Keir Starmer's latest cowardly U-turn is a kick in the teeth for hard-working Britons - Carole Malone

Why put yourself through the daily grind when you can sit on your backside at home all day, knowing the rent and all your utility bills are being paid, and then you can go pootling about in your free car all courtesy of this insane Government.

An official forecast published alongside what remains of the benefits bill makes clear that ministers are now convinced the number of claims will skyrocket in the next four years. And instead of three million claiming PIP payments, it’ll be a mind-blowing 4.2 million by 2029.

And that rise, say these ministers, could result in the total collapse of the welfare system.

So, yet another own goal for this useless Government that has absolutely no idea how to manage an economy or a country...

When the Tories were in power, Labour was forever goading them over the mystical magic money tree that was going to provide the cash for their reforms.

Well, Ditto for Labour. Who in God’s name do they think is going to pay for a welfare system that is already dangerously out of control and which by 2029 will have imploded?

A new poll today says voters believe the Starmer Government is every bit as chaotic as the Tories were. Yes, but it took the Tories 14 years to make a mess of the country. It’s taken Labour just 12 months and, in terms of the economy, we’re in a way worse position now than when the Tories were voted out.

Do those Labour hardliners who forced Starmer to abandon the guts of the Welfare Bill not have a brain cell between them? I ask because who do they think is going to pay for the incredibly generous benefits they’re doling out, encouraging people not to work?

Nine million people in this country are what’s called economically inactive. Put simply, that means they don’t work, and the state is paying them to do nothing.

So, who’s going to pay?

Well, not the rich, because in the past 12 months, nearly 20,000 millionaires have fled this country. And the previous year, in anticipation of Labour coming to power, it was nearly 10,000.

And now the Government is talking about hitting the rich with a two per cent wealth tax, all of which adds up to what can only be described as fiscal insanity.

Yet despite the fact it so desperately needs the rich, Labour still despises them and seems determined to punish their aspirations and their work ethic to the point where they are literally fleeing the country.

So, who’ll be left to pay for Labour’s irresponsible largesse? Who’s going to pay for the shirkers, the skivers and all those who can come up with a million reasons every day not to get out of bed and get a job?

Yes, I accept there are some people who literally can’t work and who need benefits, but there are still huge numbers who are playing the system. Yet, we have a government that point-blank refuses to admit that.

And I'm sick of hearing people say “the rich get away with paying no tax”. No, they don’t. They pay 45 per cent tax, and those taxes pay for huge swathes of a population which simply refuses to work,

The fact is one per cent of earners in this country- that’s anyone earning over £250,000 a year – pay for 29 per cent of ALL taxes.

Back in 2010, that one per cent paid for 25 per cent of all tax (four per cent less than they do now). And in 2,000, it was 21 per cent of all taxes.

So, whatever people say about the rich not paying their way, they do. And they’re paying more every year.

What kind of lunatic Government spits on its wealth creators and drives them out while pandering to be the feckless and the lazy, treating them like they are the backbone of this country when many are simply a drain on it and contribute nothing.

But under weasely, woke Labour, we’re not allowed to say anyone is a skiver – in case it offends them.

Well, it's bloody well time some of them were offended. It’s time they were kicked out of their lazy stupor because even Labour ministers now are acknowledging that if welfare spending isn’t brought under control, the people who really do need it will suffer when the whole system collapses.

Yet still, idiot Labour rebel MPs are trying to force further welfare concessions by smashing plans to cut £2B from Universal Credits. These people are insane. They keep trotting out the line: “We can’t balance the books on the backs of the poor.”

No one is suggesting that. What we want is fairness. And fairness means welfare payments going to the people who need them, not those who pretend to need them.

And we can’t depend on Keir Starmer to take on these rebels because he’s an abject coward who last week prostrated himself before them, caving in to all of their demands.

The result is that those rebels now have him by the short and curlies, and he’ll have to do whatever they want now, or they’ll kick him out.

It's clear Starmer cares more about clinging to his job than he does about the future of this country. Which is a travesty because historically, the Labour Party is supposed to be on the side of the workers.

Now, it only represents the shirkers and the skivers, and everything it’s done with this Welfare Bill is a kick in the teeth for every hard-working man and woman in this country!