Despite the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) constantly spewing hatred about Universal Credit claimants stealing taxpayer money, disabled campaigners are reporting that some are being overpaid payments.

Disability News Service (DNS) reported that disabled researcher and campaigner Caroline Richardson was contacted by multiple claimants who’d been overpaid.

DWP absolutely useless, again

Campaigners identified that over payments were made to people receiving both contribution-based employment and support allowance (ESA) and Universal Credit. Basically, the DWP is recording ESA payments as lower than the amounts actually being paid out. Therefore, Universal Credit is increased to compensate for the reduction through the DWP’s ‘transitional protection programme.’

This means claimants are overpaid Universal Credit and, as with the Carers Allowance scandal, there are fears they’ll be asked to pay it back without warning.

These errors are also affecting council tax. One claimant was told to pay an extra £546 a year because the council thought her universal credit had increased due to the DWP’s woeful bookkeeping.

Richardson told DNS:

I am struggling to understand how this has gone so catastrophically wrong, and whether it has gone wrong for everybody. This is going to cause disabled people an enormous amount of worry. It is just such a mess.

Richardson checked her online Universal Credit journal before she received her benefits in her account. This meant she was able to contact DWP and try to stop her own £388 overpayment.

However, because the DWP is a clusterfuck, Richardson was issued with both a correct statement. She then received a notification acknowledging the overpayment and noting it would need to be repaid to DWP in instalments.

Richardson said:

It just seems like the whole DWP is functioning so badly, and they are blaming claimants for their mistakes. The more universal credit is rolled out, the more the errors in the software are going to be exposed.

DWP already under fire for blaiming claimants

In February, the Public Accounts Committee also pulled the DWP up for not taking accountability for their own issues and instead blaming claimants.

They found that between 2024 and 2025, claimants were overpaid by £1 billion due to the DWP’s own errors. This is up from £0.8 billion in 2023-24. However, this is cancelled out by the fact that claimants were underpaid by £1.2 billion for the same reason 2024-25. This is up from £1.1 billion in 2023-24.

The report said:

The DWP has carried out some work to tackle the root causes of fraud and error – but this has focused on those committed by claimants, rather than errors by officials.

DNS also spoke to disability activist Flick Williams, who has already repaid a £289 overpayment. However, she is still expected to pay £546 in extra annual council tax because her council thinks her benefits have increased too.

Williams said:

How many people would let their universal credit go into their account, not check it and just assume the money in their account was theirs to spend?

Another scandal brewing

This comes as yet another Carers’ Allowance inquiry could be on the cards. The department is still chasing unpaid carers for repayments after their case was discredited.

Debbie Abrahams, Chair of the Work and Pensions committee told Stephen Timms that:

The failure to offer carers redress with due care would lead the public to conclude that [it] is not serious in its public commitment to do so, which is extremely damaging to the existing issues of trust with the department.

As the Canary’s Alex Cocker reported at the time:

Spoiler alert: we have already concluded that the DWP is not serious about righting its injustices. Because, you know, its injustices could fill around 2,244 articles on a mid-sized indie news site.

Despite all this evidence, the DWP told John Pring that:

it would be wrong to describe the overpayments as a developing scandal, and insisted that it took overpayments very seriously, was aware of this issue, and was working to resolve the cases of those affected.

With the DWP fraud and error statistics out later this week it will be interesting to see just how much overpayment has increased since the latest Universal Credit forced migration.

But it’s becoming ever clearer that the DWP is a joke of an organisation that doesn’t care about claimants. It’s time the whole thing was abolished.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

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Following Labour’s embarrassing defeat at the polls, business and trade secretary and friend of Israel, Peter Kyle, was the designated fall guy and sent out on the media round.

It was as serious a time as you’d expect, with Kyle saying Wes Streeting is not plotting to overthrow Keir Starmer. The labour ministers were too preoccupied with the release of the Devil Wears Prada 2.

The devil wears cheap Labour suits

For some reason, Peter Kyle was on Sky News this morning. When asked about inevitable Labour leadership bids, he spoke of a cinema outing with his chum, health minister, Wes Streeting, to see the Devil Wears Prada 2. So surely, he couldn’t be launching a leadership bid…

On X, Sky News anchor, Sophy Ridge, said that Kyle had said the following:

Wes and I last weekend we were out campaigning together in Ilford. And let me say, he achieved a stunning result with that whole team in Ilford. That shows what a great campaigner Wes is. After we campaigned, we went for dinner and we went and saw a movie together. Somebody who was planning to pull the plug and launch a leadership bid in a couple of days time, doesn’t go to the cinema with a friend.

When asked what film they went to see, Kyle said they watched Devil Wears Prada 2.

Ridge then asked whether they had spoken about Labour’s leadership, to which Kyle replied:

Wes and I talk about the leadership of the country all the time. Wes and I shared an office together for nine years, we spent so much time talking about the leadership of the country. We almost never spoke about the individual.

Wonder if the Labour duo ever spoke about Peter Mandelson…

Kyle carried on, saying:

Wes and I care so much about the future of the country. We have a very shared view of public services in the modern world. About what Britain’s potential is amongst our competitive countries. We both care deeply about the opportunities that young people have. Also, we were friends going to the cinema and we had a good laugh about other things as well.

If you’re unfamiliar with the film, it’s a series about backstabbing, bitchy cliques, and elitists sneering at working-class people. Sound familiar?

The sequel, in particular, focuses on how the media is being corrupted and how those grappling for power are swayed by those with real power — the fucking tech billionaires.

You can’t help but wonder if Wes Streeting was getting tips. Though, with all his private health care donors, he hardly needs it.

Kyle finished by describing him and Wes as ‘very good friends.”

Wes and I are very good friends but I’m not going to fall into the trap of being his spokesperson. But what I can tell you is that he, like me, is focused on the success of this government. His primary mission in government is making sure the whole government is a success, and he is there for Keir when he needs him.

Definitely, definitely not running

This story was, of course, taken very seriously.

Peter Kyle saying Wes Streeting can’t be planning a leadership coup because they went to see Devil Wears Prada 2 at the weekend is so ludicrous it borders onto homophobia

— Calgie (@christiancalgie) May 11, 2026

It looks to as if Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle have to wait until “The Devil Wears Prada III”…..

— Greg Hadfield (@GregHadfield) May 11, 2026

This wasn’t the only media appearance Kyle made. On the BBC4 Today programme, he said:

It’s one thing [to keep] open the option that you might try to become prime minister one day, and it’s a very different thing to try to unseat a sitting prime minister in the moment we’re in, and Wes Streeting is not doing that.

So that’s that then, he’s absolutely 100% not running. Well, maybe until tomorrow.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

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The voter turnout for the English local elections last week was 31.5 per cent (Alamy)

3 min read2 hr

The higher-than-expected turnout in these local elections showed voters were ready to demand change. Local leaders need more political and fiscal autonomy than ever to deliver for their residents.

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England’s local political map has been transformed. But beyond the sweeping changes in local political control, one notable feature of last week’s local elections in England was that, in many areas, turnout tended to be above the usual low levels associated with local contests.  

In my home council area of Calderdale turnout was 45 per cent, up by almost 11 per cent on the last local elections held here in 2024. The pattern was similar elsewhere. 

While still not generally ‘high’ by any stretch (there’s much more to be done to improve electoral turnout both locally and nationally), higher than normal turnout is perhaps indicative of current public sentiment. 

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At first glance, higher turnout seems counterintuitive. Public trust in politics remains exceptionally low, and dissatisfaction with institutions is widespread. But increased turnout may indicate that many voters are increasingly willing to participate when they feel sufficiently motivated to register frustration or demand change.  

The causes of voters’ discontent appear both national and local.  

Undoubtedly, there’s dissatisfaction with the pace of change nationally, and growing impatience with stagnant living standards, stretched public services and the continuing cost-of-living crisis. 

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The message to the government in Westminster is clear: it must radically transform what it’s doing if it’s going to succeed. There is a growing demand for visible improvement in people’s everyday lives, particularly in communities that feel economically overlooked. 

But interpreting these elections purely as a referendum on the government would miss a crucial part of the story. Beneath the national political turbulence lies a more localised crisis in confidence about the ability of councils themselves to deliver. 

After more than a decade of cuts, many local authorities are operating under severe financial pressure, with local spending power much lower than it was in 2010, pre-austerity. 

While the current government have provided additional financial support, councils across England remain constrained by a system that leaves them struggling to meet their statutory obligations and adequately fund other services. In many places, residents have seen libraries closing, parks deteriorating, roads going unrepaired, and their high streets declining.  

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These are the types of things that shape people’s daily experience of government most directly. For many voters, local government no longer seems capable of improving the places where they live. People feel they’re paying more council tax every year while getting less back in return. 

As a result, there appears to have been a growing willingness to “roll the dice” electorally and replace incumbent administrations with alternatives promising disruption or change. 

Beyond the introspection at the national level, therefore, another key takeaway from these elections should be that local leaders need more political and fiscal autonomy to deliver for their residents.  

There’s a growing need to fundamentally reform local government finances so councils can act. This should mean radically reforming the council tax system, fixing social care provision, and delivering bold fiscal devolution.  

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This should go hand in hand with the government building on the progress it’s made on devolution and going further and faster on decentralising power so that local areas have greater control over things like economic development, transport, housing and public services.  

This not only matters for delivery but also for enhancing local democratic engagement. International evidence shows that when local government has the power to genuinely change things, people are more likely to turn out to vote regularly and engage with it positively, enhancing local turnout over the longer term. 

Rebuilding confidence in local government, empowering councils to deliver visible change and sustaining higher levels of democratic participation will be essential if trust in local and national politics is to be renewed. 

 

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Ryan Swift is Research Fellow at IPPR North, writing on devolution, local democracy, ‘levelling up’, and regional identity

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Mike Hedges, one of the final nine Labour Senedd members, blamed the media for his party’s wipeout in a brush-by with ITV. Not taking it well…

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