on Council Tax to fund its core services. In 2022/23 80% of the Council’s net revenue budget of £183.3m is funded from Council Tax”.
A January 2024 analysis by the Guardian of the effect of 13 years of austerity on local Government across the UK found that per person spending had been slashed across a wide range of council services including a reduction of 43% in real terms on net spending per person on cultural services, a 40% reduction in roads and transport spending, a 35% reduction on housing spending and 1/3 reduction on planning and development.
Rishi to the Rescue: How the Prime Minister ‘Moved Heaven and Earth to Help the Conservative Press’
An Abu Dhabi-backed consortium wants to buy the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, News International titles, and some journalists from the Telegraph itself, go mad. Conservative politicians also declare their opposition. Rishi Sunak rushes through legislation to prevent such a takeover from occurring. Deal over.
If ever there was proof of the power of the press to get what they want, this is it. That needs rephrasing: the power of the Conservative press to get what they want, when there is a Conservative Prime Minister only too happy to please, in this, General Election year.
It’s remarkable how Sunak moved heaven and earth to appease the proprietors of the Daily Mail and The Times and Sun titles.
Other interest groups can campaign for years for perfectly sound, bona fide, necessary, reform to reach the statute books. Often, to no avail – reasonable as the new measure is, vital as it is, they are kept waiting.
Yet, along come the big beasts of Lord Rothermere and Rupert Murdoch, aided and abetted by some noisy Conservatives (some of them, anxious to curry favour with the influential newspapers), and the Government crumbles. Appallingly, senior figures in the Government were said to be in favour of the Abu Dhabi bid, believing it would cement relations and lead to further investment from that super-rich country. No, the Conservative media titans are against, so against the government shall be.
Rupert Murdoch, seen above in London in June 2023, was against the deal and wants the Spectator. Photo: PA Images / Alamy
No matter that Rothermere and Murdoch had their reasons for kiboshing the Abu Dhabi purchase. Rothermere harbours a desire to own the Telegraph, while Murdoch wants the Spectator, also part of the Telegraph stable. They did declare their interest to their readers, usually towards the end of news reports regarding the progress of the campaign.
They devoted plenty of space to the importance of upholding free speech and defending human rights. The giveaway as to their true motive was, surely, that claims by the consortium that Abu Dhabi was only a ‘passive’ investor were largely ignored. Likewise, the suggestion that this marriage could see the resurrection of a device implemented when another foreign newspaper takeover occurred was similarly brushed aside.
That was when Murdoch bought Times Newspapers and a separate, independent board was installed to act as an objective cut-off on key matters. This time around, with his eyes set on owning the Spectator, Murdoch was seemingly not prepared to countenance a repetition.
Read more: ‘Telegraph Takeover Bid Backed by UAE Doesn’t Matter – Because there’s an Agenda at Every Newspaper’
What’s also telling is that plenty of British assets have fallen into foreign hands, many of them to sovereign wealth funds, down the years without the raising of barely a squeak by the same media or MPs. It’s as if the much-touted phrase, Britain is ‘open for business’ has been taken literally to also mean ‘Britain is for sale’.
Assets to have gone overseas include:
There are numerous examples of all sorts of assets tracing their ultimate ownership abroad. Grocery, retail, hospitality, and fashion brands, many of them historically and iconically ‘British’, have been targeted by foreigners and their money men.
Occasionally there have been protests but they have usually died down. Cadbury’s going to the Americans was an especially emotive one. Royal Mail, no less, may soon join the National Lottery with Czech owners. The newspaper that reports at length on these deals, the Financial Times, is owned by the Japanese. The only sale that attracted a similar amount of column inches, was arguably that of Newcastle United by Saudi Arabia, but, like the rest, it went through.
The pattern is familiar: there’s a bid, there is some disquiet expressed by the employees, unions and stakeholders, then the offer is raised again and perhaps again until the owner’s expectations are met and it’s accepted and the fury, such as it is, falls away.
Fears about Chinese and Russian influence, together with uncertainty surrounding treatments for Covid, saw the government pass the National Security and Investment Act, or NSIA, of 2021, giving the Cabinet Office the ability to intervene and block a transaction on national security grounds. It covers 17 sectors, most of them to do with defence, tech, medicine, bioscience, data and AI.
The idea was to stop the asset and/or its intellectual property, the know-how, falling into enemy hands. At first sight, the figures are impressive – the Act is wheeled out regularly. There were more than 1,000 ‘mandatory notifications’ – the bidders in these sectors must inform the Government – in 2022, the latest and first year to be reported. But 95% of these were cleared unconditionally at the initial screening phase.
Only 5% were subject to in-depth scrutiny and most of these received conditional approval. However, five deals were stymied completely, of which four involved companies with Chinese ownership and one a Russian oligarch.
Another 14 were approved subject to conditions, and these mostly involved Chinese owners. The restrictions were imposed to safeguard national security, including a UK Government attendee at board meetings, external monitoring, commitments for the IP to remain in the UK, and guarantees to continue to supply specified UK contractors such as the Ministry of Defence or an emergency service.
The NSIA might well have been deployed in the Telegraph case. The sectors where it applies are broadly defined and doubtless, a skilled lawyer could have made a case for the paper’s inclusion.
It never reached that stage. Sunak leapt into action and brought forward a new piece of legislation, just to make sure the Abu Dhabi bid perished. Rothermere and Murdoch got their way. The irony is that they may only have made the path easier for another bidder, Sir Paul Marshall owner of Unherd and GB News. Marshall, born in Ealing, is definably British. How the media barons stop him remains to be seen.
‘Ofcom is Fine With Political Parties Interviewing Themselves on GB News During the General Election’
Ofcom has published more than 100 pages of research and new guidance about their rules on "due impartiality" which will probably affect GB News the most, Stewart Purvis writes on his blog in a post titled, 'Imagine a General Election campaign where a political party can interview itself on TV every day. It’s coming soon courtesy of Ofcom'.
Are we any wiser about the impact on the forthcoming General Election campaign?
1. What’s the Bottom Line?
Last month I wrote an article for the Guardian with a former colleague at Ofcom, Chris Banatvala. We asked three questions, now we know the answers.
Q: Is Ofcom going to allow senior party officials to present election programmes as long as they are not actual candidates?
A: Yes. Under Ofcom’s current interpretation of their rules the Honorary President of the Reform UK Party, Nigel Farage, who is also a director and co-owner of the party, will be able to present his weeknight prime-time programme on GB News unless he stands as a candidate. He will be able to do this throughout the election campaign – even though Reform UK says it will stand around 600 candidates
Q: Could a channel host party loyalists from only one side, delivering nightly unchallenged polemics on each day’s campaign news?
A: Yes unless they are candidates. And party officials, assembly members and political activists will all be allowed to interview representatives of their own party every day of the campaign.
Q: Will channels with poor compliance records and fewer viewers than the public service broadcasters be given greater flexibility in achieving “due impartiality” on the basis of what Ofcom calls “audience expectations”?
A: The suggestion that Ofcom was operating this two-tier system came from none other than the CEO of Ofcom, Dame Melanie Dawes, when she told an event in Oxford "the standard for someone like the BBC, which reaches still 70% of the TV viewing audience, [for] the news is a different one from that of a channel that has an audience of maybe four or five per cent of the viewing public. We expect different things. And I think that’s appropriate.”
When challenged before a potential legal action by Professor Julian Petley and the Good Law Practice, Ofcom now say that these were "two brief remarks made in the context of a live Q&A interview" and that the comments "were clearly not intended to be, and should not be taken as, an unpublished policy position of Ofcom". I think that’s Ofcom code for "the CEO mis-spoke".
2. What Does the Audience Research Show ?
Ofcom says: "The report captures a wide range of views but, overall, the audience feedback supports the broad design of existing due impartiality rules under the Broadcasting Code." Cynics would suggest that’s exactly what the research was designed to do so let’s examine one issue in detail.
Under Ofcom’s current interpretation of the rules, politicians cannot present news programmes but they can present 'current affairs’. As I have pointed out before the distinction between these two genres was not set out in the law that created Ofcom, the regulations Ofcom enforce or the guidance it has provided to broadcasters. It only existed in a blog by an executive. Now Ofcom is taking the opportunity provided by the research to change the guidance to codify the blog. But is that what the audience research really shows?
When the research project was first commissioned, the Ofcom Chairman, Lord Grade, took the unusual step of predicting what it would discover, telling a Voice of the Listener and Viewer conference that he was sure the audience would know the difference between news and current affairs.
The evidence from "29 focus groups with 157 participants from range of backgrounds, reflecting different political leanings and media consumption habits from all across the UK" tells a different story. This being ‘qualitative’ not ‘quantitative’ the research company Ipsos does not provide numbers of who thinks what, but instead attempts to summarise what the groups said.
Two of Ipsos’s headline points are:
"Participants thought they could easily distinguish between news and current affairs content and name common features of both in principle. However, in practice, the presentation and style of these types of content blurred the line between news and current affairs which confused participants particularly when a programme contained both."
Dig deeper and you find the audience was even more confused. Four of the key characteristics they associated with news programmes but not current affairs: Studio backdrop/presenter sitting behind a desk / rolling banner /ticker are all prominent parts of Farage’s programme which he is only allowed to present because Ofcom deems it "current affairs".
A further irony is that two of the characteristics they associate with news, rolling banners and tickers, don’t actually appear in news programmes such as the BBC’s Six O’Clock News and ITV’s News at Ten.
This was an especially disappointing result for Ofcom when you consider that the "stimulus materials", the video clips shown to the focus groups, did not include any ‘hybrid’ programmes such as BBC Radio Four ‘Today’, Channel Four News, BBC Newsnight and rolling news sections of Sky News which all have elements of both genres. Such clips would have left the focus groups even more confused since most of the people who make them are not sure themselves if they are news or current affairs or both. Ofcom itself also seems confused. Under its definition, these hybrid programmes are probably both news and current affairs. But it always seems to investigate them as news.
So if the evidence is that viewers think they know the difference but actually don’t, what do they think of the principle of politicians presenting ‘current affairs’ programmes?
Ipsos is absolutely clear;
"The most prevalent opinion held among participants was feeling uncomfortable with politicians presenting current affairs content."
The raw material includes quotes such as:
"I just don’t think politicians should be doing all these current affairs programmes, or not as many." Female, South England, 55+
"It undermines the topic they’re presenting or discussing. To be on the safe side, stick with presenters who aren’t associated with politics in any way.” Female, Midlands, 35-54.
But do the viewers think the rules should allow politicians to present these programmes?
Ipsos says, "Not everyone in this group thought they should be prevented from doing so."
Should we be surprised by that when we read that 11 of the 29 groups "were conducted with audiences of channels where politicians have been presenting current affairs programmes more regularly". You might well expect that 'not everyone’ in these groups would like to stop the programmes they watch. The real question is was there an overall majority of people who thought that politicians shouldn’t present current affairs programmes. Ipsos would know this but we aren’t told.
Instead, Ipsos concludes:
"Across groups, there was common concern about politicians presenting current affairs content, but this did not equate to a consensus on preventing them from presenting such content."
Ofcom goes one step further in its press release:
"People expressed a range of views about politicians presenting current affairs programmes, but although there were concerns, there’s no clear consensus for an outright ban."
So "a prevalent view" among viewers that they are "feeling uncomfortable" has been diluted to "a range of views".
The final twist comes when an Ofcom executive, Cristina Nicolotti Squires, a former ITN colleague, appears on Radio 4’s Media Show and announces :
"When it came to current affairs they didn’t particularly like politicians presenting it but they didn’t want it banned."
Now "not everybody" agreed to a ban has been strengthened to "they didn’t want it banned".
Some evidence base.
3. What subjects weren’t the focus groups asked about?
I can’t find any mention of any groups being asked what they thought of the fact that the politicians who present on GB News all come from the same side of the political divide.
Nor, it seems, were they asked what they would consider to be a reasonable proportion of a programme that should be given to views which are an alternative to those of the politicians who gave the opening monologue.
Perhaps Ofcom didn’t want to know the answer.
My colleague, Chris Banatvala adds this important final point: "When all is said and done, this qualitative research shows ‘across groups there was common concern about politicians presenting current affairs content'. Surely that is the beginning of the debate and not, as Ofcom seems to imply, the end."
Reprinted with kind permission by Stewart Purvis. More of his writing here.
From War Crimes to Drug-Running Claims – UK’s Special Forces’ Revered History of Honour and Heroism is in Tatters
Prince William recently attended a memorial service at Hereford Cathedral to honour Major Mike Sadler, the last of the wartime Special Air Service (SAS) 'originals'.
Sadler, who died aged 103, was a celebrated figure in British military special forces history. Recruited by David Stirling, the founder of the SAS, in 1941, Sadler's military career included night-time raids on Axis airfields in Libya and parachuting into Nazi-occupied France. His valour earned him the Military Cross and the Legion d'honneur from France.
His was the service of legends - immortalised by Tom Glynn-Carney in the BBC series ‘Rogue Heroes’.
But would this highest of military praise – a future king attending your funeral - be warranted for those serving today? After all, members of the UK’s special forces stand accused of war crimes in Syria, extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan, drug-running in Herefordshire and the systemic and purposeful hiding or withholding of evidence from the courts seeking to hold it to account.
Such a litany of accusations raises the question: is the SAS of today more rogue than hero?
Arrests of War Crimes in Syria
In March, it was reported that five members of the SAS had either been placed under investigation or arrested (accounts differ) for allegedly committing war crimes during operations in Syria. The allegations stem from a 2022 incident where they reportedly killed an unarmed suspected militant. The suspect was said to have been found near a primed suicide vest, although he was not wearing it at the time he was shot. The soldiers have defended their actions, saying the individual posed an imminent threat.
Allegations of Extrajudicial Killings in Afghanistan
Of course, this might seem a reasonable act. How else do you stop a militant intent on suicidal murder? But such arrests come against the backdrop of broader investigations into the conduct of SAS personnel, including accusations of multiple unlawful killings during counterinsurgency arrests in Afghanistan's Helmand province.
The allegations cover at least 26 operations leading to the deaths of 84 Afghan males under questionable circumstances, particularly the targeting of unarmed individuals identified as "fighting-aged males", and the shooting of sleeping Afghans.
These operations, which span from May 2010 through May 2013, are the focus of an ongoing judge-led inquiry tasked with considering there veracity, and if they amount to war crimes. Witness accounts describe the victims in many instances as non-combatants, unarmed or handcuffed.
A day after one raid in February 2011, where eight people were killed, one Special Forces officer wrote in an email: "Whilst murder and the [SAS] have oft been regular bed-fellows, this is beginning to look bone!"
The reply came back: "I find it depressing that it has come to this… Ultimately a massive failure of leadership… and when the next Wikileaks occurs then we will be dragged down with them."
Accusations of Obstructing Justice
The inquiry is overshadowed by other accusations, including the destruction of evidence, the root of which lies in Operation Northmoor, a prior investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan started in 2015 by the Royal Military Police (RMP). In that review, much was made of an MOD “ITS1 server” which contained potentially crucial SAS emails and documents. The MOD initially refused to surrender this server, citing operational concerns, but when it was eventually transferred crucial data had been deleted.
As this deletion is exposed, the BBC has also reported that General Gwyn Jenkins, during his time as a colonel in the Herefordshire-based special forces regiment, was aware of SAS soldiers executing handcuffed detainees but failed to report these incidents to military police. Instead, he put the evidence in a classified dossier and locked it in his safe, potentially breaching the Armed Forces Act 2006, which mandates reporting such crimes. The Defence Serious Crime Command (DSCC) or the Royal Military Police have yet to investigate the accusations raised against Jenkins.
The SAS also stands accused of blocking a number of applications to relocate to the UK made by the Afghan troops who they had fought alongside. Despite being significantly at risk of Taliban reprisals, hundreds of applications from Afghan Special Forces units CF 333 and ATF 444 under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme were reportedly rejected by SAS officers.
Northern Ireland
Questions are also being asked about when the Ministry of Defence first became aware of a video that allegedly showed the 1986 killing of Francis Bradley, a 20-year-old from Co Derry, by a member of the SAS. This video is pivotal to the ongoing inquest into Bradley's death, which took place near an arms dump in Toome, County Antrim, and is suspected to be a result of the alleged "shoot-to-kill" policy of the British Army in Northern Ireland. Bradley was later honoured by the IRA.
The video's existence was revealed during the inquest by a former SAS member known as Soldier U, who claimed to have seen footage from a helicopter-mounted camera showing the moment leading up to Bradley's death. This disclosure prompted Karen Quinlivan KC, representing the Bradley family, to question the MoD's transparency and timeline concerning their knowledge of the video. Coroner Peter Irvine said he was informed about the video just days before the inquiry – again raising questions as to the handling of crucial evidence.
Drug Running
Last December, a major law enforcement operation involving armed officers led to the arrest of two members of the SAS and a soldier’s spouse. This operation, executed in a coordinated effort between military and civil law enforcement agencies, targeted a rural farm where substances suspected to be illicit drugs were discovered and confiscated for analysis. The suspects were subsequently released on bail, pending charges for Class A drug offences.
Secrecy and 'D Notices
If the answer to this litany of accusations is greater investigation and transparency, think again. The British government recently issued a 'D Notice' to various media outlets, asking them to refrain from publishing details about SAS operations in the Middle East, particularly their reported training in Lebanon and Cyprus with aims to enter Gaza. The Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee has reportedly said that the publication of the details of these missions could compromise the safety of UK personnel involved in sensitive operations.
The UK Government has an often-stated "no comment" policy when it comes to Special Forces. No parliamentary select committee currently has oversight of the elite force.
Chief of General Staff
Nor does it appear to have any real-life impact on senior military personnel in the British army. Lieutenant General Sir Charles Walker, described by the Telegraph as an “ex-SAS war hero”, is due to take up the post of Chief of the General Staff, the professional head of the British Army, in June 2024. Mark Carleton-Smith, until recently the Chief of the General Staff, was also in the SAS.
Have such high commands had real life consequences in the application of justice? As Frank Ledwidge noted in the Guardian, “if senior military officers don’t want ministers to know something about special forces because it is embarrassing or reflects badly upon them, they can stonewall or gaslight and expect no further action or scrutiny.”
It is small wonder, then, that Johnny Mercer, the Veterans Minister and MP for Plymouth Moor View, is challenging a legal order requiring him to disclose the names of informants who reported alleged war crimes by British special forces in Afghanistan.
Mercer was given a deadline to submit a witness statement with these names to the inquiry, failing which he could face imprisonment or a fine. He has applied to contest this order. The inquiry has assured that the names will be kept confidential, but Mercer, who previously served with the Special Boat Service in Afghanistan, has defended his refusal to disclose the names, citing the protection of his informants' integrity.
Rogues or Heroes?
The accusations that are levied at the UK's SAS stand in stark contrast with the revered legacy of its founding heroes. From war crimes and obstruction of justice to misconduct and a lack of transparency, a troubling picture of a unit once synonymous with bravery and integrity emerges.
As the SAS grapples with these accusations and the resulting public and legal scrutiny, the need for comprehensive oversight and reform becomes increasingly apparent.
The honour and respect commanded by figures like Major Mike Sadler remind us of the standards to which today's forces must still aspire. It is essential that their actions are guided by accountability and justice - only with this can the SAS reclaim the distinguished reputation it once held.
Just a Fraction of Voters Who Lack Photo ID Apply for ‘Free’ Identification – In Warning Sign for Mayoral Elections
Barely a tenth of voters who lack photo ID are likely to have applied for the Government’s free form of identification ahead of next week’s local elections, according to analysis of official figures.
Research by the Electoral Commission shows that people who are unemployed, people with disabilities, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are least likely to have an accepted form of ID, and should therefore apply for the free voter ID – a Voter Authority Certificate (VAC).
But analysis by campaign group Unlock Democracy shows that, despite a slight uptick in recent applications for the free ID, the number of applications is half of what it was over the same 100-day period ahead of the 2023 local elections. This is despite more voters being expected to head to the polls this year for many councils in England, as well as mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners.
Between mid-January last year and 25 April 2023, 89,654 applications were made for a VAC. In the same time period to the 24 April this year, just 41,792 people have applied.
The Government’s own research in 2021 found that 4% of eligible voters do not have an approved photographic ID – equivalent to more than 1.68 million people in England and Wales. While that figure may have declined in the time since, Unlock Democracy estimates that 1.5 million voters are still likely to lack necessary photo ID to vote.
The deadline to apply for a VAC passes at 5pm today, 24 April.
Tom Brake, director of Unlock Democracy, said: “Today’s figures are an unhappy reminder that voter ID will once more rob huge numbers of eligible voters of their rights. The Government’s Voter Authority Certificate scheme has proven itself a total failure.
“We already know from last May what the impact of voter ID will be – many thousands prevented from voting, disproportionately young and disabled people and voters from minority backgrounds. Worse, with several high-profile mayoral contests taking place this year, the damage will only be greater.
"Voter ID is an unnecessary, discriminatory and costly failure that’s damaging UK democracy. It should be abandoned before even greater damage is done at the general election.”
Ahead of today's 5pm deadline, Craig Westwood, director of communication, policy and research at the Electoral Commission, said: “The free ID helps ensure that everyone is able to take part in the May elections, even if they don’t currently have an accepted form of photo ID.
“The process of applying doesn’t take long and there is information and support available from the Electoral Commission and your local authority. And if you have friends or family who don’t have an accepted form of photo ID, please spread the word.”
If people miss today’s deadline, they can still apply in time for the general election.
The VAC scheme was set up with the aim of ensuring that people without a qualifying ID would still be able to cast their vote at a polling station.
The Electoral Commission found that around 4% of all people who said they did not vote at last May’s local elections listed voter ID requirements as the reason – calculated to be around 740,000 people.
More than 14,000 people were also recorded as being turned away from polling stations and failing to return due to voter ID in last year’s English local elections. But, as a recent DLUHC report concluded, the actual number of people who could not vote is likely to be much higher.
Urban areas such as London, where high-profile mayoral contests boost turnout, are likely to be hard-hit by the voter ID policy. A report last September by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democracy and the Constitution described the voter ID system as “poisoned cure”.
Ministers have long insisted that the introduction of voter ID is to make elections safer. However, out of 58 million votes cast across three elections in 2019, there were only 33 allegations of the type of voter fraud that the voter ID scheme could have prevented, with only one resulting in a conviction, Unlock Democracy notes.
It is estimated that the policy will cost up to £120 million over a decade to implement, due to the need for extra staff, training, larger polling cards, advertising the policy, and the roll-out of the free ID scheme.
Recent polling found that 16% of voting age respondents in Britain were not aware of voter ID requirements – equivalent to around five million people. Among 18 to 24 year-olds, the figure rises to 27%, more than one in four.
Accepted forms of photo ID include a UK, European Economic Area (EEA) or Commonwealth passport; UK or EEA drivers’ licence; and some concessionary travel passes, such as an UK government-funded older person’s bus pass or an Oyster 60+ card. Voters can use expired ID if they are still recognisable from the photo.
There has been considerable criticism of the larger number of forms of ID accepted for older voters, but almost none designed for young people.
Applications for the free ID can be submitted online or by completing a paper form and sending it to the local council’s electoral services team. Voters must provide a photo, their full name, date of birth, the address at which they are registered to vote, and their National Insurance number. Applicants must already be registered to vote before applying.
January to April 2023 figures (daily applications)
Equivalent figures for 2024
Spotted something strange ahead of the local elections? If you have a political story or tip-off, email josiah@bylinetimes.com or the VoteWatch contact above.
How Rishi Sunak Cooked the Books With his Defence Spending Pledge
Rishi Sunak gathered lots of approving front pages in the Conservative-supporting newspapers on Wednesday, after pledging to increase defence spending by £75 billion and pay for it by scrapping 70,000 civil servant jobs.
The £75 billion figure features prominently on the front page of the Telegraph, the Times and Daily Mail. The only problem is that it isn’t really true.
As the Prime Minister’s own spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday, the £75 billion increase is actually based on comparing the total projected defence spend in six years time, with the cash figure spent by the Government today. In other words it is based on stripping out any inflation-based increases that would otherwise have happened anyway.
As the Institute for Fiscal Studies have pointed out today, this is a deeply misleading way of presenting the increase, which is in reality closer to just £20-£25 billion in real terms.
And even once you remove this sleight of hand, the pledged increase is still significantly lower than what was promised in the Conservative Party’s own 2019 manifesto, which stated that defence spending would be “at least 0.5 per cent above inflation every year of the new Parliament.” With inflation currently at 3.2%, the Government’s new pledge to raise it to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade still falls a long way short.
Cooking the Books
Sunak’s book-cooking doesn’t stop there.
Talking about his plans on Wednesday, Sunak claimed that his pledge had been “fully costed”.
In order to justify this, he claimed that the policy would be paid for by reducing the size of the civil service by 70,000 jobs, which he suggested would save an estimated £4.5 billion a year over six years.
Now the eagle-eyed among you will notice at this point that £4.5 billion times six does not equal £75 billion.
Asked about this today, Sunak’s spokesperson confirmed yet another piece of jiggery-pokery, which is that unlike the £75 billion figure he claims to be increasing defence spending by, the £4.5 billion figure is based on real-terms figures, not cash figures.
In this way he is attempting to use two entirely different methodologies and baselines to estimate the increase in defence spending, versus the amount of money that he will need to save in order to pay for it.
In other words the Prime Minister is massively overstating the size of the increase to defence spending he plans to make, while relatively downplaying the size of the public sector cuts that he would have to make in order to pay for it.
Obviously the use of such dishonest sleights of hands should cause anyone to question how seriously we should take the PM's entire pledge. If Sunak and his team are so willing to blatantly cook the books about the real-terms costs of their policy, then any claims they make about it all being paid for just by sacking some civil servants should not be taken particularly seriously either.
And with the polls suggesting that the Prime Minister is highly unlikely to be in a position to ever actually implement, let alone pay for his announcement, the unquestioning coverage it received in today's newspapers now looks incredibly misjudged.
Policy Exchange Insider Labour MP Who Attacked Islamophobia Definition Privately Told Baroness Warsi Think Tank is ‘Dangerous’
A senior Labour MP and co-author of a new Policy Exchange report attacking attempts to define Islamophobia privately told former Conservative Cabinet Minister Baroness Sayeeda Warsi that the Conservative think tank is a "dangerous" outfit with extremist tendencies that he is trying to "temper" with his presence.
The conversation between Baroness Warsi and Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, came to light in leaked WhatsApp messages seen exclusively by Byline Times.
Mahmood is currently a senior fellow at Policy Exchange. According to the parliamentary register of interests, he received regular payments from the think tank between April 2019 and March 2022, totalling more than £50,000.
His private criticisms of Policy Exchange cohere with previous reports by Byline Times revealing the connections of multiple staffers with far-right anti-Muslim and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Several Policy Exchange fellows, including the co-authors of the new Islamophobia report, are linked to a supporter of the so-called ‘Great Replacement’ theory which has inspired several far-right terrorist attacks, including in Christchurch and Texas.
The think tank’s current head of security once described “Zionists” as “the enemy” alongside all the mainstream political parties.
Michael Gove, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary, gives a speech at a Policy Exchange event. Photo: Tommy London /Alamy
Policy Exchange
The messages seen by Byline Times were sent to a WhatsApp group of senior cross-party Muslim politicians in the UK. They contain a series of heated exchanges between Mahmood and Baroness Warsi, a former Conservative Party chair.
The private messages were prompted by Mahmood’s co-authorship of a new report published by Policy Exchange – 'A definition of Islamophobia? Old Problems Remain, As New Problems Emerge’ – which states that Islamophobia is being weaponised to silence free speech.
In a foreword to the report, former Home Secretary Sajid Javid equates a working definition of Islamophobia created by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims with “blasphemy law by the backdoor” that would also potentially undermine counter-extremism work.
This was denied in 2019 by Labour MP Wes Streeting as Co-Chair of the APPG on British Muslims. At the time, both the then Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council to Number 10, Martin Hewitt, and then Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the Metropolitan Police’s Head of Counter-Terrorism Policing, said that they believed basic refinements of the APPG definition would be sufficient.
In the WhatsApp exchanges, Mahmood told Baroness Warsi multiple times that, if he had not joined Policy Exchange – one of the most influential lobbying groups around the UK Government – it would be a far worse organisation.
He claimed that he only joined the right-wing think tank to “keep an eye” on it from within, due to its “dangerous” nature.
Keeping an Eye
In the messages, Mahmood vigorously disputes Baroness Warsi’s criticisms of his role in the Policy Exchange report. Baroness Warsi complains that Mahmood had not raised his concerns directly with the APPG on British Muslims despite several invitations to do so. Mahmood rejects this criticism.
“At least twice I have personally asked you to engage and you did not take up the open invite offered to all parliamentarians to submit evidence,” the peer writes in one message.
“And when I have addressed specific issues you’ve given me some wierd [sic] answer about how you working with PX [Policy Exchange] is in the best interests of the community because they (PX) would be far worse without you tempering/keeping an eye on them.”
In his responses to Baroness Warsi, Mahmood does not deny this conversation.
Instead, he writes: “I respect you have your opinions with PX's report. Although moving forward, I am looking to having a more meaningful conversation with you.”
In a further message, Baroness Warsi writes: “I saw you a few weeks ago at the Big Iftaar and I spoke about this very issue. You didn’t ask for a discussion nor give any indication that you were interested in working collaboratively.”
She also writes that she was told “PX would be far worse without you being there and you needed to be on the inside. You gave the clear impression PX were dangerous and they [sic] you were keeping an eye on them – at no point did you defend PX”.
Neither Baroness Sayeeda Warsi nor Khalid Mahmood responded to Byline Times’ requests for comment.
Although Mahmood's private characterisation of Policy Exchange as “dangerous” is at odds with his public stance, it is an accurate description of the think tank’s affiliations.
'Great Replacement’ Ties
Two of Mahmood’s co-authors of the new Policy Exchange report – Sir John Jenkins and Dr Martyn Frampton – have worked closely with Dr Lorenzo Vidino, a ‘white genocide’ believer who once worked for the same far-right conspiracy theorist whom former Prime Minister David Cameron called an “idiot” for describing Birmingham as a Muslim "no-go zone".
Dr Frampton also collaborated with Dr Vidino on a major anthology about the Muslim Brotherhood published in 2013, to which he was a contributor.
Former UK diplomat Sir John Jenkins spoke alongside Dr Vidino at a 2017 event hosted by him at George Washington University, where he heads up the programme on extremism. Dr Vidino was previously commissioned by Sir John to produce a paper and consultative briefing for the UK Government review of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Dr Frampton was also hosted by Dr Vidino in 2018 at George Washington University to speak about his own book on the Muslim Brotherhood.
As Byline Times has previously revealed, Dr Vidino is on record advocating the far-right Great Replacement theory – an ethno-nationalist theory warning that an indigenous (white) European population is being replaced by non-European immigrants through a programme of reverse-colonisation, according to the Counter Extremism Project.
In 2005, when asked if Europeans were witnessing “the end of Europe” by FrontPage magazine (the far-right publication of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black activist David Horowitz), he said: “Europe as we knew it 30 years ago is long gone. Demography doesn’t lie: in a couple of decades non-ethnic Europeans will represent the majority of the population in many European cities and a large percentage of them will be Muslim.”
According to Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative, Dr Vidino is well-known for promoting “conspiracy theories about the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the United States” and “is connected to numerous anti-Muslim think tanks in the United States and Europe, and has published in various anti-Muslim outlets”.
From 2002 to 2005, Dr Vidino was a senior analyst at Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism, identified by the Centre for American Progress (CAP) as a top player in a global anti-Muslim “misinformation” network “orchestrating the majority of misinformation about Islam and Muslims in America today”.
Emerson played a leading role in establishing the Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy theory through cherry-picking and misrepresentations of key documents. According to CAP’s online database of anti-Muslim hate groups, he has a reputation “for fabricating evidence to substantiate his ravings about Muslim extremism”.
In 2015, Emerson was notoriously ridiculed by then Prime Minister David Cameron as “a complete idiot” for calling Birmingham a Muslim-controlled "no-go zone".
Byline Times also previously revealed that in 2010 Policy Exchange’s head of security and extremism, Dr Paul Stott, described “Zionists” as “the enemy” alongside Islamists, “Neo-Conservatives, New Labour [and] the Con-Dems”.
In 2021, Dr Stott was commissioned by the Sweden Democrats, a neo-Nazi political party boycotted by Israeli Government officials due to its antisemitic tendencies, to produce a report claiming the existence of a conspiratorial alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and European political leaders.
These extremist affiliations fundamentally discredit the integrity of Policy Exchange’s research on Islamophobia and Muslim communities.
Policy Exchange did not respond to requests for comment.
‘This Discrimination has to Stop’: Parents Protest at Parliament Over Free Childcare that Excludes 20,000 Families
Dozens of parents and campaigners gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday to draw attention to the fact that at least 20,000 migrant families in England are still excluded from childcare support – weeks after the Government extended support for parents.
Members of The No Recourse to Public Funds Action Group are calling on childcare for all, no matter their parents’ immigration status.
A person subject to immigration control cannot claim benefits or assistance unless an exception applies.
Those with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), are not the only group to miss out on childcare support, so do mature students, parents working less than 16 hours per week, and those earning less than £8,670 or more than £100,000 per year.
Last year, the Government announced an expansion of extra funded hours of childcare for working parents, promising up to 30 funded hours per week over 38 weeks of the year to children aged nine months and over. Three and four-year-olds had already been entitled to up to 30 hours of childcare each week. In April, two-year-olds became eligible for 15 hours per week, and by September, children as young as nine months will be eligible for 15 hours of free childcare.
But thousands of NRPF parents – those who might be here to work, study, or join family members in the UK – are struggling to access any of that support even if they meet the 16 hours of work per week requirement, due to their immigration status. The Centre for Analysis for Social Exclusion estimates that 20,000 NRPF parents are missing out. The figure does not include asylum seekers or refugees.
One member of the group at the protest told Byline Times parents like her are “wanting to work” to pursue their dreams, but are “held back by the crushing weight of childcare costs”.
“Access to childcare isn't just about parents – it's about the future of our children,” the mother, who did not want to be named, said. “Without proper support from an early age, children fall behind in their education, which can have bad, long-term consequences. Sometimes they will never catch up.
"We want our children to be free – free to be equal, free to access education. This discrimination has to stop – let us be equal. Let’s have childcare for all.”
Migrant charity Praxis supported Wednesday's action, which it described as a last resort in response to the Government not acknowledging their concerns.
“Childcare should be available to all families regardless of the colour of their skin, where they were born or the fine print in their passports,” Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz, policy and public affairs manager of Praxis, told Byline Times. She said the charity had been trying to "draw attention" to the issue but the Government has been "too busy to talk to us about our concerns. That’s why we’re taking our message right to their door”.
Joy (not her real name) came to the UK from Ghana in 2019 to join her partner – a Dutchman who had settled status – and was approved for pre-settled status in August 2022. When her partner became abusive, she fled to ensure her safety and that of her new-born daughter and was placed in shared accommodation by the local authority.
It was a "messy situation", she told Byline Times. “My daughter was with me all the time. The health visitor came around and said her speech was delayed – that she needed to mix with friends.”
Without access to public funds, living on section 17 of the Children Act 1989 financial assistance, paying for transport to take her daughter places wasn’t even possible.
Joy got a warehouse job in February 2023, working 24 hours a week, and hoped that once her daughter turned two in July of that year, she would qualify for 15 hours of free childcare. Until then, she paid £187 a week for childcare.
“My daughter was becoming sociable and stabilising – everything was good,” Joy said of that time, even though, she only had £150 left each month to pay for all their other needs.
When Joy's daughter turned two, she was told that she didn't qualify for free childcare because of her pre-settled status. Already in debt to the childcare provider, Joy had to stop working.
“I just had to stay home,” she said. “My daughter didn’t cope with it. I was the same. At work, I see people and move on from my situation. But my hands were tied – I couldn’t access childcare.”
Without work, still living in shared accommodation, Joy felt hopeless and wanted to "end my life". "It was too much for me," she told Byline Times. She had considered returning to Ghana, but cannot afford two plane tickets.
After nearly eight months of not working, Joy decided the best option was to return to work – despite the childcare costs – until her daughter, a British citizen, could go back to school.
“It’s not fair,” Joy said, adding: “I don’t see why I should be denied childcare when I am working and contributing. Every child is supposed to be treated equally, regardless of their immigration status.”
Preventing parents from accessing free childcare is making it impossible for parents, particularly mothers, to work, Whitaker-Yilmaz told Byline Times: “As women are more likely to be second income earners, this often leaves women unable to afford to work, because the cost of childcare is more than what they would earn at work.
“This leaves a large group of parents who are keen to work simply unable to – something that particularly affects single parents, who are also predominantly women.”
Whitaker-Yilmaz is concerned this issue doesn’t just affect NRPF parents, but their children and the UK’s future economy.
“Children in migrant families – regardless of where they were born or their own nationality – may only receive half the hours of early education that their peers do, or less,” she said. “This can mean that they start school at a disadvantage, and some may never catch up. Given that this affects children who are, or who may soon become, British citizens themselves, this not only affects children’s life outcomes but also the future economy.”
While parents across the country are struggling to access and afford childcare, Whitaker-Yilmaz said denying all support to some, based on their background, isn’t going to result in better access for others.
“What’s needed is fundamental reform of the entire system, so that it works better for all families, not a privileged minority,” she said.
“The early education and childcare system is an essential part of our national infrastructure, which not only helps prepare children for school and later life but also enables parents to participate in paid work. What we’d like to see is a system capable of providing universal childcare to all families, no matter their background.”
Government Urged to Drop Data Protection Reforms Which May Make Children an Easy Target
The Government is being urged to drop data protection reforms which appear to put commercial interests ahead of protecting children’s data, and instead support action aimed at better protecting the education sector under existing law.
The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, currently at the Committee stage in the House of Lords, aims to update and simplify the UK's data protection framework, according to the Government, but has been controversial with data protection
In a joint effort led by Defend Digital Me, expert groups, teaching unions and
academics with a focus on state education, data, technology, and human rights, have
written an open letter to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
Michelle Donelan urging her to ditch the bill.
“Overall the Bill is a significant shift away from a rights-based regime towards a set of market standards which treats data as a product,” Stephen Cragg KC notes in a legal opinion on the bill.
“If the new definition of personal data … is enacted that will also, of course, mean that fewer data of children will be protected under the new law.”
The open letter explains how the Bill undermines every one of the seven key data
protection principles, lowering today’s standards of obligations on lawfulness, fairness
and transparency; purpose limitation; data minimisation; accuracy; storage limitation;
confidentiality and security and accountability.
Several clauses in the Bill appear to put commercial interests ahead of protecting children’s data, allowing companies to train their AI products on students, and investigating the opportunities of combining this with genomic data with a contract already awarded.
Clause two of the bill redefines the terms "scientific research" and "scientific
research purposes" to mean "any research that can reasonably be described as
scientific, whether publicly or privately funded, and carried out as a commercial or
noncommercial activity" and reduces people’s rights to see a copy of their data, ask for
corrections, object to re-uses, and could result in reduced data security when it is
kept indefinitely in fully identifiable formats, and not anonymised as it should be now.
The letter states this is “a seismic shift” removing layers of protection that may open the door to commercial and other third-parties exploiting “those weak spots to intrude into our lives”.
Clauses three and six of the bill creates opportunity for more unexpected uses of
our information without informed consent and therefore less protection from re-uses.
The bill elevates a list of legitimate interests to a position where the fundamental
rights of data subjects, including children can effectively be ignored where the
processing of personal data is concerned and gives the Secretary of State the power to
add to this list without primary legislation, bypassing Parliamentary controls.
Business friendly interests, such as direct marketing, have been added to this list
without provisos which Defend Digital Me warns will give “succour to commercial
organisations to increase levels of spam”. There is no added safeguards to protect people from it.
The Bill permits targeted political marketing at children aged 14-18 - with no fact-checking or oversight measures - meaning teenagers could be exposed to content containing political extremism.
It fails to address the lack of oversight in England of widespread profiling,
data mining, marketing, and school data agreements that can leave children of all ages
open to commercial exploitation. The Bill further shifts the imbalance of power away from
school staff, families and learners, by removing the obligation to have a Data Protection
Officer, and reducing the accountability for data processing.
The Department for Education (DfE) has a woeful track record with data, the Information Commissioner's Office (IOC) audit in 2020 made 139 recommendations for improvement and with over 60% classified as urgent or high priority that "represent clear and immediate risks".
In 2022, the DfE was reprimanded after gambling companies misused a learning records
database, and in March 2024, the ICO took regulatory action against five public
authorities under the FOI Act including the DfE.
The open letter voices suggests children may become an easy market for data brokering, increasing the volume of spam, and more upselling within EdTech products.
The EdTech sector is 70% start-ups which can fail to meet cybersecurity standards. These are often products still in development where the company uses children as free data producers to train and develop new AI products with teachers providing free digital labour for the companies. Many start-ups are bought out with the data they’ve collected changing hands multiple times, often between foreign investors without values directly connected to education or pedagogy.
The DfE is reportedly considering “a number of questions”, regarding the re-use of national pupil data for AI development including data ownership and IP. Defend Digital Me has identified potentially unsafe technology products which fall under the bills "safeguarding vulnerable individuals" umbrella.
Many such products that may soon be banned in educational settings in the EU
under the EU AI Act, but will be allowed in the UK, include those that claim to be able to
identify mood and emotions using “pose estimation” based on data from pupils’ faces,
and products marketed as being able to identify and profile “hidden social-emotional
risks”.
If marketed under the bills safeguarding umbrella these products will continue to be permitted in UK classrooms, colleges or universities. The changes mean they could
even skip any risk assessment known as 'the balancing test’ in future. In addition to biometric data, increasingly sensitive bodily data is collected by emerging technologies through haptics, immersive tech, robot sensors and by voice assisted tools.
The DfE and Government Office for Science recently awarded a contract to look at the implications of future genomic technologies on the education sector. Some researchers want to see genetic data population-wide joined with educational records.
Dr Helen Wallace, Director of GeneWatch UK, has said of the Bill as drafted “is a
short-sighted and extremely dangerous attempt to tear up existing safeguards for
people’s DNA and genetic information".
"If passed, these changes will damage people’s trust in health, research and police uses of their DNA, perhaps for generations," she said.
‘With his Poll Ratings Sinking, Sunak Goes For One More Attempt at Scapegoating the Vulnerable: The “Skivers” Revisited’
With a general election looming, it once again appears to be open season on benefits claimants and disabled people.
During a weekend welfare policy blitz, the Prime Minister pledged a new slew of curbs on benefits for disabled and chronically ill people if the Conservatives win power again. He also doubled-down on retaining the controversial two-child benefit cap, a key driver of child poverty.
The opening salvo came courtesy of a speech on Friday when Rishi Sunak decried what he called the country’s “sick note culture”, declaring that he was on a “moral mission” to reform the benefits system and tackle the “spiralling” £69 billion disability welfare costs.
Something had to be done, he said, about the growing numbers of economically inactive people who are long-term sick – in particular those deemed to have mental health problems and especially young people, too many of whom were “parked on welfare”.
If the specific language around disability and welfare sounds familiar, that’s because it is.
With terms like "sick note culture" and "parked on welfare", Sunak was operating straight from the benefits-bashing playbook wielded with great effect by consecutive Conservative administrations to demonise benefits claimants.
Since the onset of austerity 14 years ago, variations on the same toxic rhetoric have been deployed to justify years of savage cuts to social security and public services. The same rhetoric has been repeatedly leveraged to pit so-called 'hard-working’ people against anyone in need of state assistance.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation described Sunak's speech as “an irresponsible war of words on people who already aren’t getting enough support”.
As he faces record low polling numbers, the Prime Minister appears intent on giving the ‘skivers versus strivers’ trope one last whirl. In one section of his speech referring to mental health, he warned against "over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life".
Among the proposals put forward – which were immediately slammed by disability charities and labelled by one as “a full-on assault on disabled people” – was a possible withdrawal of major ongoing benefits.
Sunak announced a review of Personal Independence Payments (PIP), whereby some payments might be changed to one-off rather than ongoing. As a non-means-tested benefit to help people with extra living costs due to disability or ill health, the possibility of the removal of regular essential payments sparked an understandable outcry from disabled people’s organisations.
Other proposed measures included closing benefits claims for individuals still out of work after 12 months who fail to comply with conditions for accepting available work. Another would make it harder to obtain a sick note. Sunak also asserted that the Government would look at shifting responsibility for classifying individuals as not fit for work away from GPs to other "work and health professionals".
According to the Prime Minister, too many GPs have been signing people off work by default. Yet, as many have pointed out, such an assessment belies reality.
James Taylor, director of strategy at disability charity Scope, noted for example that “much of the current levels of [economic] inactivity are because our public services are crumbling, the quality of jobs is poor, and the rate of poverty among disabled households is growing”.
However, not only did Sunak's speech represent another assault on an already ungenerous and punitive benefits system, it was also nuclear-level gaslighting.
After a decade-and-a-half of the Conservatives in power, actively shredding the social safety net, it was with profound cognitive dissonance that Sunak declared that “the values of our welfare state are timeless. They’re part of our national character” and that “we’re proud to ensure a safety net that is generous for those who genuinely need it – and fair to the taxpayers who fund it".
As concerning as the speech was, it was soon followed by an article in The Sun on Sunday, penned by Sunak, in which he reiterated some of its key tenets while also aiming fire at families in poverty. Despite calls for it to be abolished, he vowed to keep the controversial two-child benefit cap.
The two-child limit, introduced in 2017, restricts means-tested benefits to families with fewer than three children. According to the Resolution Foundation think tank, the policy leaves larger families £3,200 a year worse off, per additional child, making it a factor in rising child poverty. In 2013-2014, 34% of children in larger families were in poverty. By 2028-29 the foundation estimates that this will soar to a staggering 51%.
Abolishing the two-child limit would cost the Government in the area of £3.6 billion for 2024-25 (if at full coverage). If the policy was abandoned, it could mean as many as half a million fewer children in poverty. It should be a no-brainer politically to lift that many kids out of poverty, yet Sunak seems determined not to act.
A protestor in a wheelchair and police during a demonstration in which a group chained themselves together across Regent Street, London, in protest against the Government's welfare reforms. Photo: John Stillwell/PA
Responding to The Sun on Sunday article, Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, observed: “With child poverty at a record high, the Prime Minister has now clearly decided that making kids poor is his political priority. The two-child limit makes it harder for kids, punishing them for having brothers and sisters. It’s time to scrap this nasty policy.”
The kind of demonising, divisive rhetoric used by Sunak and others in his party to justify budget cuts and welfare reforms has tended in the past to find fertile ground with a significant portion of the electorate. This latest attempt at scapegoating, however, stinks of desperation.
The Prime Minister is clearly grasping at straws. What’s less clear is whether Labour will finally commit to abolishing cruel and unnecessary policies like the two-child limit if the party forms the next government. If nothing else, Rishi Sunak has thrown down a gauntlet.
Mary O’Hara is the author of 'The Shame Game: Overturning the Toxic Poverty Narrative’. The 10th anniversary edition of her book, 'Austerity Bites: A Journey to the Sharp End of Cuts’ in the UK will be published in September by Policy Press