U-turn on winter fuel payments is cynical by Sir Keir Starmer - Jayne Dowle
The U-turn on winter fuel payments should be a welcome move for pensioners, but what a cynical one from Sir Keir Starmer and his government.
I’ve heard ministers pulling some very contorted strokes to justify the volte face, first denied by Downing Street when a national newspaper got hold of the rumours, then seemingly in contradiction to his own communications advisors, revealed by the Prime Minister in the Commons last week.
The public won’t believe that recently agreed international trade deals and a few interest rate cuts in a row have paid for this, especially with inflation raging and public borrowing now at £20.2bn, according to the Office for National Statistics’ figure for April. That’s a full one billion more than the £19.2bn public borrowing bill recorded for the same month last year.
Unless Starmer has found a magic money tree down the back of the sofa, it’s questionable where the money is going to come from to pay for any row-back, whatever the conditions and income cut-offs might turn out to be. The cut left all but the poorest pensioners, those claiming pension credit, £300 a year worse off.
Fiscal gymnastics aside, the Prime Minister’s risky gamble puts him in a precarious position with the public. Anyone with even a passing interest in politics knows that Reform UK made huge gains in recent elections, including taking the long-held Labour seat of Runcorn and Helsby, two regional mayors and winning 677 seats across local councils.
There was no shortage of Reform UK candidates talking about the winter fuel controversy dominating doorstep conversations with voters. It’s such an emotive issue. Regardless of how some better-off pensioners might have chosen to spend their £300 annual grant, hitting the elderly was never going to sit well with the majority of British people.
Surely if Chancellor Rachel Reeves could turn back time to last summer, when she announced the cut, she would re-think. But never expect her to admit that.
Now her boss has confirmed there’s reconsideration afoot, details to be shared at the Autumn Budget, but it’s been announced with such gaucheness it might actually do Labour more harm than good.
It’s a strategic move that shows Sir Keir Starmer as manager and damage limitation expert, rather than ideologically-led leader, and that’s a dangerous seam for his enemies to exploit.
Starmer knows that his many of his hundreds of backbenchers are restive and facing the prospect soon of a long summer recess when all kinds of mischief can be made. If he can’t trust his deputy and his Cabinet often seem at best at odds and at worst invisible in terms of connecting with the public, he’s got to step up to the plate.
You can see how he thought that announcing a re-think on winter fuel payments in Parliament would tick a number of these challenging boxes. Rumours – again – swirl that Starmer’s deputy, Angela Rayner, might be launching a leadership bid. Whether this comes to fruition or not, it’s destabilising mood music playing in the background.
His parliamentary party is already factionalising; Blue Labour, for example, led by Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton, stands for traditional working class values and trade union rights and is becoming very vociferous.
Starmer’s critics argue that whilst he has put in a good shift abroad recently, dealing diplomatically on the world stage, he’s taken his eye off the ball at home.
Those election results at the start of May were wounding, but Starmer is wrong to base his response on reaction to Reform UK. As Prime Minister, he should be leading, not firing off at a thorn in the side of his government.
This alone makes him look weak. But what makes him look weaker, and his Chancellor seem foolish, is that after months of sticking to the script that we must all – including freezing pensioners – suffer, he’s suddenly offering if not bread and circuses, then the return of a benefit his government withdrew less than a year ago.
As yet, there are no details of how winter fuel payments might be returned or re-introduced. It was easy to cut, in one fell swoop, but will prove harder to reconfigure.
It's already entirely contradictory, and complex. But added to this is the fact that Starmer is justifying it by making spurious claims relating to trade deals and interest rates. These might well be achievements to crow about, but for ordinary people, they are hardly scratching the surface of the ongoing cost of living crisis. Instead of touching a chord, he’s made himself look even more out of touch.