Labour to push 250,000 people into poverty but Gordon Brown campaigns against it apparently untroubled by the contradictions

stewartb

While we’re on the subject of egregious omissions in the wake of Labour’s ‘Spring Statement’ …

From Birmingham Live on March 12, 2025 this headline: ‘Former PM Gordon Brown in Birmingham backs child poverty urgent action call’.

We’re told the sage of British Labour in Scotland and saviour of solidarity in the precious Union attended an event at which: ‘He took the opportunity to press fellow guest, Government employment minister Alison McGovern, to do more to fix child poverty. She is one of three ministers leading the Child Poverty Taskforce set up by Sir Keir Starmer and due to report its findings this Spring.

‘He told her the review ‘must address’ welfare issues created by the previous Government – including the use of sanctions, housing benefit limits, the five-week wait imposed on new claimants, and the two child benefit cap that’s especially blighting lives in areas with more large families like Birmingham.’

And more: ‘Mr Brown said: “We’ve now got to have a comprehensive programme to deal with the results of what have been 15 years or so of austerity. The 104,000 or so children in Birmingham in poverty, and the 4.3 million children in the country, they are ‘austerity children’ because they’re the product of that freezing of benefits, the cutting of child benefit, the introduction of the two child rule and everything else. So that is what the Child Poverty Review must address.’

Then we have this today – see https://www.jrf.org.uk/news/cuts-to-push-250000-into-poverty-as-living-standards-for-the-poorest-under-continuing-assault

‘Responding to the Chancellor’s Spring Statement and the publication of the government’s impact assessment for their planned cuts to disability benefits, Paul Kissack, Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said:

“The Chancellor said today that she would not do anything to put household finances in danger, yet the government’s own assessment shows that their cuts to health related benefits risk pushing 250,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children. This will harm people, deepening the hardship they already face.’

Anyone heard from Mr Brown yet?

5 thoughts on “Labour to push 250,000 people into poverty but Gordon Brown campaigns against it apparently untroubled by the contradictions”

  2. Re cuts to disability benefits -What nobody has ever mentioned and this is vitally important, is that in order for unpaid carers (usually family members)to qualify for Carers Allowance, the person they care for MUST be in receipt of PIP or ADP. So if a disabled person’s PIP is taken away, their carer will no longer qualify for Carers Allowance.

    So disabled people AND their carers will be plunged into further poverty. 🥺

    Liked by 3 people

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  3. Journalists Owen Jones tweeted this on 26 March:

    “Fun fact: The Labour press office mass removed left wing journalists, like myself, from their email list in 2023. Obviously they kept on journalists at eg GB News, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, The Sun, etc. Petty, amusing, and revealing“.

    Yes it is revealing , and it would also be something Gordon brown would see no problem in the Labour Press office doing this .

    Especially as we all know how supportive all of these specific media outlets, that Owen mentions , would be in either reducing or eliminating “Child poverty” (says I sarcastically) , where really they , as a collective media, would just choose to blame the parents and not the State .

    That’s how right wing media operates where they blame the vulnerable for placing themselves in the predicament they find themselves in, based on many factors, none of which the right wing media correctly identify, or even attempt to identify.

    Far easier for the garbage media to present everything in black and white with no grey areas, no mercy, no empathy, no compassion, no sympathy, no comprehension and most certainly no help to be given to those less fortunate than others.

    Tax payers money is apparently sacrosanct, at least that’s the line that they, the right wing media, are always pushing. What they really mean is that they do not want to see a wealth tax imposed , and so far , Labour are only too willing to oblige in not imposing one.

    Does Gordon Brown think that in Labour not imposing a wealth tax (where you charge people based on the value of their assets) and instead impose cuts on the benefits that the most vulnerable and also the poorest rely upon , and so that will then pave the way for “Child poverty” to be reduced or eliminated in his (not so) Great Britain?

    Or does he, Brown, just prefer not to ponder upon or debate that inconvenient truth, where the wealthy grow richer at the expense of the poor, which as a reality, is now very much linked to his old party, Labour, in all that they have done so far and still are doing as the new UK government.

    Of course the Right wing media is the kind of media the Labour party now want to support them as a media, and Labour will always find support with that kind of media, but only as long as they, Labour, are willing to still continue to fight the “Many” in order to defend the “Few”……

    Brown’s ‘interventions’ never usually come up at inopportune moments for Labour or for the supposed Union but they always come when it is assumed to be a more political opportune moment for a party like the SNP and also when an increased support for independence is publicised via a poll.

    Gordon Brown has one role as a Labour has been.

    His role is to help his old party win , not just win in the UK, but mostly to win in Scotland and mostly to take seats away from the SNP.

    His, Brown’s, other role is with his supposed Think Tank that clearly was only created to be just another NO Thanks propaganda group that works hand in hand with other similar Think Tanks in Scotland.

    The main focus of these Think Tanks within Scotland is just to stop Scottish independence , but they all pretend their mission is something else involving economics in Scotland , or improving Public services and other social and political issues, yet they produce reports that are dismissive of the economic feasibility of a potential future independent Scotland while also producing positive reports of Scotland still remaining a part of the UK.

    Laughingly some of these Think Tanks promote that they are a “non partisan public policy institute” yet when one digs deeper and sees who is involved with them it becomes clear that nothing is further from the truth.

    Especially when individually we hear them present their personal political opinions to the media, which are opinions that are FOR a UK party and then always AGAINST the SNP.

    Sick of listening to Gordon Brown , who always lies to Scotland , which he is able to do via the public platform that the partisan media always make available to him, and where also it , as a public platform, is always available to others too, who also lie to Scotland.

    Vote for the SNP in 2026 as a first step to eventually not having to listen to the likes of Gordon brown ever again and many others too, once we become independent.

    Liz S

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  4. Gordon Brown trashed the Banks. Illegal wars. Killing people and causing world poverty. Many people died because of Labour policies. Destroyed the world economy. Gordon Brown caused poverty. A total warmongering hypocrite.

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  5. ” Mr Brown said: “We’ve now got to have a comprehensive programme to deal with the results of what have been 15 years or so of austerity ” – Following the end of war in 1945, the next 35 years saw poverty levels diminish, it went into reverse for the next 45…

    PFI carries as much blame for that as any other policy idea HMG came up, it wasn’t only the Tories….

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