Earlier this year, the Labour Government tried to cut £5bn in personal independence payments (PIP) from disabled people . Huge public revulsion and a backbench rebellion kiboshed that.

Ever since then, there has been a perpetual drumbeat of foot-stomping from key figures in and around Downing Street that they didn’t get their way. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in October that the Government “can’t leave welfare untouched” in this parliament.

In 2016, the Labour opposition and similar public revulsion had forced an almost identical retreat from former chancellor George Osborne and former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith when they tried to cut £4.4bn from PIP. Duncan Smith resigned and Osborne only lasted a few more months after that.

Even worse for the bunkered down in Dow

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