Owen Jones on Starmer’s Labour party stopping Winter fuel payments
Labour votes to plunge pensioners into poverty
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-votes-plunge-pensioners-poverty
SUPINE Labour MPs have voted to plunge pensioners into poverty, after approving winter fuel benefit cuts for millions of older people.
The Commons backed Sir Keir Starmer’s austerity move by 348 votes to 228, with many Labour MPs abstaining.
A larger-than-expected 53 Labour MPs seem to have not backed the government in the vote, although some may have had permission from the whips to skip the debate.
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John McDonnell, speaking in the brief debate which preceded the vote, said that the cut “flies against everything I believe in as a Labour MP about tackling inequality and poverty within our society.”
He slammed the government’s claim that those with the “broadest shoulders” should bear the burden of the crisis, saying that it was the poorest who have been hit hardest.
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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-votes-plunge-pensioners-poverty
Morning Star Editorial: The labour movement should call out Chancellor Reeves’ economy con
RACHEL REEVES is having us on. She is not prolonging austerity for the reasons pretended.
The Chancellor claims that it is imperative to balance the books to avoid a collapse in international money market confidence in the British economy. The ghosts of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are conjured to underline the point.
It is for this reason that pensioners are to shiver in unheated homes this winter as their fuel allowance is cut, and it is for this that hundreds of thousands of children are to remain in poverty, thanks to the maintenance of the two-child benefit cap.
But even in its own terms — and this column would argue that the speculators should be faced down rather than pandered to under any circumstances — the argument is bogus.
The City itself, no less, has blown the whistle on Reeves and other Cabinet members who have echoed her line, including Commons leader Lucy Powell. Powell told the media that the new austerity was vital to stop a run on the pound.
A what? The Financial Times quotes a Paul Dale at Capital Economics as saying: “If there was a risk of a run on the pound I completely missed it.”
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Unions urge Starmer not to deliver more austerity as TUC Congress heckler tells PM to ‘tax the rich’
UNIONS urged Sir Keir Starmer not to deliver more austerity after he told TUC Congress to expect pay and public investment restraint.
National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said the Prime Minister failed to announce a change of course after “decades of division, austerity and underinvestment in public services.
“Instead of setting out a positive vision to rebuild the economy and our society, he served up more of the same,” he added.
“The politics of austerity will only be ended in practice, not in fine words.”
Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Fran Heathcote added: “We’ve had enough of being told about ‘tough decisions.’
“You cannot solve the problems caused by austerity with more austerity.
“That’s why the TUC has voted overwhelmingly for a campaign of pay restoration across the public sector, which will boost living standards and strengthen the economy.”
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