Pod Save the UK
Is Britain’s benefits system broken? w/ Caroline Selman and John Pring
Thu, 03 Oct 2024
The new Labour government has promised bold action to fix Britain’s benefit system. Last week, Keir Starmer announced a crackdown on benefit fraud and said people on long-term sickness benefits should look for work. But is this the answer? To chew over the Government’s plans, Coco and Nish are joined by Caroline Selman, senior research fellow at the Public Law Project, and John Pring, the founder and editor of Disability News Service and author of “The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence”. With some help from our listeners, they tell us how broken the benefit system is and how we can fix it. Then, to mark the Conservative party conference, we have the return of the section we like to call WTF. Some absolute shockers from the Tory leadership hopefuls remind us why they are no longer in power. Useful Links: For advice on benefits https://www.advicenow.org.uk/guides/how-deal-universal-credit-overpayment Contacting your MP https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/ Guests: John Pring https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/ https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349893/the-department/ Caroline Selman https://x.com/publiclawprojct Video Credits: Times Radio Sky BBC Daily Express Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media. Contact us via email: [email protected] WhatsApp: 07494 933 444 (UK) or + 44 7494 933 444 (internationally) Insta: https://instagram.com/podsavetheuk Twitter: https://twitter.com/podsavetheuk TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@podsavetheuk Facebook: https://facebook.com/podsavetheuk YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/podsavetheworld Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
This is Pod Save the UK and I'm Nish Kumar.
And I'm Coco Khan. As the government commits to cracking down on welfare fraud, we're looking into our broken benefit system.
And later, to celebrate the Tory party conference, we're bringing back the section lovingly known as WTFUG.
Boy, there has been a lot of wild stories from the Tories this week. And if you were in Birmingham this weekend yourself, did you pop along to conference?
I was doing one of my tour shows, to which tickets are still available, nishkamar.co.uk, in Birmingham on Saturday night. So it was like the day before the Tory party conference started. And I guess it was what... People in the theatrical or show business world generally know it as counter-programming, which is where there's a big event happening or something's being released.
So you put something else on that's aimed at the exact opposite of the target demographic.
Really? I've not come across that before.
Yeah, it's a thing. There was a long history of when a big action movie was released, distributors would release a rom-com as well because they were traditionally seen as being split audiences. This was visceral counter-programming. This was... pretty woman coming out on the same weekend as Con Air.
It is a bit of the Barbenheimer about it, isn't it?
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