Winter Fuel Allowance U-Turn — Labour Minister: “I’ve been out defending this extremely unpopular policy. Now I’m going to have to defend the climb-down. I feel I’ve been forced to eat a sandwich with faecal matter in it, twice”



by bottish

20 comments

  5. Absolute disaster of a policy decision from the beginning.

    1. It doesn’t save that much money to begin with
    2. It hits a perceived* vulnerable group
    3. It’s not a very Labour decision, at a time when people were looking for a better, nicer government**
    4. It pissed off many nice Labour people
    5. The comms on its implementation were absolutely terrible
    6. U-Turns are never good in politics, even when justified, as it gives the opposition ammunition
    7. They encouraged *more* pensioners to sign up for pension credits, now the scheme will cost us more
    8. The comms on it’s reversal seem to be equally as poor as it’s implementation

    Personally, I am not against the initial decision. I don’t believe wealthy pensioners ought to get it. However, I didn’t think it was a necessary decision when there were other, and likely more popular, decisions they could have made to save/raise money.

    I did feel that the threshold could be higher. It looks like a higher threshold might be how they address the mess… so I kind of get what I wanted. Though I expect many within the party will be pushing for a full reinstatement. So we’ll see.

    ^(*I know, not all pensioners are wealthy. But, as a group, they are among the wealthiest.)

    ^(** Personal opinion, but most I know who voted for them didn’t vote for their stated policies, but voted because they wanted the Tories out.)

  6. Another Labour u-turn. I’ve honestly lost count.

  7. Life is a Jobbie sandwich and every day is just another bite. 🙃

  8. The Sarwar effect. Scream from the rafters it’s the right choice then backtrack.

  9. If you don’t want to be seen as a clown then don’t join the circus I guess lol

  10. Just when it was settling down and leaving the news cycle, they decide to review it. Why? 

  11. The problem with all these “but I had to, to keep the whip!” arguments is it does come down to this. You did not in fact have to advocate for shit you didn’t believe or like simply because if you didn’t, you’d lose the whip and not be able to keep advocating for shit you don’t believe or like. The only thing making you do this is your own dumb fucking worldview. But because you’re loyal to these people, you will keep guzzling chunks of shit.

  12. The whole thing has been shambolically handled from start to finish.

    It’s abundantly clear that labour are trying to find the least worst way out of this and they might even have made it worse now.

    This is the kind of pish that labour sunk to after the iraq war, desperate to cling to power, chasing headlines in the red tops. They can’t see the big picture and try to win battles, desperately, and end up losing wars.

  13. If they stopped their fucking war mongering and giving billions away we would be fine.

  15. I think I’ve been eating a sandwich that’s got s**** in that it’s a s**** f****** sandwich is probably what they wanted to say

  16. “Incredibly unpopular” – because it’s been misrepresented to hell and back!

    *All* retirees got an uplift of £400 in 2024 compared to 2023.

    The majority then didn’t get *an additional* boost for winter fuel, while the poorest retirees did still get this extra on top. Working people got nothing. Unemployed people got nothing. People with disabilities got nothing.

    How retirees have managed to spin this as being the victim and hard done by compared to everyone else is nothing short of *ridiculous*!

  17. This is genuinely one of those decisions where I’m not actually sure who is annoyed about this outside of the Westminister bubble, is it just being in Scotland has me insulated?

    Like, I talk politics with a fair number of people, this didn’t even come up, the disability assessment stuff did, also despite that being devolved.

    As far as I can tell the policy makes sense monetarily, it’s probably not a very Labour thing but it’s also not as bad as it’s being made out.

    While I’ve appreciated the stability of Labour and having a PM for more than 5 minutes and I appreciate someone changing their mind if they’re wrong. I really hope this isn’t a party over country thing because they’ve seen the poll numbers.

    I genuinely don’t get the decision. When it comes to unfair benefits like this, whereby one sector of the population gets free energy and the rest of us need to pay for it, and the full price of our own. It’s a pretty easy sell.

    Probably sounds heartless, but I’m very aware we are RACING towards my generation having zero savings, zero pension pot, zero hours contracts, zero NI and someone having to foot the bill, presumably with a much older population.

  18. British politics in a nutshell.

    1. New party makes a decision.
    Everyone: boooo, terrible, chuck stones.
    2. The party defends the decision.
    Everyone: boooo, terrible, chuck stones.
    3. Party changes its mind.
    Everyone: boooo, terrible, chuck stones.
    4. Suggest to the public to read a manifesto before voting.
    Everyone: book, terrible, chuck stones.
    However the problem isn’t the easily manipulated and frankly ignorant public….ever, never.

  19. Maybe – and this might be controversial – *maybe* have enough of a spine to think of your own stance on an issue?

  20. This is some serious deja vu from the Tory ministers saying the same thing verbatim, change my arse.

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