Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, told the Today programme this morning that Keir Starmer should be “big enough and brave enough” to perform a U-turn on the plan to means-test the winter fuel allowance. She said:
We need to make sure that [Starmer] is making the right choices and leadership is about choices. He needs to be big enough and brave enough to do a U-turn on this choice. It’s completely wrong.
People do not understand how a Labour government has decided to pick the pocket of pensioners and, at the same time, leave the richest in our society totally untouched. That is wrong and he needs to change course.
Graham said Britain could not afford another round of austerity.
I’m a trade union leader and my job is to defend workers. I also have 100,000 pensioners in the union … and I’m talking on behalf of those as well today. The point here is, when you’re hearing words [like] ‘tough choices’, that says to me ‘cuts’.
And this country cannot go through another round of austerity, it’s not possible for people to go through another round of austerity. If it quacks like a duck and it looks like a duck, it’s a duck.
And she renewed her call for a wealth tax instead.
Let’s be really clear here, this is saving minutiae in terms of money. It’s £1.2bn in saving. And at the same time you’ve got the 50 richest families in Britain worth £500bn. £500bn in the hands of the 50 richest families.
Why has Labour made a choice to not tax the 1% wealthiest, which would get £25bn back into the pot, black hole gone, £3bn left over? Why have they decided to put pensioners through pain to save £1.2bn, which quite frankly doesn’t touch the sides of this so-called black hole? It’s wrong-footed, they should change their decision and he needs to be big enough and brave enough to say ‘look I’ve made an error here’. People make errors. Leadership is about making choices and knowing when you’ve done something wrong.
This morning the Daily Mail has splashed, approvingly, on a Corbyn-era Labour party press release. When Jeremy Corbyn was actually leading the party the paper never gave him credit for anything, but this morning it is pointing out that during the 2017 general election campaign, after Theresa May included plans to means-test the winter fuel payment in the Conservative party manifesto, Labour released analysis saying this policy could kill 4,000 people.
In their story Martin Beckford and Andrew Pierce say:
Published during the 2017 election campaign, the research said: ‘Since the introduction of the winter fuel payment by Labour in 1997, allowing for significant variation in winter weather, deaths among the elderly have fallen from around 34,000 to 24,000.
Half of the almost 10,000 decrease in so-called ‘excess winter deaths’ – the rise in mortality that occurs each winter – between 2000 and 2012 was due to the introduction of the winter fuel allowance.’
Last night one Labour MP told the Mail: ‘This is blatant hypocrisy. All those now reversing Gordon Brown’s winter fuel allowance were Labour MPs when we fought against Theresa May’s government’s plans to scrap it in 2017.
Asked about the Labour claim from 2017 in her interview on the Today programme, Diana Johnson, a Home Office minister, did not try to challenge the logic of the analysis. Instead she stressed that the government is trying to get more pensioners to claim pension credit and that, as a result of the triple lock, pensioners will get a decent rise in their state pension.
Sky News has broadcast some footage from the Downing Street meeting this morning, where Keir Starmer is launching the Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime. Idris Elba, the actor who has campaigned on this issue, is among those attending.
Good morning. When Keir Starmer says he is willing to take tough, unpopular decisions as PM, he is using language leaders have relied on for centuries, often quite effectively. But the problem with this approach is that it is not just a rhetorical device; it can get very, very tough, and it might make you exceedingly unpopular. This week, with MPs voting on the plan to means-test the winter fuel payments tomorrow, and peers voting on it on Wednesday, Starmer is facing arguably the first serious test of his resolve on the “tough decisions” front as PM. It won’t be his last.
Judging by events this morning, he is holding firm. Government sources have said that a minister was wrong this morning when she implied ministers are considering watering down the plans to means-test the winter fuel payment.
Critics are angry because – under the proposal announced by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, in July – only the very poorest pensioners, those claiming pension credit, will continue to get the winter fuel allowance, which is worth up to £300 per person. More than a million pensions who are regarded as living in poverty will still lose the allowance, according to some estimates. Diana Johnson, a Home Office minister, was doing an interview round this morning (she was meant to be talking about knife crime) and on the Today programme she was asked by Mishal Husain if the government would consider means-testing the winter fuel allowance in a more generous way, allowing more pensioners on low and moderate incomes to keep it. Johnson twice insisted that she was not privy to these discussions, and that it was a matter for the Treasury and the DWP. But when Husain asked her a third time, saying that one idea is for pensioners in council tax bands A to D to carry on getting the winter fuel payment, and another is for a social tariff that would force firms to offer cheaper energy to poor pensioners, Johnson replied:
I am sure across government all these measures are being looked at.
In context, this sounded more like Johnson trying to give a slightly more sophisticated version of the ‘I don’t know’ answer (in theory government is always looking at ideas if people are talking about them). But Johnson’s comment could have been interpreted as implying that ministers are actively planning some sort of U-turn, and within minutes the government briefing machine was in action to say that no concession is on the way. This is from Henry Zeffman, the BBC’s chief political correspondent.
Government sources saying that Home Office minister Diana Johnson misspoke this morning when she said that the Treasury was looking at ways to soften the impact of the winter fuel allowance cut, including a social tariff for energy bills
I will post more from Johnson’s interview round soon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Keir Starmer hosts a meeting on knife crime at 4Downing Street.
10am: Ros Altmann, a former Tory pensions minister who is leading attempts in the Lords to block the proposed cut to the winter fuel payment, speaks at a Resolution Foundation conference.
10am: The Covid inquiry module looking at the impact of the pandemic on healthcare opens, with statements from counsel.
11am: Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, speaks at the TUC conference in Brighton.
Lunchtime: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, takes question in the Commons.
4pm: The five Tory leadership candidates still in the contest hold a hustings with MPs in private.
6pm: Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is due to address Labour MPs in private at the parliamentary Labour party.
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