Happy Days Are Here Again

This parish is All Saints, so we are having a bit of a soirée after Mass this evening. Join in me is raising a glass to never, ever, ever having to hear the Happytudes again.

Thanks be to God, Who has brought us, unworthy though we are, to the blessed day that will be the First Sunday of Advent, when the infernal Jerusalem Bible Lectionary will be no more on the soil of Saint Bede the Venerable, Saint Anselm, Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Saint John Fisher, Saint Thomas More, and Saint John Henry Newman. Solemnly process it to Tyburn and burn it, and let every church bell in the land ring out in such jubilation as had not been heard since we had been liberated from the rendition of Credo as "We believe", of Et cum spirito tuo as "And also with you", and of pro multis as the downright heretical "for all" right there in the Words of Consecration.

"Blessed" is the word, for the crowning glory will be the abandonment of the atrocity that is the Happytudes. There always needed to be an English translation of the Bible de Jérusalem, in order to bring its important, if now dated, footnotes to the appropriate readership. But it should never have had a mass audience, much less a Mass audience. Boom, boom. I'm here all week. Don't stop me missus, I'm on a roll. And I am. I am a happy bunny. Who probably knows a happy Bunny. If you know, you know.

It beggars belief that for the last 50 years, we have been using, not an English translation from Greek and Hebrew, but an English translation of a French translation from Greek and Hebrew, made at some speed and, although his text was heavily edited, with the Book of Jonah translated by JRR Tolkien. Meanwhile, the RSV Catholic Edition, preferred by all sensible people for the low level scholarly purposes of which we were capable, has come to enjoy widespread liturgical use in the Church of England, and it is now in standard use in the Ordinariate, while we who produced it have been more or less forbidden to mention its existence outside the Oratories.

We do not need to assume, because we just know, that the Indian Bishops will have corrected the ESV in the same ways as the RSV has been corrected for Catholic purposes, such as at Luke 1:28. I have checked, though, and there are no Happytudes. In the tradition of the Grail Psalter that is not quite the Jerusalem Bible's Book of Psalms, and of the Book of Common Prayer's Coverdale Psalter that is not the King James Bible's Book of Psalms, we are to use the Abbey Psalms and Canticles. That comes from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is surrounded by people who would worship Baal if they knew who he was, just so long as they did not have to say that he really existed. The likes of "O God, You are my God" do seem to have survived. But the Bishops who have authorised the ESV Lectionary in this country have also authorised this, so hope springs eternal.

Next on the To Do list may be to restore Corpus Christi to the day on which it was kept both by the Pope and by those Anglicans who kept it, and is certainly to end the widespread persistence in this country of the practice of effectively ignoring the Solemnity of Christ the King by holding instead something called "Youth Sunday", which has nothing to do with the readings, and which largely consists of making youths do what their Boomer grandparents thought that they should want to do. There is none of this where Christ the King has been adopted ecumenically. This year, on that Solemnity of the Social Reign of Christ, there is presumably yet again every intention of handing over the Liturgy to, in some cases, small children, for whom there are also special Eucharistic Prayers that need to be banished. The new Lectionary will be the ideal opportunity to put a stop to this nonsense once and for all.

By the way, Baal does really exist, or at least he articulates the human experience of something that does. Outside the uniquely self-existent and the infinitely perfect God of Abrahamic monotheism, this or that generic, dependent, finite and imperfect deity may or may not exist in actual fact. Who knows? Certainly, though, each of them speaks of and to the human experience of something that is absolutely real, namely Saint Paul's elemental spirits, which are Saint John's fallen angels. Even in the House of Israel, there were prophets of Baal as well as prophets of God. There still are. But I digress.

The Irish, meanwhile, are to be stuck with the 2019 Revised New Jerusalem Bible, which is all gender neutral pronouns and what not. If the Bible is that bad, then why bother with it at all? In the twenty-second century, the re-evangelisation of Ireland will be from scratch, as if no Catholic had ever before set eyes on the place. Poland is now well on the way down the same road, as part of the strange disappearance of Saint John Paul II. When he died, then we were supposed to have been dealing with his oeuvre and legacy for the rest of our lives. Whatever happened to that? Again, though, I digress.

There is an older section of the Latin Mass lobby that still holds to the curious fiction that it was "the same everywhere", which would not be a theological argument even if it were not wildly inaccurate as a matter of fact, although the sincere conviction of it is a fascinating insight into how it used to be possible to visit several continents and, at least within the Church, never leave certain ghettos. Nor was it "unchanging". They themselves use an edition of it that is markedly different from that which was in use 10 years before its publication.

The younger contingent is any case interested in the pre-Conciliar diversity of rites, and will often profess that it would happily attend vernacular translations of them for what it posited to be their more complete Eucharistic theology. There is every recognition of the deficiencies of the Editio Typica of 1962 even if it were to be celebrated well, and there is absolutely no nostalgia for 20-minute Low Masses. Against either of those schools of thought, you do not get to invoke Pastor aeturnus if you do not believe that Matthew 16 ever happened, or if you do not subscribe without equivocation to paragraphs 874 to 896 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which in turn compels subscription to the whole of it.

For something more in the spirit of the Book of Common Prayer and of the King James Bible, or of The Garden of the Soul and of the Douay-Rheims Bible, then that kind of thing does go on in the Ordinariate, where it often takes a form very akin to the vernacular translation of the Old Rite that there are those who would wish to attend. Like the Latin Mass revival, let us see how well it flowered. I myself am also steeped in the English literary tradition. In general, though, Catholic and Anglican congregations alike in this country are increasingly made up of people whose English is as it is spoken in many parts of the world, or who speak English as a second language, or who fall into both categories. For that reason, I have a feeling that the adoption of a Lectionary translation that had been made in India will prove to be a masterstroke. And we are never going to hear the Happytudes again.

The Minimum Wage Increase: A Missed Opportunity

Damian from Brighton writes:

The increase in the minimum wage will, of course, be welcomed by the 3.5 million people who receive it from next April. However, when you look at how much the rate has been increased since its introduction in 1999, things look less rosy. 

The minimum wage began from the very low base of £3.60 an hour. It would be reasonable to assume it was set at that level out of caution, in order to ensure the success of the policy, so was initially lower than perhaps was necessary or accurate.

Since 1999, the annual increases have not kept pace with inflation or productivity increases. In plain English, workers in the UK have been, and are being, underpaid. The minimum wage is one of the most effective tools to reduce poverty and inequality. Increasing it not only helps people on lower incomes, it also causes an uplift in wages for people on higher salaries. Recent studies from the US have found that increasing the minimum wage also creates jobs. This makes perfect sense when you think about it, if more people have more money to spend, businesses will require extra workers to serve those additional customers.

Despite having this valuable tool at their disposal, both the Conservative and New Labour parties did not fully utilise it when in government, instead choosing to make small incremental increases, despite the policy being a success. If I were being charitable, I would describe the annual increases in the minimum wage since 1999 as miserly (see graph above).

So, after 14 long years of Tory austerity and wage stagnation, how much did Rachel Reeves, a Labour chancellor, decide to increase it by? The answer is 77 pence per hour. You cannot buy a packet of crisps for 77p. More importantly, such a small increase will go no way towards correcting wage levels or compensating workers for the accumulated loss of wages they have suffered as a result of being underpaid since 1999. Rachel Reeves may think she is being generous but 77p is not even generous in the context of the miserly increases workers have received for decades. It is certainly not enough to give the economy a boost and reveals the chancellor lacks ambition.

The government talks a lot about economic growth but its actions are not matching its words. To achieve real growth, the rate should have been increased to at least £12.50 an hour, with a promise to increase it to £15 an hour before the end of this parliament. The reason for increasing it to that amount is not only to pay people more fairly and give them more money, it is also to give them more hope. That is one of the main problems with Keir Starmer’s government, there is no hope. With Starmer, the light at the end of the tunnel is probably a train.

Central Bank Independence — A Convenient Illusion

Professor Lars Syll writes:

Today’s model of delegation has much to recommend it. But it should not be cloaked in euphemism. It is an abrogation of democratic sovereignty for pragmatic reasons, conditioned on the one hand by deeply entrenched and unflattering assumptions about electoral politics and, on the other, on an unquestioning acceptance of the private organization of credit markets and their lack of confidence in democratic control of economic policy. This may be an abrogation that we are willing to accept, but it should be recognized for what it is and the assumptions on which it is based should be subject to scrutiny and, if necessary, to revision …

Independence of central banks was defined in relation to governments and the typical social interest groups of the corporatist era – trade unions and employers associations. But what about financial markets and their key actors?

How independent are central banks of the pressures of global finance? When it comes to financial crises their hands are forced. Central banks seem like hostages, or, eager collaborators of private finance … If independence was devised to guard against fiscal dominance, what it seems to have delivered in recent decades is financial dominance i.e. domination of central bank policy by financial markets …

For central banks to dig in their heels and insist that their only conceivable role is that defined by mandates shaped as part of a conservative counterrevolution half a century ago is not just small-minded or cautious. It is either an abdication of responsibility, a self-imposed immaturity, or, more ominously, a taking of sides with a dangerously unsustainable status quo …

The question bears repeating: independent from what? So long as the financial system retains its current structure, central banks are the hostage of crisis-situations that force their hand. Not just financial regulation, but structural change to the financial system should be seen as integral to the project of creating a more democratically accountable, truly independent central bank.

Adam Tooze

Central banks hold almost unrestricted power over monetary policies, policies that significantly influence inflation, employment, and economic stability. This power should be subject to greater democratic oversight to ensure it aligns with the interests of society’s citizens. Over time, central banks seem to have developed a kind of “policy bias” that prioritizes inflation control over unemployment and welfare, which appears deeply objectionable to large segments of the public.

For anyone who thinks that questioning central bank independence is some sort of typical heterodox view, I might remind you, as a historian of economic thought, that the originator of this idea — Milton Friedman — himself expressed doubts about the effectiveness of central bank independence, especially regarding its ability to consistently uphold sound monetary policy. Although Friedman generally advocated for monetary stability and was critical of arbitrary government interventions, he was sceptical that central bank independence would automatically lead to better outcomes. If nothing else, the last major financial system crisis (2007-2010) showed that Friedman’s doubts were more than justified.

There is also a deeper, fundamental issue here in how we view which decisions and considerations should guide us in socially and economically relevant policy issues. If, through a constitutionally and democratically established process, we decide to prioritize equity, welfare, and jobs over a set inflation target, it’s hard to see why we should be bound by an institution that imposes a more extreme ‘economic’ choice via a framework constructed for precisely that purpose. We must not forget that economics is NOT always a trump card in policy issues. This should be self-evident, but economists, in particular, often find it easy to forget. From an ‘economistic’ perspective, one might argue that it is more economically profitable to reintroduce geronticide rather than expand costly elderly care. But who would seriously advocate or accept something like that? Other considerations sometimes outweigh purely economic ones.

Beyond the democratic aspects related to the independence of central banks, there are also — especially in light of the striking failures to meet inflation targets over the past two decades — good reasons to question central bank competence. International research has also convincingly shown that the empirical evidence supporting the argument that independent central banks are beneficial to the economy is practically nonexistent.

Analysis Capacity

Professor Thomas Fazi writes:

Yesterday the EU announced plans to “create a CIA-style European spy service”, as Politico’s headline put it. On social media, many responded to the report with satirical and mocking comments. “But there already is a CIA-style spy agency operating across all of Europe. It’s called the CIA,” one user quipped on X. “I propose to call the new agency Gestapo,” jibed another. Such comments are indicative of the mood in Europe today, where any policy proposal coming out of Brussels tends to be met with a heavy dose of scepticism and mistrust.

This is understandable, given the increasingly unaccountable nature, ever-broadening scope, and growing list of policy failures of EU institutions — first and foremost the European Commission. So it’s not surprising that most people instinctively find the idea of giving “Empress” Ursula von der Leyen an army of supranational spooks to spy on citizens and carry out other nefarious “CIA-like” activities deeply disturbing.

Fortunately, that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. Politico’s clickbaity headline refers to one of the many proposals contained in a new report authored by former Finnish president Sauli Niinistö on “Strengthening Europe’s Civilian and Military Preparedness and Readiness”. Highlighting recent crises — particularly the war in Ukraine — Niinistö advocates for a “comprehensive preparedness” approach, which would ensure the EU can “function under all circumstances” through an integrated response to cross-border crises. This approach, according to the report, must incorporate a “whole-of-government and whole-of-society” framework, enabling active participation from citizens, private sectors, and public authorities.

The report then puts forward a mixed bag of vague proposals, such as cultivating a “preparedness culture” within EU institutions and among citizens, long-term investments in critical infrastructure and defence, formalising cross-sectoral crisis response and “enhancing EU intelligence-sharing capacities”. The latter is the one most news reports have picked up on.

One area of focus is enhancing intelligence-gathering and sharing at the EU level, primarily in terms of improvements to the bloc’s Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC), which currently depends on voluntary contributions from member states. The report thus emphasises the need for more structured and reliable intelligence-sharing from member states. More controversially, in addition to SIAC’s role, the report also proposes the eventual development of an EU intelligence cooperation service, which would effectively amount to a supranational body that would be complementary to national intelligence-gathering activities.

This would be a very disturbing development: giving an accountable, undemocratic institution such as the EU its own intelligence agency would be yet another step in the bloc’s transformation into a techno-authoritarian juggernaut. Just like with the CIA, such powers would most likely be directed mainly at citizens and even member states rather than “foreign enemies”. What’s more, anyone who thinks this would be a step in the direction of greater “strategic autonomy” for the EU would be disappointed: the report also calls for “strengthening EU-Nato cooperation”, which means that any “EU intelligence agency” wouldn’t just be a CIA-like agency: it would, quite literally, be a subsidiary of the CIA.

In many respects, that is already the case: EU governments already share their intelligence with the US-led Five Eyes network tying together the agencies in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The same is not true in reverse, as the US doesn’t share all its information with its fellow powers [including the other Four Eyes]: in fact, it’s well-known that American intelligence agencies regularly spy on their European “allies” [including Britain].

On a positive note, it should be emphasised that this new agency is unlikely to see the light of day any time soon. During the launch of the report, von der Leyen herself admitted that there is still a lot of resistance to such a proposal in European chancelleries, stressing that the focus for now would be just on “strengthening of information sharing”.

It’s also unclear how the EU would pay for this new agency, given that the budgets of member states are stretched and there is little appetite for issuing more common debt. Niinistö himself admitted that, in his talks to draft the document, he had encountered “many critical voices” on the possibility of new joint loans, because some countries refuse to engage in new mechanisms whereby they “take from us and give to others”.

Still, we should never forget that, in recent years, the European Commission has already broadened its scope into several policy domains that have traditionally been the remit of national governments, such as foreign policy and defence and security matters. In the meantime, the Overton window of supranationalisation has inched open just a little more.

A Typical Labour Budget

Phil Burton-Cartledge writes:

"This is not a budget we want to repeat", said Rachel Reeves of her Autumn statement this Wednesday afternoon, but if past behaviour is any indicator of future behaviour then she'll make similar choices again and again and again.

I won't wear anyone's patience by raking over the minutiae line by line. Yes, on balance this is a budget in which the most privileged will be coughing up a fraction of the huge gains they banked under the Tories. Hence the absurdity of the 'Comrade Reeves delights the workers and peasants with class war' headline on Conservative Home. This was nothing of the sort, but tallies with what was argued the other day about their hypersensitivity to any measures that strike at unearned income - the lynchpin of class relations. And so, the pips are squeaking as VAT goes on private school fees and business rate relief ends, huge duties are slapped on private jet passengers, capital gains tax goes up (but is still not equalised with income tax), non-dom status is scrapped, the minimum wage increases, and more will be scooped from inheritance and stamp duty.

And where will the money be spent? Commitments have been confirmed on sending HS2 to Euston, reversing the Tories politically motivated cuts. NHS and education spending will increase by 4.7%, a £1.3bn increase in council funding - but that would not meet the demand on adult social care and children's services alone. £12bn was also set aside for infected blood compensation, and £2bn for victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal. There's also a boost to the miners' pension scheme as the government has stopped taking its punitive share of the fund's surplus. And because there's always money for war, while some departments have to cut their cloth the MoD can look forward to an extra £3bn.

There has been some concern across the political spectrum about the increase in employers' National Insurance contributions, which will raise a projected £25bn. These worries echo the Office for Budgetary Responsibility's comment that this will mostly be passed on through lower wages and higher prices. Far be it for me to defend Reeves, but we know that Keir Starmer's programme is premised on a decade-long series of missions. Therefore, a lot of Reeves's decisions have to be considered in the longer view. Where the OBR's assessment of NICs is concerned, also relevant here is Reeves's minimum wage announcement. Following the Tories, she too has agreed to an above-inflation increase, amounting to approx £1,400/year boost from next April. In the context of the rest of the labour market and pay award structures among larger employers, this could ricochet up the pay structure, particularly for those on modest wages and salaries. More money goes into better paid workers' pockets, meaning more consumer spending, and the consequent multiplier effects eventually cover the NICs increase. This appears to be what the chancellor is banking on.

This was also a punitive budget for many on the sharpest end of the income scale. The bus fare increase stays. Even worse, Reeves confirmed she is keeping the last vindictive Tory attack on disabled people with her carrying through their plan (now her plan) to change the Work Capability Assessment so up to 450,000 stand to lose hundreds of pounds per month. There was more money released for supporting disabled people into work, but no recognition that not everyone can, and nothing about winding back the sanctions regime. As Disability Rights UK put it, "At the end of the day, the biggest announcement was one our community had been expecting: more Disabled and working-class people seeing their benefits cut whilst there will be no real difference in our local services."

This budget was high handed, overly technocratic (supported by a cynical framing), and gives with one hand while takes with another. It was Reeves, after all, who said over s decade ago that Labour didn't want to be the party of benefits, and so the preoccupation with authoritarian welfarism continues. There are elements of longer-term thinking here but not match with funding commitments adequate to the challenge. Her settlements do little to nothing to fix persistent social problems and a crumbling public infrastructure. In other words, because of its inadequacies and petty punishments Reeves's effort lies entirely within the envelope of her predecessors in Number 11. This was a Labour budget through and through.

A Huge Missed Opportunity

John Pring writes:

Labour’s first budget for 15 years has failed to do enough to address the “systemic challenges” faced by disabled people across society, user-led organisations have warned the Treasury.

The first budget speech of chancellor Rachel Reeves included no serious attempt to address the crises in accessible housing, adult social care and inclusive education – although there was some new funding – or the huge barriers in accessible transport.

Instead, there was a clear focus on “cracking down” on benefit fraud and investing in new schemes to push “inactive” disabled people into work.

Reeves mentioned the government’s fraud, error and debt bill, which the chancellor said would provide “direct access to bank accounts to recover debt”, strengthening the powers of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The budget report highlights how the bill will also introduce “new powers to check benefits are being paid correctly using data shared by banks and financial institutions”, which disabled campaigners have warned will see DWP ordering banks to “spy” on the accounts of benefit claimants.

Reeves also confirmed that next April’s annual increase in working-age benefits would be just 1.7 per cent, because of the low rate of inflation in September.

The only direct mention of disabled people in her speech was when she said ministers would deliver the cuts to out-of-work disability benefits planned by the last government, although her comments sparked huge confusion among activists, disabled people’s organisations, charities and the media (see separate story).

Despite the failure to place any focus on disability equality, Reeves did announce a £1 billion increase in spending on special educational needs (SEN), a real terms increase of six per cent; and £600 million extra in grant funding for social care, although it is not yet clear if this is solely for adult social care.

Her speech came just days after a report published by the government found that tens of thousands more disabled children could have their needs met in a mainstream setting rather than a special school, if there were major improvements to the SEN system (see separate story).

The budget report also reveals an £86 million increase in spending on the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG), which will support “around 7,800” more adaptations to disabled people’s homes, although Reeves made no mention of this in her speech.

That figure suggests DFG spending – which currently helps to adapt about 50,000 homes a year – will rise by nearly 14 per cent in 2025-26.

The budget report makes clear that work and pensions ministers plan to set out their plans for reforming disability benefits early in 2025.

Reeves said the government would soon publish its Get Britain Working white paper, which she said would take “an integrated approach across health, education and welfare” to addressing the “root causes of inactivity”.

The budget report says the government is providing “record levels of capital investment in health” to help reduce NHS waiting-lists and “thereby supporting people into work”.

And it says the white paper will show how the government will “test new approaches and collect robust evidence on how to tackle the root causes of ill-health related inactivity”.

It will set up eight “trailblazer” areas across England and Wales that bring together health, employment and skills services to “improve the support available to those who are inactive due to ill health and help them return to work”.

This will include NHS England “health and growth accelerators” in at least three areas to “develop evidence of the impact of targeted action on the top health conditions driving economic inactivity”.#

The government will also spend £115 million next year on a new supported employment programme, Connect to Work.

From 2026-27, the Connect to Work programme will support nearly 100,000 disabled people a year, with councils able to “tailor their delivery” of the scheme “in ways that meet their local needs”.

In total, the budget report says, the government will spend more than £800 million on disability employment support in 2025-26.

The budget report also says the government will spend £120 million in 2025-26 to support the purchase of new electric vans and support the manufacture of wheelchair-accessible electric vehicles.

In response to the budget, DPO Forum England – whose members include nearly 50 disabled people’s organisations, such as Greater Manchester Disabled People’s Panel, Inclusion London and Buckinghamshire Disability Service – has written to the Treasury to express its concern at the measures announced by Reeves.

It said the budget “fails to address the level of poverty experienced by disabled people” and that it saw the focus on getting the “economically inactive” back to work as “targeting vulnerable groups like the sick, disabled, and young people with mental health issues”.

It told the Treasury: “The increases in disability benefits, social care, and special educational needs funding are a drop in the ocean compared to the actual funding shortfalls, which are estimated to be much higher.” 

The forum said the budget had failed to “adequately address” the “systemic challenges” around inclusive education, carers’ support, and the institutionalisation of disabled children.

And it said the budget “appears to further the troubling regression of disabled people’s rights, falling short of the support required to rectify these issues and build a genuinely inclusive society”.

Julia Modern, senior policy and campaigns manager at Inclusion London, said the budget was “a huge missed opportunity to reset the relationship with disabled people”.

She said: “The chancellor claims her budget shows ‘no return to austerity’; she really should have added ‘except for disabled people’.

“While we are pleased to see modest increases in some budgets for essential services like the NHS and an additional £600 million for local government-provided social care (a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of crisis in the £28 billion a year system), there is nothing in the budget to address the huge rates of poverty among disabled people.

“Instead, our social security is being eroded.”

Disability Rights UK (DR UK) said the budget represented “a failure to make real change”.

A DR UK spokesperson said: “Despite the minimal uplift in spending to fund our crumbling public services, the budget doesn’t give disabled people the confidence that the services we rely on every day will tangibly get better.

“At the end of the day, the biggest announcement was one our community had been expecting: more disabled and working-class people seeing their benefits cut whilst there will be no real difference in our local services.”

Gabrielle Johnson, communications and membership manager for National Survivor User Network, said there was frustration “at the ongoing neglect of appropriate social security for those most in need of state support” and the government’s decision to “reinforce harmful rhetoric” through measures in its fraud, error and debt bill.

They said the bill would give DWP “access to benefit recipients’ financial records without their consent, criminalising disabled people and creating fear and anxiety around penalisation”.

And they said the Get Britain Working white paper evoked “familiar and damaging messaging around the inherent value of human life as a tool to economic productivity”.

Johnson said: “Seriously ill and disabled people, including those with lived experience of mental ill-health, distress and trauma, deserve dignity, care and personalised support, but our government seems unable to meet even the very basic needs of those made vulnerable by the policies they continue to implement.”

And:

The new Labour government’s policy on social security reform is in chaos after it issued contrasting statements and briefings on budget day about whether – and how – it would press ahead with planned Conservative cuts to spending on out-of-work disability benefits.

Disabled activists warned that the government’s refusal to clarify the position on reforms to the work capability assessment (WCA) would only add to the distress being felt by hundreds of thousands of claimants.

The confusion surrounds whether the government would implement controversial reforms announced by the last government that would tighten the WCA.

The changes would be introduced next year and would see 424,000 disabled people lose their entitlement to extra support of up to £4,900 a year by 2028-29.

It came as a high court “disclosure hearing” is due to take place today (Thursday) as part of a legal challenge into whether last year’s consultation on these changes to the WCA were lawful.

The full hearing of the legal challenge, taken by disabled activist and author Ellen Clifford, will take place on 10 and 11 December.

Yesterday’s chaos started with comments by chancellor Rachel Reeves (pictured), who was delivering her first budget speech.

She spoke of the need to “reduce the benefits bill” and “ensure that welfare spending is more sustainable”, and told MPs that Labour had “inherited the last government’s plans to reform the work capability assessment”.

She said: “We will deliver those savings as part of our fundamental reforms to the health and disability benefits system that [work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall] will bring forward.”

Although many disabled activists assumed she was referring to the plans to tighten the WCA – as did mainstream media and charities – there was no mention of any such cost savings in the budget documents.

When Disability News Service asked the Treasury why no savings were mentioned in the budget report and to clarify Reeves’ comments, a spokesperson claimed the chancellor was referring to “the government’s already-stated intention to reform or replace the work capability assessment”.

He added: “We’re taking the time to review this in the round before setting out next steps on our approach in the coming months.”

It then emerged that social security and disability minister Sir Stephen Timms had been briefing some disability organisations about the budget after the Reeves speech.

Reports from those who attended the briefings suggest that the government has not yet decided whether to go ahead with Conservative plans to tighten the WCA.

Sir Stephen reportedly said that a similar level of savings on social security would have to be made, but not necessarily by reforming the WCA in the way proposed by the last government.

But he is also reported to have said in another briefing that he would not go ahead with the Conservative WCA plans.

The chaos follows months of confusing and misleading statements from the new government on its plans for reform of disability benefits and disability employment.

Only last week, employment minister Alison McGovern appeared to quash claims made by Kendall – her boss – in a BBC interview that she was planning to send work coaches onto mental health wards.

And earlier this month, DWP refused to clarify comments by the prime minister which suggested that all claimants of long-term sickness benefits would be expected to look for work under Labour’s social security reforms.

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) expressed anger at the confusion and lack of clarity on the government’s plans, and at the apparent commitment to further cuts to disability support.

Bob Ellard, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said: “Disabled people are scared and angry, having waited too long for the budget expecting the burden of government failure to fall yet again on us.

“We’ve been led to expect better from Labour, only to find their attitude is just as uncaring and vicious as before.

“Our needs have been ignored as usual, and now more of us will suffer and more of us will die due to Reeves’ callousness.”

Rick Burgess, a spokesperson for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, said: “The lack of clarity on the WCA causes distress, as does the messaging around benefits that ministers have engaged in.

“The savings the government envisage logically can only come from fewer people getting disability benefits, yet disabled people are not reducing in numbers, we are increasing – not least due to long Covid – so this can only mean disabled people will be refused the support they have a right to while being hounded and spied upon by the state.”

Caroline Collier, from Inclusion Barnet’s Campaign for Disability Justice, said a “cloud of uncertainty still hangs over disabled people and the financial support they are entitled to expect”.

She said: “The sooner that cloud is lifted, the better – and we shall be holding the government to its word that disabled people will be fully consulted.

“And this absolutely needs to be an agenda that allows all disabled people a decent standard of living, provides genuine employment opportunities without compulsion and treats disabled people with respect.”

Strictly Off The Record: Day 13

If you are Douglas McKean, then Oliver Kamm is convinced that you and I are one and the same. I hate to have to tell you that I have never heard of you. He first contacted me about this at lunchtime on 4 July, so General Election day was obviously slow on The Times, and he has promised to involve the Police, from whom I have heard nothing. Anyone with news of any developments, do please contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Strictly off the record, of course.

Also please contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com with any news on the case of Fr Timothy Gardner OP, which was supposed to have been heard at Newcastle Crown Court in July, but of which I can find no trace. While this is not the only arrow in my quiver, unless Fr Gardner was convicted, then the latest accusations against me have absolutely no credibility, and nor does the propensity evidence that alone secured my conviction in 2020, to breach of the suspended sentence for which I wrongly pleaded guilty in 2021, leading to my imprisonment. Fr Gardner's non-conviction is not the only thing that could vindicate me. But it would do so. Any information would therefore be most gratefully received. Again, strictly off the record, of course.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

Justice Delayed: Day 118

Even assuming, and it was far from clear, that the Crown had presented any evidence whatever on the morning of Wednesday 19 June, then no later than the afternoon of Thursday 20 June, I would have been found not guilty unanimously in the time that it took to walk to the jury room and send a note to the judge. On Monday 6 November, the only Prosecution witness did not turn up, having been suspended from the Police. Since then, he has been "asked to resign" because of his conduct of my case. On Friday 14 June, my barrister formally complained.

Lo and behold, on the morning of Sunday 16 June, enough Police Officers turned up at my door to take down an al-Qaeda cell, and behaved roughly as if that were what they were doing. Everyone is laughing, and not at me. Late that night, a nonsense additional charge, quite different from the stated grounds of the arrest, was added, with no expectation that it could possibly stick, but in order to postpone what would have been that week's open-and-shut acquittal. Be at Durham Crown Court on Wednesday 26 February 2025, almost exactly two years, although we dispute the timeline, after the original complaint was allegedly made. When I shall be found not guilty. But the process is the punishment.

Rather than embarrass itself any further, the Crown did not even ask for me to be remanded. Nor did it dispute that the Police had found nothing on my laptop or on my phone, even though the latest allegation therefore cannot be true. And nor did it dispute that its only witness had been sacked from the Police because of my case, or that this latest action against me was a revenge attack for my barrister's complaint, both of which are now on Monday 17 June's record of Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court, as is the cleanliness of my devices, of which the Police are nevertheless keeping possession, requiring me to replace them at considerable expense.

I wish that my solicitor had used such terms as "Mafia hit" and "punishment beating". I am using them now. This is a punishment beating for the sacked policeman. And it is a Mafia hit by some Fredo Corleone, because the latest complaint was supposedly made before I had withdrawn from the General Election, a withdrawal that has rendered it pointless in its own terms. Other than the unpaid position to which I was elected unopposed well over a year ago, and which has therefore been kept vacant ever since, I have no intention of contesting another election to public office.

Welcome to the Starmer State, which institutional Britain has treated as the status quo since Keir Starmer became Labour Leader. I am not the only dissident that it persecutes, and things are already getting an awful lot worse now that Starmer is Prime Minister.

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The Safeguarding Challenge: Day 477

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, currently Nazir Afzal, Amanda Ellingworth, Wesley Cuell, Bishop Paul Mason, Sarah Kilmartin, Jenny Holmes, Sir David Behan, and Sr Una Coogan IBVM.

That purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, currently Gail McGregor, Paul Weatherstone, Fr Christopher Hancock MHM, Canon William Agley, Catherine Dyer, Canon Martin Stempczyk, Canon Peter Leighton VG, Maureen Dale, and Tony Lawless.

And that purely factual statement is acknowledged as such, unless and until it had been expressly repudiated to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com, by each and all of the members of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team, currently Meriel Anderson, Ian Colling, Andrew Grant, Kirsty McIntyre, Lisa Short, Yvonne Brown, and Petra Scarr.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and the allegation at the base of any outstanding charge has been made in order to incite my suicide. I should emphasise that there is absolutely no risk that I might ever give anyone the satisfaction of my suicide.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The CPS Challenge: Day 477

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service as part of its organised persecution of the opponents and critics of Keir Starmer, which is its principal national priority.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from seeking the position of General Secretary of Unite the Union on a programme including disaffiliation from the Labour Party, a proposal that would be hugely popular two years into a Starmer Government.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a thinktank to strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from establishing a weekly magazine of news and comment, a monthly cultural review, a quarterly academic journal, and perhaps eventually also a fortnightly satirical magazine.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to prevent me from taking journalistic, political or other paid work for fear of losing my entitlement to Legal Aid.

I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service out of the same racism that has caused it to refuse to prosecute the Police Officers in the case of Stephen Lawrence.

And I am morally and factually innocent of every criminal offence with which I have ever been charged, and any outstanding charge is being pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service in order to incite my politically motivated murder, a murder that the CPS has already decided would never lead to any prosecution.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Board, currently Monica Burch, Stephen Parkinson, Simon Jeffreys, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan, and Kathryn Stone.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the CPS senior leadership, currently Tristan Bradshaw, Dawn Brodrick, Mike Browne, Steve Buckingham, Matthew Cain, Gregor McGill, Grace Ononiwu, and Baljhit Ubey.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, currently Simon Jeffreys, Stephen Parkinson, Michael Dunn, Deborah Harris, Dr Subo Shanmuganathan.

Each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the members of the CPS Nominations, Leadership and Remuneration Committee, currently Kathryn Stone, Stephen Parkinson, and Monica Burch.

And each of those eight statements stands as a matter of record unless and until it had been expressly denied to davidaslindsay@hotmail.com by each and all of the 279 members of staff of the CPS North East Area, by definition including, but not restricted to, Chief Crown Prosecutor Gail Gilchrist, and the Area Business Manager, Ian Brown.

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The Clergy Challenge: Day 1181

I invite each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if he thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me.

Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.

The Representatives Challenge: Day 1181

As already stated on the day after my release: "The instant that Labour lost control of Durham County Council, then I was granted an unsolicited tag for more than 10 weeks of future good behaviour. I invite each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know." The current total is zero.

And I invite each and every Member of Parliament whose constituency fell wholly or partly in County Durham to contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com if they thought that I was factually or morally guilty of any criminal charge that had ever been brought against me. Not legally guilty; Bill Cosby is legally innocent. Factually and morally guilty. No name would be published except at the request of its bearer, but if anyone ever did get in touch, then the readers of this site would be the first to know. The current total is zero.

This post will appear daily until further notice.