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.
Left MPs and trade unionists accuse Sir Keir of choosing austerity, pain and poverty instead of taxing the super-rich
LEFT MPs warned today that pain and poverty are on the way after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told the country that “things will get worse.”
Responding to a keynote speech by the PM warning of a “tough” Budget coming in October, the group of five independent left MPs warned that “politics is about choices — and the government is choosing to inflict pain and poverty across the country.”
And Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said “a bleak vision of Britain is not what we need now. It is time to see the change that Labour promised.”
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The left MPs, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, ridiculed this stance, pointing out that when “the government said it would lower energy bills, it cut winter fuel allowances for pensioners instead.
“The government said it wanted to reboot our economy, it wants to cut public investment instead.
“The government said it would put an end to 14 years of Tory failure, it voted to keep the two child benefits cap instead.”
Returning to the racist riots, Starmer said that these were unmistakably inspired by the far right (but no words on those who fanned the flames), but there was an element of opportunism at work – an opportunism born of the Tories’ dereliction of duty. Those who rioted knew the criminal justice system was teetering on the brink and prison places were at a premium, and acted as though there wouldn’t be any arrests, let alone jail terms. Thanks to Tory recklessness. And, to a degree, Starmer corrected his reluctant earlier response by condemning efforts at trying to burn down hotels full of human beings (a rare moment of humanising asylum seekers in British politics) and praising communities who came together in the riots’ aftermath to rebuild. Note he didn’t go as far as the King, but again thanked the police and first responders for their service. Starmer therefore condemns the riots as a failure of Tory statecraft, passes over the role of communities and anti-fascists in defending themselves, praises the spirit of resilience, and then returns to the agents of the state as the legitimate saviours of the situation.
The second part was focused on the state itself. Starmer talked a lot about the £22bn “black hole” in state finances which, in reality, only exists because of how the Chancellor has chosen to frame public spending. Hence the tough decision of scrapping the Winter Fuel Allowance for all pensioners not in receipt of pension credits. This is being taken away so the NHS can be fixed. Likewise, when challenged on above inflation pay rises for public sector workers and railway workers, Starmer’s defence owed nothing to the injustices these deals partly correct and everything to economic efficiency, getting the health service working, and so on. It was the right decision not by the workers, but by the state.
Labour’s disdain for conducting impact assessments on the effects of its cuts and austerity reaches the ‘MSM’ – 11 months after Skwawkbox exclusively revealed it
The Telegraph has today reported that right-wing Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves carried out ‘no impact assessment’ before ‘withdrawing winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners, the Telegraph can reveal’.
The right-wing rag is a little late to the party. Skwawkbox revealed exclusively eleven months ago that Labour undertook no impact for any of its plans on vulnerable people, whether pensioners, the disabled, the poor, the ill or children.
