Starmer ‘known around the world’ for cutting winter fuel payments for pensioners, top economist says

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/starmer-winter-fuel-payments-local-elections-b2745018.html

by weregonnamakit

26 comments

  2. The problem with British politics in a nutshell. Ignore party political strategy for a second. Cutting a bribe, however minuscule in scale and relevance, is so politically toxic how do we tackle more costly, more relevant policies that are equally embroiled in emotional reasoning.

  3. I hope everyone remembers how crazy you all went on Labour means testing winter fuel payments when Reform get in and slash the hell out of benefits across the board, before then going after the minimum wage and workers rights…

  4. Hey, does anyone remember when we shut down the economy, borrowed 400bn and young people gave up a year of their lives to protect the elderly?

    We were told its because we were all in it together, so surely the elderly don’t mind taking a hit due to financial situation we now find ourselves in, there’s no way they’re hypocrites that only meant “we’re all in this together” when it was about other people making sacrifices for them, and not the other way round

  5. Most people outside of Europe don’t know who starmer is, let alone what he did in one obscure part of fiscal policy. 

    This guy is a muppet.

  6. Or in other words, stopped giving free money to around 3.1 million (27%) over 65 who are millionaires or 6.8 million (53%) over 65 who have wealth exceeding £500,000

    Whist still allowed the poorest people in society, including those over 65 to keep the fuel payment.

  7. Oh hey, a tidal wave of anti-Labour headlines in the buildup to a Conservative uprising led by a man with strong ties to Russian oligarchs and Donald Trump? I think I’ve seen this one before.

  8. I very much doubt this is true. I live in the UK and had already forgotten that his government did that.
    He is probably known for supporting Ukraine and for not speaking out against Israel. For not speaking out against Trump when he threatens the sovereignty of Canada and Greenland.

  9. Starmer should be proud of that.

    It is immoral to borrow to pay a benefit to well-off people.

  10. Amazing how the right can just cause absolute havoc, reap utter devastation, be involved in constant scandals, run every public service into the ground, cut all funding and budgets whilst still crippling the economy, push absurd blundering unlikeable caricatures of human beings to the most important jobs in the land who achieve literally nothing, take backhanders, asset strip the country selling off everything to rich foreigners, do literally nothing about the topics their base care about like migration, ruin our position in global trade, decimate the UK’s global standing and soft power, overtly lie and disinform the electorate…but then still somehow be able to turn around and devastatingly label the opposition over something like means assessed benefits for the wealthiest generation in history AND get it to stick. They can literally fuck up the entire country and then say “but have you seen Ed Miliband eat a bacon sandwich” and effectively end a career.

    Reform can somehow push a generationally wealthy, privately educated, City of London stockbroker, whose father was also a City of London stockbroker, as a man of the people and working classes. A man who openly lied to Brexit voters about NHS getting an additional £350 million a week, only to then openly say he wants to scrap the NHS now anyway. How? How do people support this? And how are they so entrenched and hostile? Then they claim Starmer, a man whose dad made tools and mum was a nurse, who’s spent his life grafting as a human rights lawyer, literally fighting for our rights, is out of touch. A man literally knighted for exceptional service the country.

    This country does my fucking head in. The right just lie and lie and lie, contribute absolutely nothing, then scream like victims.

    And to add, no one outside the UK knows anything about our winter fuel allowances. This article is just more dog shit intending to further entrench the right that Starmer makes us look bad, is a bad PM, everyone disagrees with him etc etc. what actually made us look like morons to the world was Brexit.

  11. Known around the world for cutting winter fuel payments? I am a Brit living outside the UK, I can confidently say that for the vast majority of non-Brits it would probably come near the bottom of the list of things he is known for, if they had heard of it at all.

  12. Starmer is barely known within the UK.

    The he is “known around the world” for anything is a wild statement. People around the world has no idea who Starmer is.

    This is like saying he is world-famous, but mostly world-famous within the UK.

  13. Well worth noting that the opposition didn’t have an issue with the threshold. They had an issue with means testing in the first place. I don’t remember anyone in opposition calling for a higher threshold.

  14. Oh, for heaven’s sake, here we go again. The Milk Snatcher rerun for Keir Starmer? Give it a rest, you dreary gits.

    He didn’t exactly swan in and snatch the last lump of coal from Tiny Tim’s grate, did he? What he actually did – and brace yourselves for this display of radical common sense – was apply a bit of means testing to the winter fuel payment. Yes, I know, shocking! The horror! It means the cash goes where it’s actually needed. To the old souls who aren’t exactly sunning themselves in Barbados for six months of the year. The ones with overflowing offshore accounts? Tough. Time they felt a bit of a nip, frankly, instead of hoovering up benefits meant for those less, shall we say, fortunate in the filthy lucre department.

    Trying to get a fix on Starmer politically is like trying to nail fog, I’ll grant you. His pre-premiership life feels like a particularly dull documentary you fell asleep watching. He has *however* demonstrated a level of social conscience at different points. Rendering the “heartless blanket snatcher” thing comical. It’s not just disingenuous though. it’s the sort of cynically manufactured outrage that makes you want to hurl your lukewarm tea at the nearest wall. It’s a lie, plain and simple, churned out by the usual suspects.

    And the truly stomach-churning part?
    The fact that a certain purported glove puppet of a certain tangerine-hued demagogue across the pond – step right up, Nigel Farage and your merry band of mischief-makers! – a man with all the discernible social conscience of a garden gnome, is actually gaining traction with this sort of grubby, right-wing pantomime. It’s a terrifying testament to the power of persistent smears and the depressing gullibility of some of the electorate,

    Next.

  15. Cut benefits to the worst off in the country ✅

    Means test the wealthiest group of individuals from getting benefits ❌

    No doubt he’s ’known around the world’ by the conservatives as opposed to everyone globally.

  16. I think I’m fed up with old people moaning. They already get a lot given to them like free eye tests and free prescriptions.

  17. ‘The World’ pub, near Slough, just off the A34, turn left at the doggers lay-by, look for the St George’s crosses.

  18. Fuck the silver vote, you did the fair thing starmer and besides a vocal minority everyone knows it.

  19. Yeah I’m sure he’s known around the world for that 😂

    What the fuck is journalism now..

  20. Ahh yes that’s all they talk about abroad. The Chinese are very interested in winter fuel payment …. I bet the farmers in the central African republic feel great solidarity with rich pensioners losing some benefits.

  21. Good. People with properties worth millions should not be getting enabled by exploiting the working class.

    Sell your investments like adults.

  22. This affected my grandparents. I’m glad, they didn’t need it, they still don’t need it and they’re not even upset about losing it. They own their place, all the debts are long since paid off and they’re comfortable on their pensions. Means testing is a good thing.

  23. If there’s one lesson to take fron this, it’s that pensioners are untouchable politically.

    Considering the push back on this, there’s no way that something like the triple lock will ever be touched.

  25. Is he now?

    Abdullah in Baghdad, Cletus from Louisiana, Xhao from Nanking and Ivan from rural Siberia all have strong opinions on whether or not the UK should means test its domestic welfare system do they?

  26. Cutting fuel payments to pensioners who didn’t need them.

    People like my dad who gets a generous private pension, has a house worth 750k with no mortgage and until recently had two homes he rented out.

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