IT did not take long for the wheels to fall off the Labour bus. The party has now sacked seven of its own MPs within three weeks of a General Election, exposing how weak its moral leadership is and how fragile its hold on power might become.

The fact that it was an SNP motion in the House of Commons that created this first crisis for Keir Starmer’s so-called Labour government is also worthy of note. The SNP might be down, but if they can achieve an outcome like this, they are most definitely not out.

In contrast, Labour have been shown to lack ideas, knowledge and morality.

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The two-child benefit cap, which was the subject of this debacle, was a creation of George Osborne. It was deliberately designed to penalise families with more than two children. The supposed purpose was to force people back into work. The reality, however, as even Osborne knew at the time he created this cap, was that most families with more than two children have at least one adult in work, and sometimes two. The poverty that they suffer is, in that case, systemic, with its causes deep-rooted within the structuring of our neoliberal society. Osborne did not care about that, and what is now glaringly obvious is the Keir Starmer doesn’t either.

This is where Labour’s lack of a moral compass is so obvious. They knew that this crisis was going to develop a long time before they won the General Election. Laura Kuenssberg asked Keir Starmer about his policy on this issue on the BBC what seems like a lifetime ago.

(Image: BBC)

I suspect that when she did, he made up his policy on the hoof, and said he would not withdraw this cap. He said that doing so could not be afforded. Ever since then he has become a virility test for him. He would rather prove that he is a strong man than help the families in which three-quarters of a million children live.

This virility test is, however, one where Labour also reveal their lack of economic knowledge. The whole of Labour’s elections strategy was based upon its claim that the UK needed strong fiscal rules to deliver growth. As a result, it would seem that Labour do not know that there are no such things as fiscal rules.

The form of words that have been given this name have existed for little more than two decades, and during that period many such "rules" have been proposed, withdrawn, revised and re-written to try to disguise the failure of every single Chancellor over that period to comply with their self-imposed "rules". This has happened so often that the idea that there are such rules must be presumed to be a poor joke.

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These "rules" are, at best, very poor economic public-relations exercises. At worst they are excuses for government inaction and the imposition of austerity. Either Labour know this, in which case they are misrepresenting the truth when they claim that they are of significance, or they do not, in which case Labour have to be presumed to be stupid.

So why do I also suggest that Labour are out of ideas? That is because even if Labour insisted there was such a thing as a fiscal rule that they had to comply with, they could still very easily end the two-child benefit cap. All that doing so would require is that a little additional tax be raised from those with wealth and high incomes in the UK, and the goal could be achieved.

At most around £3 billion is needed for this purpose, which is the sum that, coincidentally, Kier Starmer has offered in support to Ukraine since he has been in office.

Keir Starmer suspended seven MPs (Image: Justin Tallis/PA Wire)

In the Taxing Wealth Report that I published April I explained how up to £97bn of additional tax could be found in this country by a series of very straightforward changes to the tax system. These changes would increase the amount of tax paid by those with wealth or high incomes so that the contribution that they make to the economy in proportion to their income and gains arising each year might increase to be something like the overall tax rate paid by those on average and lower incomes in the UK as a whole. They pay less, on average, at present. 

The easiest such change, by far, would be to equalise the tax rate paid on income and capital gains. This would raise at least £12bn a year, which is near enough four times the amount needed to end this cause of child poverty. If Labour are not aware of this, they really are out of ideas.

Their seven rebel MPs are not of ideas: they know about such things. They also have a moral compass. Labour need to get one, very quickly. Unless they do, we face a very long, and torturous five years with them in power in Westminster.