Back In The Day?

Born in 1967, Lee Anderson barely remembers the Invacar, although I am 10 years younger and even I know that that was what the "blue three-wheeler" was called. He sounded like Cyril Smith, a Labour councillor who, on seeing cars outside council houses, went back to the Liberals, whose Chief Whip in the House of Commons he later became. 

As recently as 2018, Anderson was also a Labour councillor. He would have become a Labour MP and probably a Government Whip if Jeremy Corbyn had never become Leader. Now that Corbyn is no longer Leader, then who and what are becoming Labour councillors, Labour MPs, Labour Whips, and more? Then again, who ever did become a Labour Whip? Under Peter Kyle's and Anna Turley's political patroness, the Whips' Office included Ivor Caplin, Phil Woolas and Dan Norris. Norris's proxy vote is still cast by the Whips.

The cost of leasing your Motability vehicle is deducted from your PIP. Without Motability, far fewer physically disabled people would be able to work. PIP is an in-work benefit. You do not get it for having a specific condition, but for how your conditions affect your life. You most certainly cannot self-certify onto it. You may have ADHD, or anxiety, or tennis elbow, or a food intolerance, or whatever, while also on Motability, but those cannot be grounds for being so.

PIP puts money in the hands of the people who spend it and thus stimulates our consumer economy, as sickness and disability benefits in general do, as the triple lock does, and as the lifting of the two-child benefit cap would, all while declaring the social and cultural value of the direct beneficiaries. Motability buys, and then owns, one in five new cars purchased in this country, which also translates into a lot of people's jobs. Reform UK might usefully have called for Motability to buy only vehicles that had been manufactured in the United Kingdom.