Comedian Rosie Jones issues four-word warning over 'terrifying' welfare changes
Comedian Rosie Jones has warned 'no one is safe' from Labour 's welfare cuts despite major concessions over their plans.
The well-known celebrity, who has cerebral palsy, said it is 'terrifying' that ministers are 'victimising a vulnerable part of this country'. She raised concerns that current claimants of Personal Independence Payments could still end up losing the benefit when they are reassessed.
Speaking about Labour's newly announced protections for current claimants, Rosie said: 'They're not thinking about the millions of people who will become disabled in the future but you are also forgetting that millions of people who are in danger are getting reassessed, which could be me, so no one is safe.'
She added that she has always been a Labour voter but that this Government was been "incredibly disappointing". "This is not a Labour government that I recognise. I voted for them because I truly believed that they were the government that cared about individuals," she said.
"That's not what I'm seeing from the government right now. They care more about stats. They care more about looking good, but they're looking good by victimising a vulnerable part of this country. They're putting lives in danger, and that is terrifying."
Asked if she was reassured the Government's review would put disabled people at the heart of it, Rosie told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: "I think disabled people should have been at the heart of the matter from the beginning.
"They were never considering the real effect that this would have on us, and I have seen no evidence that they genuinely care for disabled people and our future. So I want to believe them, but so far they're not giving me any evidence to say they will do exactly that."
Last week Keir Starmer offered significant concessions to rebel MPs to swerve a humiliating Commons defeat next week. Leading rebels told The Mirror"serious progress" had been made in crisis talks with No10 over cuts impacting hundreds of thousands of disabled people.
Changes to PIP and the health element of Universal Credit will now apply only to new claimants. It means around 370,000 people will avoid losing around £4,150-a-year. Existing recipients of the health element of Universal Credit will also have their incomes protected in real terms.
But campaigners said it risked "betraying the next generation of disabled people" and could create a "two-tier" system- and some Labour MPs remain opposed ahead of a Commons vote next week.
Mr Starmer today said he wished he had reached a 'better position' with Labour MPs earlier, before the major rebellion over welfare cuts erupted. In an interview with the Sunday Times, he said he was distracted by international affairs, which he admitted was not an 'excuse'. 'I'm putting this as context rather than excuse: I was heavily focused on what was happening with Nato and the Middle East all weekend,' the PM said.
Wes Streeting said he is confident the Government will win a crunch vote on welfare next week. But he admitted "we've got to listen" if further concessions on PIP were demanded.
Former Cabinet minister Louise Haigh said it was "really welcome" that Mr Starmer has "acknowledged that mistakes have been made'. She urged the PM to use this moment 'to reset the government's relationship with the British public'.
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The Independent
5 minutes ago
- The Independent
Solving the asylum question is suddenly even more urgent
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Mr Farage's interventions in the riots last year only added to the campaign of disinformation underway, and most recently was made to apologise for claiming that the Essex police had 'bussed in' counter-demonstrators in Epping. The Conservatives, mesmerised by the rise of Reform UK, are in a constant losing battle to out-Farage Farage, and they should know better than to propagate myths about asylum seekers living in 'offensively luxurious' conditions, which was today's unhelpful sideswipe from former Tory MP Damian Green. The shadow home secretary Chris Philp and the shadow communities secretary James Cleverly should bear their share of the blame for the mess the asylum system is in, and offer some constructive alternatives and call for calm. They will not recover as a serious alternative party of government until they too come up with a plan for the asylum system. The leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, often talks of such a thing, but it is yet to be seen. 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STV News
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Scotland lacking emergency response to drug deaths crisis, expert says
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Telegraph
5 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Starmer's own guidelines ‘should have spared Lucy Connolly from jail'
Sir Keir Starmer has become embroiled in a hypocrisy row over the prosecution of Lucy Connolly on the eve of her release from prison. The Prime Minister supported the conviction of Mrs Connolly for inciting racial hatred over an expletive-ridden post on X after the Southport attacks, but it has emerged that he had previously suggested that people who swiftly deleted offensive social media statements should not necessarily face criminal action. On Thursday, Mrs Connolly will be released after being sentenced to 31 months in prison for posting the comments, which she deleted hours later. The mother-of-one's supporters claim she has been subjected to an unfairly long jail term and made a scapegoat for the rioting last summer. Sir Keir has defended Mrs Connolly's conviction, saying that while he was strongly in favour of free speech he was 'equally against incitement to violence' against other people. He added: 'I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe.' However, in 2013, when director of public prosecutions, he introduced guidance for prosecutors to consider a more lenient approach towards suspects who 'swiftly' deleted social media posts and expressed 'genuine remorse'. The guidance urged prosecutors to consider four factors where 'a prosecution is unlikely to be both necessary and proportionate'. These included if 'swift and effective action has been taken by the suspect and/or others for example, service providers, to remove the communication in question or otherwise block access to it'. Mrs Connolly was jailed for a post on the day three children were killed at a dance class in Southport, on Merseyside, urging followers to 'set fire' to hotels that housed asylum seekers 'for all I care.' At the time, the childminder had about 9,000 followers on X. 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'The public have concluded – rightly – that it's one rule for people on the Right and another for people on the Left. 'The Free Speech Union urged Lucy to plead not guilty, and offered to pay for her defence. Had she done so, I'm confident she would have been acquitted. But she decided against that precisely because she wasn't granted bail and was worried that her case would take so long to come to trial that she would end up spending more time in jail than she would if she pleaded guilty.' Richard Tice, the deputy Reform UK leader who visited Mrs Connolly in prison, said she should have pleaded not guilty. 'There was pressure in the legal system to get her to plead guilty. That was the establishment working in its mystical ways,' he claimed. 'The proof of my point is that Ricky Jones, the Labour councillor, can urge for people's throats to be slit live on TV in front of a big crowd and be found not guilty by a jury. It proves the whole point about two-tier justice and two-tier Keir. He is the biggest hypocrite that has been in Downing Street.' Frank Ferguson, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service's special crime and counter-terrorism division, said: 'It is not an offence to have strong or differing political views, but it is an offence to incite racial hatred – and that is what Connolly admitted to doing. 'The prosecution case included evidence which showed that racist tweets were sent out from Lucy Connolly's X account both in the weeks and months before the Southport attacks – as well as in the days after. The CPS takes racial hatred extremely seriously, and will never hesitate to prosecute these cases where there is enough evidence to do so.' The CPS also noted messages raised during her appeal on her remorse, in which she suggested she might claim that it was not her who had posted but that she was a victim of 'doxing', and that she had published the apology at the suggestion of a third party and her husband. A Government spokesman said: 'Sentencing is a matter for independent courts, and we support the action taken by the courts, as well as the police, to keep our streets safe. 'In all cases where Law Officers' consent is required, the Law Officers carefully consider whether to grant consent, including all relevant factors to the public interest in the prosecution.'
