#torycuts

Last week, George Osborne implied that the recent trial of Mick Philpott is linked to the benefit system that fuelled his immoral lifestyle. On Thursday, Philpott was given a life sentence for killing six of his children in a house fire in Derby and is set to serve a minimum of fifteen years in jail. Philpott and his wife Mairead set fire to their house in a failed attempt to frame Philpott’s former lover Lisa Willis, who had moved out of their family home earlier in the year with her five children. Philpott was unemployed, lived in a council house and received more than £8,000 a year in child benefit. But is it right for Osborne to be "playing politics" with the deaths of six children? Although he did not directly link the deaths to the welfare state, he suggested that there may be some sort of connection between the two. Osborne claimed that “there is a question for government and for society about the welfare state – and the taxpayers who pay for the welfare state – subsidising lifestyles like that, and I think that debate needs to be had.” Predictably, the Daily Mail has also directly linked the Philpott case to the welfare state. Osborne, the Mail and others are simply using the incident to legitimize Tory cuts.

Philpott has a history of violence and abuse, particularly of women, whom he appeared to treat as possessions. He carelessly brought about the deaths of six innocent children. The judge at his trial claimed he had no "moral compass" to restrain him, but did not suggest that his actions had been driven by welfare or benefits. Equating such a man with the benefit system is an attempt to indirectly vilify others who rely on welfare in order to legitimate conservative cuts that are frankly demoralizing. Pamela Nash, the Labour MP for Airdrie and Shotts highlighted that Osborne’s remarks are "deeply offensive to all those who are really struggling to live on benefits at the moment through no choice of their own, but mostly it's disrespectful to the memory of these children.” Furthermore, the Middlesbrough MP highlighted that the debate over the welfare system is a separate discussion to the Philpott trial: “It should not be had in the context of the most appalling crime of a father killing his six children”, he claimed. The fact that six children lost their lives to the hands of a careless and evil man should not be used for Osborne’s political agenda.

This month new legislation will cut fifteen per cent off a person’s housing benefit if they have a ‘spare’ room. Parents who have their kids at the weekend, parents whose daughter or son work for the armed forces, and disabled people who need a spare room for equipment, are not exempt from this rather unsettling law. The welfare minister told a parent whose three children stay with him half the week that he would lose the spare room as the kids could just sleep on the (presumably enormous) sofa. The conservatives claim this law will affect 660,000 households. Only rather awkwardly, there aren’t 660,000 spare smaller houses for people to relocate to. In Hull, 5,500 people have been told to chase 70 one-bedroom properties.

Worryingly, the welfare reforms are not just about cuts to benefits. The Tories are privatising the NHS and stopping legal aid for people in debt. A freeze on the tax-free personal allowance will create an £83 cost for the 4 million middle-income pensioners living in this country and a £285 loss for the 360,000 people who are set to retire next year. What is worse is that despite these merciless cuts, that will ultimately impact on the living standards of so many, the top rate of income tax dropped on Saturday from 50p to 45p for people with incomes of more than £150,000. As a result, millionaires will get average tax cuts of £42,000.