Labour have voted to cut winter fuel payments for around 10 million pensioners in Britain.
For many, this is quite literally as severe as turning off their life support. In 2022/23, almost 5,000 people died because of a cold home. And thanks to Keir Starmer’s Labour, our most vulnerable family members are at greater risk of freezing to death after being stripped of up to £300 to help pay for heating bills.
This is a critical issue. Lives are on the line here. This is no time to use vulnerable people as helpless pawns to score points on the political chessboard. However, this is exactly what Keir Starmer has done by blaming the Conservatives for leaving him with a £22 billion black hole.
Let’s be clear. Firstly, how convenient that Keir Starmer has magically stumbled across a budget gap immediately after taking office, giving him a scapegoat for any mistake he makes. But secondly, be under no illusion that Labour are responsible for £9 billion of this, after caving into the unholy demands of trade union barons.
Keir Starmer handed junior doctors a 22% pay rise. That virtually doubled the size of any mystical black hole in one foul swoop. How dare he reward those whose strikes have caused endless disruption and cancelled your doctor’s appointments? And how dare he, in the very next breath, punish those who worked so hard to rebuild our country after two World Wars – and perhaps even helped the war effort themselves?
I’ve said this before – and I’ll say it again. This is a political decision to appease Labour’s trade union voters and punish Conservative voters. 41% of 65+ year olds voted Conservative in 2024, meanwhile only 22% voted Labour.
I’m not stupid. And neither are the pensioners who know they don’t need this payment. In fact, Conservative MP and Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh fairly said he was willing to debate “why people like me” should receive it. We know that a small number of wealthy pensioners are getting automatic financial help they don’t want.
But what about those who are precariously perched just above the precipice: those who are ineligible for pension credits but are still struggling to make ends meet. Winter fuel payments are automatic top-ups that have solved this problem. Even those who are eligible for help often don’t claim it, with approximately 880,000 people not claiming the pension credit they’re entitled to. It’s better to help everyone, than help nobody at all.
I still acknowledge the fact there is wastage, however, so there are two simple solutions. One, means-test it, to make sure you target financial help at pensioners who actually need it. Winter fuel payments could even be tapered to gradually decrease as a household’s wealth increases. Alternatively, two, offer it to everybody, but give people the chance to refuse it if they don’t need it. You’ll be surprised at how many pensioners would refuse state help or offer their share to those who need it more. Unlike many people in today’s ignorant and selfish world, pensioners empathise with those living through tough times.
You’ll be pleased to hear that people are finally waking up to the fact that Keir Starmer’s Labour is not all it’s cracked up to be. This is not a reincarnation of the glorified revolution of 1997 that saw Blair’s New Labour dominate the political landscape for a decade.
And Labour’s MPs know it. In July, seven Labour rebels were suspended after voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap. On cutting winter fuel payments, 53 Labour MPs abstained and one voted against, representing another sizeable rebellion against Keir Starmer. The backbenches are not happy. And neither are the public, with Starmer’s approval ratings dropping to a minus 16% record low.
I wonder what Sir Keir’s response will be to further rebellions from his own MPs. Perhaps he’ll suspend them, too. He’s doing the Conservatives out of a job. At this rate, Keir Starmer won’t have a Labour Party left – they’ll all be banished to the dark dungeons of Westminster.
Now, more than ever, Labour needed their leader to step up and crush the doubters. What they didn’t need was Keir Starmer hunched over a pedestal amateurly emblazoned with ‘A New Deal for Working People’ and a clipart sunshine that looks like it’s been abysmally clipped from the tail of a Jet2 aeroplane, droning on to the Trades Union Congress about “what happened with Liz Truss” and wallowing over the past “14 years".
Keir Starmer’s Labour need to unite over a solution. Division, just 8 weeks into their leadership, will spread like poisonous red venom to immobilise the Labour machine from within. Keir Starmer has chosen to punish our vulnerable pensioners and smooch up to the union barons who have held the country to ransom for years.
No new ideas. Just the same old Keir.
Image: Flickr/Number 10
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