Benefits cuts now? What’s the point of a Labour MP who votes for something so cruel, tin-eared and short-sighted?

Disability rights activists protesting against proposed changes to benefit regulations, at the Department for Work and Pensions, London, on 30 October 2023. Photograph: Ron Fassbender/Alamy

Emails are pouring into MPs’ boxes from disabled people and carers, who are truly frightened by the suggestions from government sources and ministers’ speeches that the benefits they rely on are to be cut.

The latest comments to a journalist from someone described as a “government insider” demonstrate starkly what a tin ear some ministers have on this issue. This person accused Labour MPs who are expressing their constituents’ concerns about proposals to cut benefits of “pearl clutching”.