Reeves Refuses to Apologise for Welfare Cut Pocket Money Analogy – Guido Fawkes

Reeves Refuses to Apologise for Welfare Cut Pocket Money Analogy

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Rachel Reeves is on the morning media round and has refused to rule out further tax rises or spending cuts at the budget. The Chancellor said on Times Radio it wasn’t true that she would be forced to carry them out but pointedly declined when asked to rule them out: “What I’m saying is that there are loads of things that this Government are doing that are contributing to growth.” Back for more…

On LBC a member of the public criticised Reeves for her and Darren Jones’ comparison of Labour’s welfare cuts to taking pocket money off a child and telling them to get a job – an analogy for which Darren Jones apologised last night: “Comparing people who are disabled and claiming money because they have to to somebody who needs pocket money for a Saturday job to buy bits and pieces in their life somewhere I think you may have lost the plot.” Woe to the SpAd who came up with that one…

Reeves declined to apologise for the language like Jones, insisting instead “the welfare state will continue to be there for people when they need it.” Pressed again to defend the comparison she said,

“No of course it’s not like that… I was put by one of your other presenters yesterday something about how much my children get in pocket money and whether they should get a Saturday job.“

What actually happened last night was that Reeves was asked by Iain Dale if Jones’ initial analogy was crass. She said: “If you have a 16-year-old and say, I won’t give you so much pocket money, I want you to go out to work. And the OBR comes and does an impact assessment and says you’re going to be worse off… you will be worse off if you don’t get a Saturday job, but if they do they will be better off. There are a lot of people who have a disability who are desperate to work.“ That sound you can hear is the Labour left’s remaining teeth grinding away…

UPDATE: Reeves now says the analogy is ‘clumsy.’