McVile is back
Of all the dubious characters in Theresa May’s nasty Tory party the new Minister in charge of the DWP displays a total lack of empathy or compassion for the most vulnerable in society
CALLOUS benefits axewoman Esther McVey returned to the heart of Government yesterday – ready to wreak more misery on Britain’s most vulnerable.
McVey was dubbed “McVile” for her work under then Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, where she presided over the bedroom tax and hated Atos tests for disabled benefit claimants.
Yesterday, she took over the top job after Justine Greening refused to contemplate hacking back its £171billion departmental budget when she was axed as Education Secretary in the reshuffle.
She was immediately challenged to dump the rape clause – which forces women to prove they were raped before being able to claim tax credits for a third child – on her first day in office by SNP MP Alison Thewliss.
But with McVey’s callous track record, no one is holding their breath for a change in Government policy.
She was widely disliked after her controversial stint as Minister for Disabled People in 2012-13.
She cut the Disability Living Allowance and brought in medical tests for applicants.
Remploy shut the rest of their factories under her watch, turfing thousands of people with disabilities out of their jobs.
As a reward, McVey was promoted within the DWP to be second to Duncan Smith as the department’s Minister of State from 2013 to 2015.
In that role, she became the cheerleader of the hated bedroom tax on council tenants deemed to have a “spare” room.
She relished the anger generated when she justified the proliferation of food banks due to the need for austerity.
She said in 2013: “In the UK, it is right to say that more people are visiting food banks, as we would expect.
“Times are tough and we all have to pay back the £1.5trillion of personal debt, which spiralled under Labour. We are all trying to live within our means.”
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell blasted McVey as the “stain of inhumanity”, a comment he refused to apologise for.
Voters in West Wirral were unimpressed by their Liverpoolborn MP and she lost her seat in 2015 to Labour’s Margaret Greenwood after a single term.
However, she was not out in the cold for long, winning in Tatton, the Cheshire seat vacated by ex-chancellor George Osborne, at this year’s general election.
McVey’s elevation from deputy chief whip helped the Prime Minister to retain the gender balance at the Cabinet table which May shifted further by allowing some new woman ministers to attend meetings.
Her appointment was roundly criticised by oppponents. Walton MP Dan Carden said it would “put fear into the hearts of the vulnerable and disabled”.
Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill MP Hugh Gaffney said: “McVey’s appointment as DWP Secretary is the bad punchline to a joke reshuffle.
“It’s not credible that Theresa May thinks she is the best person for the job. We know that because McVey was the PM’s second choice for this important role.”
Another Labour MP John Woodcock said: “The DWP has a huge impact on millions of lives and demands a leader with compassion, empathy and an eye for complex detail.
“Esther McVey has yet to show any of these qualities.”
Thewliss wrote to McVey, urging her to start her term by reversing the rape clause introduced in the 2015 budget.
She said: “I want to know whether she is comfortable in making a woman who has suffered the trauma of rape, domestic violence and coercive control go through the shame of proving her child was conceived as a result of that sexual abuse.”
The Glasgow Central MP called for an immediate rethink from McVey.
She added: “This is as good a time as any for the Government to drop the vile and medieval rape clause, and the stigmatising twochild policy which lies behind it.
“Children are being knowingly forced into poverty as a result of this cruel Tory Government.
“Esther McVey’s first act as secretary of state should be to end this toxic policy.”
PRIME Minister Theresa May unveiled her all new Muppet Show yesterday.
But the “fresh talent” she brought to her Government during Monday’s shambolic reshuffle means her Cabinet is stuffed with more privately educated members than the last.
Social mobility campaigners the Sutton Trust revealed that of the 29 ministers attending Cabinet, 34 per cent went to private schools compared with 30 per cent in the previous version.
The proportion of Cabinet ministers who went to comprehensives fell from 44 per cent to 41 per cent.
In addition, 48 per cent went to either Oxford or Cambridge University, up from 44 per cent before the reshuffle.
Overall, Cabinet ministers are five times more likely to have gone to a fee-paying school than the general population.
May put the finishing touches to her reshuffle with a string of junior ministerial changes following Monday’s chaotic Cabinet shake-up, which saw Jeremy Hunt refuse to move from Health, and Justine Greening quit after being told she was being moved from Education to Work and Pensions.
Several female MPs were promoted to the whips office and ministerial posts yesterday but the full Cabinet remains 74 per cent male and 96 per cent white with only six women and one man from an ethnic minority background.