To say that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government in the UK has started with the wrong foot is almost an understatement.
Involved in a scandal of irregularly accepting free clothes for his wife, paying an unacceptably high salary his chief of staff, and unveiling a slew of unpopular and tyrannical policies and legislation projects – it’s a mess.
His popularity immediately tanked as a considerable portion of voters have ‘buyers regret’ for supporting him.
Now, if things were not bad enough, HIS OWN PARTY has turned against him, as yesterday (25) members of his Labour Party dealt the Premier a blow, rejecting his decision to cut payments that offset winter heating costs for millions of retirees.
“The vote on the final day of Labour’s annual conference is not binding, but it’s a setback to Starmer’s efforts to unite his center-left party around the contentious measure.
Since winning office in July, Starmer has cautioned that the dire state of the public finances inherited from the last Conservative government means he must make hard choices such as ending the winter fuel allowance, worth between 200 and 300 pounds ($262 and $393), for all but the poorest pensioners.”
Trade unions and allies organized a resistance to the cut at the Labour conference in Liverpool, northwest England.
A vote was held on a party demand that the decision to cut the fuel allowance be reversed.
The rejection of Starmer’s plan was narrowly approved in a ‘show-of-hands’ vote amid cheers and jeers in the conference hall.
“’I do not understand how our new Labour government can cut the winter fuel payment for pensioners and leave the super-rich untouched’, said Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, to applause from delegates. ‘This is not what people voted for. It is the wrong decision and it needs to be reversed’.”
Starmer, for his part, promised the withdrawal of the heating allowance would be compensated by an ‘above-inflation increase in the state pension’ and other measures to reduce poverty.
Secretary Liz Kendall told delegates that “this Labour government has done more to help the poorest pensioners in the last two months than the Tories did in 14 years” – but they weren’t convinced.
“Starmer tried to unite the party and appeal to a skeptical electorate in his first conference speech as prime minister on Tuesday, telling voters exhausted by years of political and economic turmoil that better times are on the way — if they swallow his recipe of short-term pain for long-term gain.”
He will cut public spending and increase taxes to try to achieve economic growth ‘to fund schools, hospitals, roads, railways and more’.
“Starmer acknowledged some of those decisions would be unpopular, but said: ‘We will turn our collar up and face the storm’.”
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