POLITICAL parties who are in opposition have the freedom to say basically whatever they like.
That’s why Scottish Labour are constantly spouting off about lack of funding for Scottish services – and just as constantly refusing to say where any new money should come from. No to tax rises, no to more borrowing powers.
But while Scottish Labour remain out of power at Holyrood, their UK counterparts have taken over at Westminster – and some of the things they said while in opposition are coming back to bite them.
Take David Lammy, the now-Foreign Secretary, who in March urged the Tory government to publish its legal advice on whether Israeli arms exports were unlawful. Now, he’s in government, and Lammy hasn’t published that legal advice.
More of Labour’s willingness to talk but not act has been revealed by Rachel Reeves’s decision to cut back Winter Fuel Payments for people who don’t claim benefits.
Charity Age Scotland has said it is already receiving calls from people “distressed by the announcement and worried about what lies ahead”, and warned that the Labour cut will impact people who “are living on incomes just above the pension credit threshold”.
Perhaps that would explain why Labour used to be opposed to any cuts to the Winter Fuel Payment – and put a pledge to “slash fuel poverty” in their election manifesto.
But those words seem to have evaporated now they're in power.
According to Hansard, the official record of what was said in the UK Parliament, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has only mentioned the Winter Fuel Payment once, to warn the Tories off touching it.
Raising a potential £46 billion black hole in the UK’s finances if the Tories scrapped national insurance, Starmer said in May: “Last year, the prime minister was apparently drawing up plans to remove the winter fuel allowance from pensioners. His paymaster general went a step further, saying ‘these are the sorts of things I think we need to look at’.
“Will the prime minister now rule out taking pensioners’ winter fuel payments off them to help fund his £46bn black hole?”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves also condemned any suggestion that the Tories could bring in a means-tested Winter Fuel Payment when it was floated as an idea in September 2023.
"They should not be breaking those commitments,” she told Sky News, adding: "One thing I would be doing if I was chancellor today would be to have a proper windfall tax on the huge profits that the big energy giants are making and use that money to help people with their bills."
Aye, right.
But it doesn’t end there. In November 2023, Darren Jones – who is now Labour’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury – similarly postured.
Sharing a letter he had penned to then chancellor Jeremy Hunt on social media, Jones wrote: “The paymaster general has suggested stripping some older people of the Winter Fuel Payment.
“I’ve written to the Chancellor asking him to clarify whether he is considering this for the Autumn Statement.
“Pensioners mustn’t be forced to bear the brunt of Tory economic failure.”
Except, now they must be forced to bear the brunt of Labour’s decisions, it seems.
The Paymaster General has suggested stripping some older people of the Winter Fuel Payment. I’ve written to the Chancellor asking him to clarify whether he is considering this for the Autumn Statement. Pensioners mustn’t be forced to bear the brunt of Tory economic failure. pic.twitter.com/Yn5eRE7XsV
— Darren Jones MP (@darrenpjones) November 20, 2023
John Hawksworth, the former chief economist in PwC’s UK business, shared Jones’s old post on social media and wrote: “In the letter below from Nov 2023, Darren Jones seemed adamantly opposed to limiting Winter Fuel Payments, but now it’s Labour policy.
“I guess he’d say fiscal circumstances have changed but that’s not really true. What’s changed is now we’re on the other side of the election.”
Tory ideas are now being delivered by a Labour government. Who could have guessed?
