Good morning. To his loveless landslide, Keir Starmer can now add a vapid victory. Last night, the government’s flagship welfare reform bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons by 335 votes to 260 – a majority of 75. But after last-minute concessions from the government to secure the bill’s passage, a set of measures whose intended savings had already fallen from £5bn to £2.5bn a year, now looks like recouping much closer to nothing.
The central climbdown, where plans for deep cuts to the personal independence payment (Pip) in the future were shelved, has been celebrated by disabled people and the charities who represent them. They had feared that the support they rely on was about to be ripped away. But it is also a measure of how disastrous the whole process has been for Starmer.
