Sir U-Turn Strikes Again as Starmer Backtracks on Winter Fuel Allowance
Sir U-Turn strikes again as Keir Starmer announced today a backtrack on the winter fuel allowance as he faces a growing rebellion among Labour MPs amid a slump in the polls. The Mail has more.
Taking PMQs, Sir Keir defended the decision to strip nine million older people of the payments soon after taking power.
But he said “as the economy improves” the Government will look at the threshold for receiving the cash – worth up to £300.
He suggested the detail will only be announced at “a future fiscal event” – with the next one the Autumn Budget. That typically happens in November or even December, raising doubts about whether the shift will happen for this winter.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir dodged on whether taxes might have to rise again to fund the volte face, after it emerged Angela Rayner has been pushing for more hikes on savers and the wealthy.
Only those on pension credit are still entitled to winter fuel, with the measure partly blamed for the disastrous crash in the Government’s popularity.
A poll today [from More in Common] showed Reform eight points ahead of Labour in the wake of its local elections surge.
Sir Keir has been facing the threat of a revolt over that policy, as well as curbs to working age benefits.
There has been growing speculation that the leadership is looking for a way out, potentially by scaling back the cuts.
But it is thought there are practical difficulties with lowering the threshold for receiving winter fuel allowance, with IT systems struggling to differentiate between income levels.
Worth reading in full.
Time for a singalong.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
If there’s one lesson I’ve learnt since I first became aware of Keir Starmer, it’s this: “Never believe a single word that leaves his lips.” I just hope the electorate as a whole is finally cottoning on.
Those of us ‘of a certain age’ will recognise that as:
Q: How can you tell if a politician is lying?
A: Their lips move.
Sir Keir is certainly an excellent example of it. The flapping of policies which seem to be intended to get more money for the government to spend always seems to be justified by appeals to ‘fairness’ and then are reversed again for exactly the same reason. It would be far more honest if they just itemised and prioritised what they intend to spend our money on in good time for people to vote on it at election time.
Starmer and the truth are strangers to each other.I’ll be pragmatic on net zero, says Starmer according to the Telegraph on 7 April 2025. …Sir Keir also refused to rule out changing Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules during the current Parliament.The Chancellor’s self-imposed rules mean that she cannot borrow to fund day-to-day spending. Debt also has to be falling as a share of the UK’s income by the end of the five-year forecast.Sir Keir said: “The fiscal rules were put in place for a purpose and that is because Liz Truss tried an experiment with this country of putting aside fiscal rules and checks and balances.“And that caused a massive impact on the lives of working people as inflation and interest rates went through the roof. We are not prepared to inflict that kind of damage on working people.“That’s why we put those fiscal rules in to create stability. He’s refused to rule out ‘changing Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules‘ but ‘we put those fiscal rules in to create stability‘? Clearly stability only matters when it’s convenient to him.’ He clearly suggested that Liz Truss’ experiment caused ‘inflation and interest rates [to go] through the roof‘ and had a ‘massive impact on… Read more »
I believe all the alleged turmoil caused by the Truss/Kwarteng mini-budget was actually orchestrated by “the Blob”. They didn’t want a Conservative party leader reverting to traditional Conservative policies and unpicking the Net Zero stitch-up, so they conspired to frame her. Sadly for the UK, it worked.
Liz Truss had the right idea but in order to look like she was getting things done she rushed into it. It is amazing to think that the Bank of England neglected to tell her that they were selling off some of the quantative easing bonds just at that moment….or was it deliberate. And who knew – or should have done – that the pensions industry was playing casino games in the form of LDIs with people’s pension money?
He’s basically a cassette tape player. Just change the tape as required.
Where do you insert it?
If this happens I will be happy for anyone for whom it makes a big difference (unless they voted Labour) but really this just masks the fundamental issue of our stupid market distorting energy policies, without which this “allowance” would probably not be needed. We should also remember that an “allowance” from the state is either just giving us back some money that has been taken from us, or giving us money taken from someone else.
Yes. Creating the problem in the first place is a loss to the economy, ameliorating the effect on some is a further loss to the economy.
The Winter fuel allowance is a tax on others. It will be funded by borrowing and the bill dumped on those others – a stealth tax.
The solution would be increase State pension by £8 a week, and cut pay to public sector workers (Labour’s paymasters) to “pay” for it.
Or better yet – get rid of Net Zero.
If anyone thinks this is a U-turn they don’t know their political alphabet. All Sir K has said is that he wants ‘more people eligible’. Well, how many people? How eligible? When? To describe this as a ‘partial U-turn’ is even more politically illiterate.
Anyone can say that they want children to have more ice cream. It’s not even that the PM can be dubbed Sir Promise-a-Lot. This announcement is just verbal material extruded from the green benches.
As with so much else of this sort of material it allows the electorate to deceive themselves while shielding the producer of these vibrations in the air from any charge of deceit. It would be much less offensive to be told outright lies.
10 million pensioners don’t forget neither do farmers, private schools ,chagosians and believers in free speech.
Two-Tier’s latest U-Turn won’t make a scrap of difference to Labour’s polling.
The damage has been done: it’s permanent.
Two Tier will suffer from the same problem as Olukemi Adegoke – who would believe them going forwards?