Call it a process of radicalisation. It’s a fair bet that when Liz Kendall was elected to parliament in 2010, she never imagined that one day she would be giving a statement to the Commons as work and pensions secretary that included a £5bn cut to the welfare budget. It’s not generally the type of thing that Labour members get into politics for. But time, ambition and pragmatism all play their part. And, on Tuesday, that moment arrived for Liz.
We were at the tail end of the five stages of grief. The denial. This wasn’t really happening to her. The anger when she realised it was really happening to her. There was no way of avoiding her destiny. The bargaining. Perhaps she could spin this as a good thing. Yes, that was it. Cuts were a moral force for good. She would be helping people in ways they didn’t know they needed helping. Depression. Who wouldn’t stare into the abyss given her choices? Finally, acceptance. It was what it was. A shitty job but someone had to do it. So she might as well try to enjoy herself.
Kendall wasn’t short of outriders. Though you couldn’t be sure how many of her cabinet colleagues were there just to offer moral support. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves may also have been there to make sure Liz had no last-minute wobbles and missed out the bits about the cuts. Wes Streeting was revelling in his newfound role as enforcer. Wes has never yet met a scrounger with anxiety and depression whom he couldn’t shout at and bully back into work.
The others, not so much. Angela Rayner was fairly inscrutable. Not all the changes were entirely to her taste. Ed Miliband and Bridget Phillipson also looked as if they would rather be elsewhere. They consoled themselves with the knowledge that at least they didn’t have to be Liz and go through a two-hour ordeal at the dispatch box. Though their turn may one day come.
Meanwhile, the Labour backbenches were packed. Full of MPs hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. Only 30 Tories were in situ on the opposite side of the house. This wasn’t their fight. They have no real interest in people who are out of work or disabled. Other than to make life worse for them.
Liz started off at a canter, as if sounding like she believed this stuff would make it true. It was a successful strategy. Because, by the end, she spoke with the conviction of the newly converted, pleased also to have got out alive. This was her big day out as one of the grownups and she had passed the test. Her reward was a pat on the shoulder from Starmer.
We began with the positives. The good news story. She was ambitious for the country. She wanted everyone to feel as good about their work as she did. Though she understood that not everyone could have her job of wanting people to feel good about themselves. This was beginning to get almost meta. People were being denied the dignity of work by a system that everyone knew was being scammed by many. There were some, she graciously accepted, who could not work. They would still be taken care of. Cue muted cheers from her own backbenchers.
Then to the tricky bits. Anyone under the age of 22 would be prevented from claiming health top-ups for universal credit. Yes. Liz had been informed that a young person could never be properly described as disabled until they were at least 22. There would also be cuts to personal independent payments combined with a new assessment regime. Anyone with mental health problems or a disability would be placed on a stool and immersed underwater. Those who drowned were genuine claimants. Those who survived were trying to cheat the system and would be denied payments. Simple. The old ones are still the best.
After that, we were all in need of a good laugh. Fortunately Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, was on hand to oblige. Her response to Kendall will give her nightmares for years to come. Not just the outright derision from Labour MPs but her own MPs holding their heads in their hands in disbelief. It’s just as well Helen had never been asked to do a work capacity assessment as she would have failed miserably. She has missed out on a lifetime on benefits.
Whately had just one job. To try to drive a wedge between Kendall and her largely sceptical backbenchers. Instead, she – temporarily at least – bound them tightly together. To call her hapless is to be too generous. That adjective is reserved for Kemi Badenoch, who was off giving yet another pointless speech that no one was listening to because it coincided with a major announcement in the Commons.
“Everything is a mess,” said Whately. But also, somehow, OK. The welfare bill was too high and yet she had forgotten who had been in power for much of the past 15 years. “Governing is hard,” she sobbed, as she listed all the things she would have liked to have done but somehow never did. Everything was too little, too late. She wanted the cuts to go deeper, but she didn’t know where. This was either a very public suicide note. Or a sophisticated resignation speech. Maybe she’s already had enough of opposition.
The Labour responses to the statement could be filed more under sorrow than in anger. Though no less dangerous for Kendall for that. Some did accept the need for an overhaul of a system so open to abuse, but none could bring themselves to welcome the cuts. The list of dissenters was as long as your arm. Debbie Abrahams, Clive Lewis, Clive Efford, Florence Eshalomi and Rachael Maskell among them. Starmer may find he has a substantial rebellion on his hands when the bill eventually gets a second reading.
As for the handful of Tories in the chamber, their contributions varied from the curious to the insane. Esther McVey wondered what jobs disabled people and young people would be doing given that the labour market was contracting. She had a point. One million low-paid jobs aren’t going to appear out of nowhere. Harriett Baldwin wanted reassurance that terminally ill people wouldn’t be made to work, while Mark Pritchard thought she would pack the armed forces with disabled people. It’s a thought.
All the while, Kendall only grew in confidence. Frequently mistaking criticism for support. Maybe she was expecting worse. Still, it worked for her. If she wasn’t fully on board with her changes at the beginning of her statement, she clearly was by the end.
