Ministers step up efforts to quell growing rebellion over UK welfare bill
The government is intensifying efforts to quell a growing rebellion over welfare cuts, with whips stepping up contact with MPs and strategists drawing up plans for a cabinet reshuffle in case of resignations.Ministers are taking a carrot-and-stick approach by laying out extra support for people who face losing their benefits, while also warning mutinous MPs of the consequences of voting against the plans.Several MPs said that whips were strengthening efforts to bring them into line after Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, sought to ease concerns by promising extra protections for vulnerable people.Some MPs say there have been suggestions that the vote on cuts could be treated as a confidence issue, with those rebelling facing suspension from the whip or even deselection.No 10 and government sources strongly denied this.
A senior government source said plans were being drawn up for new ministerial appointments in case any frontbenchers resign to vote against the cuts.No 10 is said to be keen on rewarding new MPs who have made an impression since the general election a year ago.The government plans to introduce a bill next week that will contain its welfare changes – including controversial cuts to disability benefits.Government figures say that concessions by Kendall this week have won over some would-be rebels.The Guardian reported Kendall would put “non-negotiable” protections for the most vulnerable benefits recipients in the legislation.
Under the changes, people with less than 12 months to live and those with lifelong conditions would automatically get a higher rate of universal credit and would be exempt from reassessments, which usually take place every three years,Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people who will no longer qualify for personal independence payments (Pip) under the changes will continue to receive payments for 13 weeks, instead of the usual four,But some MPs are unmoved by the changes,One senior Labour backbencher said: “This so-called olive branch is completely meaningless and won’t have persuaded a single Labour MP, many of whom are really concerned for the impact on disabled people in their constituencies,These reforms were rushed through with no proper impact assessment and the government has to go back to the drawing board.
”The government’s proposed cuts to Pip, a benefit intended to help disabled people with their quality of life and unconnected to employment, have caused uproar in the parliamentary Labour party.About 170 Labour MPs are said to have communicated their concerns to the government.Government sources say the number of prospective rebels has fallen as a result of Kendall’s concessions as well as ministers’ openness to scrapping the two-child benefit cap and the Conservatives’ decision to vote against the bill.Under the proposed changes, claimants would qualify for Pip only if they score a minimum of four points on a single daily living activity.Assessments score from 0 to 12 the difficulty that claimants face in a range of living activities such as preparing and eating food, communicating, washing and getting dressed.
More than 370,000 people stand to lose their payments, while another 430,000 who would have qualified would no longer be eligible,On average these people will lose £4,500 a year,The government has argued the welfare system needs dramatic reform, with 1,000 new people a day making claims,Even with the cuts, Pip payments will continue to rise: an extra 750,000 people will receive payments by the end of this parliament,
How to Train Your Dragon to Neil Young: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
How to Train Your DragonOut now This live-action remake was shot by Bill Pope, the cinematographer behind films as diverse as Clueless, The Matrix and Spider-Man 3, with puppets used on set to give the actors something to work with before painting in the CGI. Starring Mason Thames, Gerard Butler and Nick Frost.Film on Film WeekendBFI Southbank, London, 14 & 15 JuneA whole weekend of films screening exclusively from actual physical prints? Sign us up. Physical film in a digital world is a use-it-or-lose-it kind of treasure, so to see the likes of Star Wars screened from prints, vote with your wallet and get down to the BFI.LollipopOut now Daisy-May Hudson based this portrait of a woman trying to regain custody of her kids on her own experiences of the social care system, with Posy Sterling giving a barnstorming performance as a woman who can’t get a bigger flat because she doesn’t have her children with her, and can’t get her kids back because her flat is too small
British Library to reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader card 130 years after it was revoked
The British Library is to symbolically reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader pass, 130 years after its trustees cancelled it following his conviction for gross indecency.A contemporary pass bearing the name of the Irish author and playwright will be officially presented to his grandson, Merlin Holland, at an event in October, it will be announced on Sunday.Rupert Everett, who wrote, directed and starred as Wilde in The Happy Prince – the acclaimed 2018 film about the writer’s tragic final years in exile – will play a part in the ceremony.Holland is an expert on Wilde whose publications include The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. Asked how his grandfather might have reacted to the pass being reinstated, he said: “He’d probably say ‘about time too’
The Guide #195: How Reddit made nerds of us all
It only ended a few years ago, but Westworld already feels a bit of a TV footnote. A pricey mid-2010s remake of a 70s Yul Brynner movie few people remembered, HBO’s robot cowboy drama lumbered on for four lukewarm seasons before getting cancelled – with few people really noticing.Still, when it premiered, Westworld was big news. Here was a show well-placed to do a Game of Thrones, only for sci-fi. Its high production values were married to an eye-catching cast (Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright) and it was run by the crack team of Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, who promised they had a playbook for how the whole show would shake out
Seth Meyers on Trump’s falling approval rating: ‘Worth remembering that people don’t like this’
Late-night hosts spoke about how Donald Trump’s presidency is proving unpopular with Americans, looking at the cruelty of his deportation strategy and the response to protests in Los Angeles.On Late Night, Seth Meyers spoke about Trump’s approval rating going down this past week and in particular he looked at how people are against his extreme immigration strategy.“People don’t even approve of Trump on immigration and that’s what people wanted him for,” he said.Meyers called his tactics “needlessly cruel” before speaking about his appearance at the Kennedy Center this week where he went to see a performance of Les Misérables.Trump was booed by many and Meyers said it was “like Darth Vader getting booed on the Death Star”
‘Difficult love’: Spanish publisher reprints groundbreaking book of Lorca’s homoerotic sonnets
In the autumn of 1983, dozens of carefully chosen readers received an envelope containing a slim, red booklet of sonnets that had been locked away since they were written almost 50 years earlier by the most famous Spanish poet of the 20th century.While those behind the initiative gave no clue as to their identities, their purpose was made abundantly clear in the dedication on the booklet’s final page: “This first edition of the Sonnets of Dark Love is being published to remember the passion of the man who wrote them.”Here at last, lovingly pirated and printed in blood-red ink, were the deeply homoerotic and anguished verses that Federico García Lorca had completed not long before he was murdered in the early days of the Spanish civil war.To commemorate the anonymous effort, to revisit a peculiar episode in Spain’s literary history, and to bring the poems to a new audience, a Galician publisher has now brought out a perfect facsimile edition of that groundbreaking 42-year-old booklet.Although long known to Lorca scholars – not least because they had been published in French two years earlier – Los Sonetos del Amor Oscuro had been hidden away by the poet’s family, who believed their tortured and sensual lines would taint his legacy and stir up old hatreds
Seth Meyers on Trump’s deployment of troops to LA: ‘About spectacle and power and nothing else’
Late-night hosts blasted Donald Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles, his extremely partisan speech to the army and his upcoming military parade.On Wednesday’s Late Night, Seth Meyers mocked Donald Trump for saying he would arrest the California governor, Gavin Newsom, for the crime of “running for governor, because he’s done such a bad job”.“If you could arrest someone for being bad at their job, the jails would be filled with former head coaches of the New York Jets,” Meyers joked.“I gotta say, Trump’s really lost his step. He can’t even come up with a phony reason to arrest Newsom?” Meyers continued
Resident doctors have good reason to strike over pay | Letters
Suman Fernando obituary
Robert Tollemache obituary
‘That child is not a product’: how IVF big business plays on hope of people desperate for a family
Society may have overestimated risk of the ‘manosphere’, UK researchers say
‘Transformative’: the UK lab working on a way to halt genetic type of dementia