Starmer, beware: Voters know the difference between values and vote-grabbing

29 June 2025, 12:55

The government’s grudging concession on disability benefit cuts signals political calculation, not genuine care.

It is shocking that Labour, for so long the party  of the most vulnerable, should have tried to introduce these cuts in the first place, rushing them through without adequate consultation and  before they’d even seen the official assessment of their impact.

Where is the justice and the care in that? Plus, the concessions as they currently stand risk creating a two-tier system with existing claimants protected while the door is left open to slash support for those who fall ill afterwards.

Voters know the difference between a heartfelt commitment and a tactical retreat. This partial U-turn didn’t signal  a principled stand for the most vulnerable—it is a bare-faced manoeuvre made under duress.

Starmer is making enemies of the most vulnerable in our society: the disabled, the asylum seekers, parents on benefits and the old.

This is not what we expect from Labour, and it is not what we need.  It is a continuation of the politics of ‘othering’ when the perilous times we are living through  require unity, vision and care.

Nor will it see off the threat posed by Reform. Farage, for all his toxicity, like Trump, peddles hope. Hope for a future where things will be better, where the forgotten will be seen, where a sense of potency and value will return. It doesn’t matter that the hope is an empty promise; it meets a deeply felt psychological need that the Labour government, despite its whopping majority, is failing to address.

If the government wants to see off Farage and keep its backbenchers in check, it needs to shift its approach. It needs to end government by spreadsheet and anchor itself in its core values. It needs to remind us what matters and that it is our courage and compassion that make this country great.

It was elected to deliver change. Instead of nailing herself to the crucifix of delivering ‘growth’, the Chancellor should pivot to delivering a rise in wellbeing. That would reduce the benefits bill far more effectively and leave us all feeling happier as a consequence.  Why not fund budgetary shortfalls through a modest 2% tax rise  on those with over £10million, as the Patriotic Millionaires, the brilliant movement led by the super-rich, themselves suggest?

Cutting support for the most vulnerable and then offering grudging, half-baked U-turns is not going to cut it for Labour’s backbenchers or voters.  We need big ideas. We need to anchor ourselves in the values that most of us hold dear in our domestic lives: compassion, care and fairness.

The question is, will Starmer realise that the rebellion over these cuts is just the beginning, not the end of his government’s woes? There is still time to create a genuine shift to a politics of care, but the longer he leaves it, the harder it will be to achieve

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Jennifer Nadel is CEO of Compassion in Politics and Director of Compassionate Politics at CCARE, Stanford University.

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