The world has changed, as the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, reminded us on Wednesday. Who could disagree with her? The new Trump administration has chucked a grenade into the heart of Western international relations that has thrown an 80-year alliance into doubt and radically changed the facts on the ground for Europeans who have sheltered under the American nuclear and military umbrella for decades.

This is the moment for grand political vision and radical breaks with the past. Germany, for example, has just passed a constitutional amendment backed by the main centre-left and centre-right parties to exempt defence spending from the country’s strict debt rules and create a gargantuan £420bn infrastructure fund. But in Britain, the moment is being met by a tepid Chancellor’s capitulation to economic decline.

On Wednesday, Ms Reeves announced that the Office for Budget Responsibility’s growth forecast for this year has been cut in half compared to its estimate last Autumn, from 2% to 1%. Consequently, Ms Reeves’ ‘fiscal headroom’ would be completely wiped out.

Her response to this development centres around roughly £5bn in cuts for those on universal credit and other benefits, mainly impacting those who cannot work. To be clear, this means that people who need to use an aid to be able to manage toilet needs or incontinence or need supervision to manage toilet needs will not qualify for Personal Independence Payments to fund those needs. The OBR believe this will freeze 800,000 people out of PIPs. Incapacity benefits will be frozen, and those under 22 will become ineligible.

Read more by Mark McGeoghegan

The DWP’s forecasts suggest that, all-in-all, the government’s disability benefit cuts........

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