Being tough

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There are a few lonely voices within the Labour Party calling on Starmer and Reeves to reverse their decision on the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners as the implications, particularly for those just above the threshold for claiming pension credit, become clearer. But with Starmer declaring that things are going to get worse before they start to get better, it seems highly unlikely that there is any sort of U-turn on the horizon. We can forget the detail of the argument; a new government which has declared that it will take tough decisions isn’t going to reverse one of the toughest just weeks into its term of office, no matter how silly the decision comes to look. The same is true about the two-child cap on benefits and none of the signals emerging from Downing Street suggest any likelihood of an early change in that policy either. We’re more likely to get a committee or a commission to look at a long term solution to poverty and, in the meantime, Labour have decided that pushing a large number of pensioners into fuel poverty (and keeping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty), is an essential element of demonstrating their willingness to be tough.

It's not even clear that there is any particular political benefit to their actions either. With the Tories – and even Reform – criticising the decision on the fuel allowance, Labour are hardly going to prise votes away from those parties by their performative toughness. Whilst it’s true that pensioners are the only demographic still more likely to vote Tory rather than Labour, it doesn’t follow that all pensioners vote Tory. That demographic is itself split by income: the poorest pensioners are the ones most likely to vote Labour. Cutting their income is a policy which seems to be deliberately designed to hurt the party’s own supporters. But if the policy itself is cruel and unnecessary, and it has no obvious political benefit (indeed, it has a clear political downside), why stick as doggedly to it as Reeves seems determined to do? It appears that being tough, being seen to be tough, and refusing to reconsider a decision – whatever the evidence might say – have now become ends in themselves, and depriving pensioners (as well as children) of a decent lifestyle is the price that has to be paid for that. It’s part of their self-image, it is what they think distinguishes them from others, it is how they now define themselves. It’s an expression of what has become their only core political philosophy. And it’s a thoroughly depressing prospect.