The British government has drawn up plans to crack down on people claiming sickness benefits when they could still go to work, but is holding off on enacting them until after the next general election. It appears that top officials are worried that making it harder for Britons to claim they are too sick to work will reduce the number of Tory voters—a pool that is already shrinking, fast.
Taxpayers now spend £26 billion every year supporting those the government believes to be too sick to work; a real-term increase of £6 billion since before the COVID pandemic, The Daily Telegraph reports. The Tories said they were working towards trimming the fat off this outlay, but, as the minister in charge of the brief stressed:
The earliest we could implement any change would be from 2025, given the need to make changes to regulations and ensure appropriate training for health assessors.
The Telegraph points to “speculation that the government is wary of tackling sensitive issues before the election.”
If this report is correct, the governing party is not even bothering to try governing; instead, the Tories are focusing solely on the party’s performance at the next general election. Unfortunately, the Tories focus on this not by performing well now but by promising to perform well in the future (promises that are almost always brushed under the carpet once the votes have been counted). Britons are especially used to this when it comes to immigration.
Reform UK leader Richard Tice described the delay as “truly pathetic.” He said that “hard-working taxpayers are sick of ever more benefits scroungers gaming the system. Yet hopeless incompetent Tories [are] too afraid to tackle [the] issue pre-election.”
