All eyes on Peter Mandelson – but you’re missing a massive disaster for Keir Starmer | Politics | News

So there will be no reform of Britain’s bloated benefit system any time soon. And it came quickly and with almost delicious irony that Keir Starmer (again) kicked the can of the “wellbeing” hallmark, followed by new figures published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The Peter Mandelson affair took this little issue off the front pages. But the OBR report makes remarkable reading.

Analysis suggests that Britain will spend 2.2% of its GDP on incapacity and disability benefits in two to three years from now (you’d better make sure you’re sitting down when you read this). Putting this into the bigger picture, it is predicted that we are about to earn the dubious title of Biggest Spender on Perks in the developed world.

You name the country, we spend more money on aid. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, the EU – we outshine the rest by our generosity and by a wide margin.

Can someone explain why one in four Brits, a quarter of all adults, are now parked in the disability rate corral, compared to much lower figures in other industrialized countries?

What’s our problem? Have we fallen under some kind of curse that haunts only these islands? If so, their effect in increasing numbers is quite rapid.

By last August, there were an impressive 6.5 million Brits in receipt of benefits (non-work benefits, mental). This figure has increased by half a million since Labor won the election; a dramatic increase of nearly 9%. There must be some pretty evil magic at work, right?

Let’s just say it. We live in a sick note society.

Frankly, there are millions of truly poor people who are too ill physically or mentally to work, and we must care for and care for them with generosity and compassion.

But it is equally clear that a Herculean cleansing from the Augean Stables is long overdue.

Some say immigration will determine the next election.