Keir Starmer under pressure as Labour rebels to defy PM over winter fuel payments cut – UK politics live

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-winter-fuel-payment-starmer-politics-latest-updates-b2608107.html

Posted by GeoWa

14 Comments

  1. imminentmailing463 on

    I’ve been saying for months and months that I thought Labour would have a very short honeymoon period in government. Have to say, even I did think it would be longer than it has been though.

  2. TheClemDispenser on

    This is a bizarre hill for Labour MPs to die on, considering the state pension is increasing by £400. I know pensioners are *the* voting block so far as politicians are concerned, but I really hoped we’d seen the back of this kind of fawning with the Conservatives gone.

  3. Look lets just keep assuming every pensioner is poor and can’t afford heating – we’ll just also assume every young person is struggling with rent and mortgage costs and give everyone housing benefit as well.

  4. FirefighterEnough859 on

    Surely if the winter fuel payments were such a big deal all labour has to do is wait because there’s at least 4 winters before the next election and all the people who get it would have frozen to death and aren’t a concern anymore /s

  5. From a strictly strategic sense allowing this vote is a disaster as now all outcomes lead to looking weak except the rather small likelihood that they all vote for it (which would beg the question of what the point was).

    Another point to make is that if there’s a lot of rebels then they’re going to be more likely to rebel in the future.

    Edit: With some additional thinking there is a possibility that in fact this was intended to be a sacrificial policy to manage expectations for the rest of their policy platform.

  6. So, SIR Kier… Knight of the realm… Who Is also a Ritch dude who took a knee before a king who claims “god gives me authority to rule over ALL people”… Well…. It turns out He isn’t a leftist, and wants to fuck over the poor?

    I’m shocked.

  7. I am a labour supporter but do feel this has been badly handled. An introduction of means tested benefits before taking this help away would have been a more acceptable option. I hope it doesn’t cause the unrest in government that we could do without.

  8. They also stated that one-third of pensioners entitled to pension credits did not currently claim . That and means testing, might alleviate the majority of the issue 🤔

  9. Fucking hell, I can’t wait to be a pensioner because MP’s will actually *want* to fight for my best interests.