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Keir Starmer faces fresh pressure over winter fuel cuts as petition passes huge milestone

Sir Keir Starmer is facing fresh pressure over winter fuel payment cuts after a petition demanding a U-turn passed 100,000 signatures.

The petition by the Silver Voices campaign group for older people hit the major milestone today.

Sir Keir Starmer

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is under increased pressure over winter fuel payment cuts (Image: PA)

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer saw off a Labour rebellion to ram through the controversial policy to limit the allowance to only the poorest pensioners in a crunch Commons vote earlier this week.

Silver Voices director Dennis Reed said: “The Chancellor and Prime Minister must take account of the widespread anger from older people that their essential winter fuel support is being scrapped.

“With the current cold snap in many parts of the UK I am already hearing from members who are struggling to keep warm.

Starmer sẽ tiếp tục cắt giảm sau khi đối mặt với phe nổi loạn về khoản thanh toán nhiên liệu mùa đông

“Now that Labour has shown its authority over its MPs it is time for the Government to compromise, by ensuring in the budget that energy support is provided to all those pensioners on modest incomes”.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves sparked a backlash in July when she announced that winter fuel payments would be restricted to only those on pension credit.

She blamed a £22 billion black hole in the public finances left by the Tories, which they have denied.

The payments of up to £300 a year were previously available to all pensioners regardless of income or benefits.

The policy will reduce the number of recipients from about 10.8 million last winter to an estimated 1.5 million this year, saving £1.3 billion.

Starmer xác nhận không có đánh giá tác động nào được thực hiện đối với việc thắt chặt thanh toán nhiên liệu mùa đông | Ipswich Star

MPs voted 348 to 228 in favour of the move last Tuesday, rejecting a Conservative bid for the measure to be blocked.

But the Government has been under pressure from the Tories to publish an impact assessment of the plan.

The Prime Minister on Friday insisted there isn’t a report on my desk” showing the impact of his Government’s decision to strip the allowance from millions of pensioners.

Downing Street confirmed that a full impact assessment of the change had not been carried out.

The Daily Express is campaigning for winter fuel payments to be saved for all pensioners.

SEE MORE : 

Keir Starmer has scored a massive own-goal for Labour with Rachel Reeves’ help

What a spectacular display of gross ineptitude Sir “Two-Tier” Keir Starmer has demonstrated during the few short months whence he became resident at 10 Downing Street.

Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer has displayed remarkable ineptitude (Image: PA)

The Labour election triumph will ultimately prove to have been a decidedly pyrrhic achievement, clear evidence of which is emerging on an almost daily basis.

Oh, we can bemoan “Two-Tier” for a multitude of policy clangers during his thus far brief sojourn in government, but none of them come close to the kick in the groin to ten million of our pensioners. Three hundred nicker doesn’t sound like much does it? But to millions of our senior citizens, it’s a godsend that literally keeps them warm in the depths of winter.

The grotesquely harsh decision to axe these payments when measured against partisan political gestures to their union paymasters is truly shocking on its own.

But perhaps even worse is the shameless taxpayer-funded heating allowances claimed by many Labour MPs on their second homes. Note, Possums, that Rachel Reeves (she’s our chancellor, don’t you know?) DEFENDED her claims made over recent years.

Rachel Reeves

Rachel Reeves claimed for taxpayer-funded heating (Image: PA)

Moreover, it has also just emerged that “Two-Tier” has admitted that NO direct impact study was undertaken before these draconian measures were announced. Indeed, his deputy spokesperson stated the only assessment made before this odious policy announcement was a standard legal one of potential equalities impacts, which means what exactly?

Total bullbleep if you ask me. As the Russia hoax in the US turned out to be a total falsehood, so too will the mythical “black hole” of twenty-two billion quid get debunked as not only misleading but an outright porky! And if you don’t believe that then check out the office for budget responsibility (OBR) AND the upcoming treasury report with their prospective conclusions.

Jeremy Hunt ought to be sharpening his knives. Two-Tier grandstanding, and that of his minions, from the Despatch Box are beginning to sound very robotically hollow, which only serves to expose their ever more disingenuous deceit.

Ngài Keir Starmer phải chịu sự sỉ nhục tại Lords vì vụ bê bối nhiên liệu mùa đông | Chính trị | Tin tức | Express.co.uk

Our senior citizens are amongst the most vulnerable members of our society. After a productive lifetime of contribution and shouldering their share of the tax burden to be treated so cruelly is despicable.

This is even truer when almost in the same breath Two-Tier capitulates to his union paymasters with an inflation-busting wage rise, in return for which they still opt to strike. How does Two-Tier look directly into the camera and declare his actions are warranted by bringing an end to public transport misery, for example, and yet he achieves nothing of the kind? He knows it, and so does everyone else!

Doing the same with a straight face by blaming the Tories for pensioner suffering is equally obnoxious. Pensioners and other vulnerable people in Britain are all too easy targets for a Labour profligacy assault. Remember the recent election and their manifesto? Very little demonstrable policy substance, and certainly no inkling of what many knew would come in advocating the same old habits of Labour tax and spend.

They don’t know any better, they don’t possess a scintilla of ability to improvise adapt and overcome which should have been as clear as daylight if they had in fact been so blindsided as they piously claim.

No, Labour has NOT changed and it’s going to be a return to the 1970’s big time. This was forcefully brought home to me when a dear friend remarked after the election result had been declared that he was “so pleased at the return of sensible and practical policies of yesteryear being like a breath of fresh air”. That sums it up in a nutshell.

Sự sỉ nhục dành cho Keir Starmer khi mức độ nổi tiếng của Thủ tướng giảm xuống mức thấp kỷ lục trong cuộc thăm dò gây chấn động | Chính trị | Tin tức | Express.co.uk

My friend, like me, has the great good fortune to be of sufficiently independent means so as not to be reliant on Government benefits. Our pensioners don’t have that luxury as the available detailed statistics clearly show beyond any doubt.

Two-Tier appears invincible with his overall parliamentary majority. Pontificating from his lofty perch merely confirms his sense of a comfortably cocooned existence in the Westminster bubble. But he will, as indeed others have before him, get a sense of how fickle this can all be once you’re encircled and about to be annihilated.

We urgently need the leadership of a coherent and solidly anchored opposition who undeniably stand for the silent majority. Our dear pensioners need that; our society as a whole needs that to motivate a sustained drive in casting off the shackles of such a cruel and insensitive government so tone-deaf as to defy belief.

The Tories have been gifted a rare opportunity to strike back after such a bruising defeat, so, God willing they don’t blow it by infighting. The parliamentary representation numbers don’t effectively paint the extent of opposition to Labour. This means that the two biggest obstacles to Labour control of the narrative need to start hunting as a pack. They need to pick their targets and be ruthless in their political evisceration of them, and they need to do this very publicly having seized the moral high ground.

Labour is there for the taking. Their abysmal short-lived performance to date will only gather momentum, literally (make of that what you will). Pound this lot and send them packing!

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