This week the Labour government have been trailing their plans to continue the Tories war on the sick and disabled by restricting disability benefits (known as Personal Independence Payments (PIP)) and increasing the state and social harassment of those who need them. This comes after Rachel Reeves scrapped plans to close the tax loopholes on the super-rich who spend their time abroad for tax reasons after “after listening to the concerns that have been raised by the non-dom community” (genuine quote!) We never really left, but we’re back to the cruelty of austerity, blaming and punishing the people least responsible for the state of the country while defending the interests of those who have been looting it with glee through the last 45 years of Thatcherite cross-party consensus. As part of this push for “growth” Starmer and Reeves have also announced their plan to slash “unnecessary regulation and red tape”, as if Grenfell never happened, allowing building developers free-reign to fire up more shoddy, unsafe death-traps that will fall to pieces in a decade or two if they don’t burn down before then. And don’t forget the slashing of pensioner’s winter-fuel payments so that the cold weather could help reduce the nation’s pension bill yet further. All this from a government stacked to the hilt with self-interested neoliberals who always have one-eye on the plush privatised utilities director job they’ll land once they leave office, after handing over the country to a Reform government led by Nigel Farage (who now leads in the polls for the first time). The question has always been socialism or barbarism. But this Labour government is so allergic to any hint of socialism, it has decided that, for the rest of us, barbarism will have to suffice.