Labour MPs need to grow a backbone and remember who voted for them - Christa Ackroyd

Sadly I was wrong. As public sector workers were given wage rises above the rate of inflation, pensioners were told sorry, you are the first victims of the ‘tough decisions’ we are being ‘forced’ to make.

As if life for so many of them isn’t tough enough already.

How about starting with the energy companies making billions from the still exorbitant cost of fuel? It’s not just heating some pensioners fear they can’t afford, but eating too.

Labour is wrong. The country believes so. Many of their own MPs believe so. Yet the legacy of a large majority meant it went sailing through the Commons while all the House of Lords could do was offer their ‘regret.’

Well regret won’t pay the bills will it? So much for the checks and balances of an upper chamber. If they can’t be more forceful over the scrapping of a lifeline to millions of pensioners this winter, then it is they who should be scrapped.

No doubt their ermine will keep them warm. I am all for those who are well off, even comfortable, not receiving benefits the country can ill afford. I am also not stupid.

The billions of pounds the Covid measures cost us, not forgetting the huge sums wasted on dodgy PPE, has to be paid back.

But if anyone genuinely believes the first people to suffer are those who have worked hard all their lives and now deserve a peaceful, stress free retirement, then I suggest you are out of touch with reality.

As for Labour MPs under threat of being thrown out of the party and voting against their principles, they should ask themselves who they are there to serve? Party or people ?

I have been trying to get some facts and figures for you until my brain hurts. I know the cut off point for pension credit is around £13,000 per annum.

I understand that unless you are eligible you will not receive the winter fuel allowance introduced around 20 years ago by Gordon Brown when fuel prices were tiny by comparison.

What I fail to understand is how a pensioner on anywhere near that sum can afford to live, let alone well, if that is thousands of pounds below the minimum wage deemed necessary to survive.

Well the £1.4 billion it will save the Treasury might just as well be chucked at the NHS as more pensioners seek treatment for bronchitis or pneumonia.

And so whichever way you look at it pensioners, so often reluctant to bother the doctor or make a fuss, will die.

If that were true when Theresa May considered scrapping the winter fuel allowance (she didn’t) why is it any different now when arguably times are even more difficult? And to think the new Prime Minister used the plight of pensioners in his election campaign.

I had high hopes for this Government after the shambles of the past few years. I felt they cared about those less fortunate in society.

Those hopes were wrecked in one fell swoop when the first major policy change targeted the very people the Government should be helping, those who often have the least. And don’t give me that old chestnut about the black hole being deeper and darker than they ever thought it would be.

They have had years in opposition to ask questions that are a matter of public record. I cynically suggest pensioners were the first to bear the brunt because they are the ones whose voice is weakest and who largely just get on and manage without too much complaint.

It is also estimated that of the two million who might be eligible for pension credit and therefor the winter fuel allowance almost half won’t apply.

And that’s not only because they are too proud to do so but because the whole system is so complicated.

As I read it anyone on a full state pension is already over the pension credit threshold of £218.15 a week.

And that means despite years of campaigning by government and money experts to top up your National Insurance contributions, if you have done so you will get get a big fat zilch over and above that which you have worked for.

And if you have saved hard for retirement, as we are constantly being urged to do, money will be deducted for every penny over £10,000 you have in the bank. If I am wrong about my calculations forgive me.

I haven’t waded through it all but those who have claim it’s 243 questions and 24 pages long before you get to discover whether you are even eligible. Either way it is not a good look.

Age UK say two million pensioners will suffer hardship as a result of Labour’s decision. The Rowntree Trust says it will increase the number of elderly people living in fuel poverty.

And yet so far claims of distress, even death, are falling on deaf ears. Or rather silenced voices. One of the nastier parts of this policy has been Labour’s attempts to silence the critics from within.

Only one Labour MP Jon Trickett who represents a West Yorkshire constituency, had the guts to vote against it and face sanctions from a party who have already taken action against the seven MPs who defied the whip and voted to scrap the two child benefit cap.

Well I have known Jon for more than 30 years. And am glad he at least had the courage of his convictions. What happened to the others is what I want to know? Abstention is another word for apathy.

Or cowardice if being told how to vote in practice about a decision they bemoan in private is the way our politics now works. Democracy in action it is not.

I know many pensioners cast their vote in May having met their prospective MP on the doorstep. They read the leaflets pushed through their doors and made their decision based on their judgement that this man or this woman would serve them well.

Well expect short shrift next time you come knocking unless you summon up the courage of your convictions from somewhere and start doing what you are paid to do and that is represent those who voted you in.

Labour cannot continue to justify this policy. They cannot point to the fact that pensions are set to rise in April by £460 a year. That is too little too late.

And let’s not forget Great Britain is the world’s sixth largest economy yet languishes 16th in the table of pension payments in Europe alone, when cost of living is taken into account.

The Labour party conference begins in Liverpool in the heart of red wall country. It is historically a hard working area and one of the most deprived, which is why I am sure Labour chose to go there rather than Brighton or Harrogate or any other more affluent suburb.

I do hope the Liverpudlians will not be backwards in coming forwards when it comes to make their feelings known.

Just as I hope every Labour MP stops for a moment to remember who voted them in and why. And grow a backbone.