Austerity 2

Zarah Sultana MP: Are Labour about to be the new party of austerity?

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https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/zarah-sultana-mp-winter-fuel-payments-labour-pensioners-b1180941.html

By Zarah Sultana

Politics is a matter of life and death.

Take the Labour Government’s decision to means-test winter fuel payments. Over nine million pensioners, including many on just £12,000 a year, will lose help as we head into the cold months. Some will be forced to turn down the heating. Cold homes are linked to higher rates of strokes, heart attacks and respiratory diseases, so this policy could have fatal consequences.

That harm is entirely avoidable. These are not “tough choices” for politicians, but for those forced to choose between heating their homes and eating. Maintaining universal winter fuel payments costs £1.4 billion. Meanwhile, a modest two per cent wealth tax on assets over £10 million could raise £24 billion, more than enough to fund winter fuel payments, scrap the two-child benefit cap and support public sector workers whose wages have stagnated for over a decade.

The false narrative that resources are too limited to support both the elderly and the young pits us against each other. Within a few weeks in office, the new Labour Government has already denied help to all children with more than one sibling, and now to older people too. The Prime Minister talks about growth, but the only thing that is growing so far is avoidable poverty. No child should be born into poverty due to an arbitrary limit on family support, just as no pensioner should freeze because of arbitrary means-testing. There is still time to change course and not go ahead with this.

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https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/zarah-sultana-mp-winter-fuel-payments-labour-pensioners-b1180941.html

Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.

The dishonesty of Rachel Reeves

Continue ReadingZarah Sultana MP: Are Labour about to be the new party of austerity?

Unions walking a tight-rope with ‘right-wing’ Labour government, FBU leader says

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unions-walking-a-tight-rope-with-right-wing-labour-government-fbu-leader-says

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during his speech and press conference in the Rose Garden at 10 Downing Street, London, August 27, 2024.

Union figures weigh in on Starmer’s government at Morning Star’s TUC fringe event

UNIONS must walk a tight-rope dealing with a right-wing Labour government, a senior trade unionist has said.

TUC president and Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack made the statement at the Morning Star’s fringe meeting at the TUC Congress today.

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RMT president Alex Gordon said many of Labour’s economic policies “bear an uncanny resemblance to those of its defeated and demoralised Tory predecessors” and that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision to keep Tory spending policies “means the same but worse, as society and the economy continue to deteriorate from the cumulative impact of austerity.”

Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union general secretary Fran Heathcote said it was “an absolute disgrace” that the government would not lift the widely condemned two-child benefit cap and suspended seven Labour MPs for backing this in Parliament.

The Budget will be “the defining moment in the new government,” she added, saying: “Is it going to rebuild public services and living standards or will it unleash a new wave of austerity?”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unions-walking-a-tight-rope-with-right-wing-labour-government-fbu-leader-says

Keir Starmer confirms that he is continuing Tory policies and that he's proud to be a red Tory.
Keir Starmer confirms that he is continuing Tory policies and that he’s proud to be a red Tory.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.

The dishonesty of Rachel Reeves

Continue ReadingUnions walking a tight-rope with ‘right-wing’ Labour government, FBU leader says

Guardian Editorial: Winter fuel payments: a mess of Labour’s own making over benefit cuts

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/08/the-guardian-view-on-winter-fuel-payments-a-mess-of-labours-own-making-over-benefit-cuts

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The government can’t cure the lethal consequences of deprivation by increasing deprivation. Eligibility for the payment will be linked to pension credit, but experts say that this will see 1.6 million pensioners who are below the poverty line lose vital financial support during the coldest months. With a majority of 167, the government will comfortably win Tuesday’s vote on the issue. However, it has lost the argument, largely because ministers seem incapable of making a coherent case for their policy.

The risible claim that there would be a “run on the pound” if there were not spending cuts was dismissed in the City. Ministers then said that they want to increase pension credit uptake – currently 880,000 eligible people do not claim it – but many are put off by the 243 questions that need to be answered in the application form. Sir Keir argues that the losses would be offset by rises in the state pension. But that won’t wash with many pensioners who know such increases were coming anyway and have been less than impressed by Labour discarding its social care commitments.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/08/the-guardian-view-on-winter-fuel-payments-a-mess-of-labours-own-making-over-benefit-cuts

Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Continue ReadingGuardian Editorial: Winter fuel payments: a mess of Labour’s own making over benefit cuts

The billions for Sizewell C show Labour’s shameful nuclear hypocrisy

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/billions-sizewell-c-show-labours-shameful-nuclear-hypocrisy

LINDA PENTZ GUNTER condemns Starmer’s willingness to let children go hungry and the elderly shiver while pouring billions into doomed nuclear projects that won’t address the climate crisis

THE Keir Starmer Labour government won’t scrap the two-child benefit cap because, it claims, the country can’t afford it. Doing away with this punitive measure would lift close to half a million children out of poverty at an estimated cost of £3.6 billion a year.

On the other hand, the Starmer government is perfectly happy to scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, because doing so saves money — an estimated £1.4bn this financial year. That potentially life-saving support will now be stripped from as many as 10 million eligible pensioners.

That’s £5bn saved, on the backs of children and the elderly, two of the most vulnerable segments of our society.

Instead, the Labour government has now announced it will assign almost this identical sum — as much as £5.5bn in life support — to the planned 3,200 megawatt (MW) two-reactor Sizewell C nuclear power plant project on the Suffolk coast.

Apparently, it’s perfectly fine to let children go hungry while pensioners shiver in the dark in exchange for an entirely futile energy project that will keep no-one warm anytime soon, if at all.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/billions-sizewell-c-show-labours-shameful-nuclear-hypocrisy

Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Continue ReadingThe billions for Sizewell C show Labour’s shameful nuclear hypocrisy

Starmer defends moves to cut winter fuel payments

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-defends-moves-to-cut-winter-fuel-payments

An elderly lady with her electric fire on at home in Liverpool

PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced shouts of “shame” during PMQs today as he defended moves to cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners.

Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak asked why the Prime Minister preferred to fund pay rises for train drivers rather than maintain the payments.

Sir Keir struggled to respond, robotically repeating that the Tories had bequeathed him a £22 billion black hole in the public finances.

He said “no prime minister wants to do what we have to do” as he argued the “tough decision” was required to “stabilise our economy.”

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People in England and Wales not in receipt of pension credit or other means-tested benefits will lose out under the policy, which MPs are expected to vote on next week.

It is expected to reduce the number of pensioners in receipt of the up to £300 payment by 10 million, from 11.4m to 1.5m, saving around £1.4bn this year.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-defends-moves-to-cut-winter-fuel-payments

Continue ReadingStarmer defends moves to cut winter fuel payments