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Anyone worked out why Starmers shot himself in the foot over the winter fuel payment?

Posted by Ken Waldron <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Ken+Waldron' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 13, 2024, 8:55 am

Bit of a puzzle. I can't work it out unless it's part of some misconceived "tough love" perception strategy. That usually goes down well when applied to the feckless yuuff...but not so much Granny & Gramps wearing three Xmas jumpers apiece huddling round a candle.

Dead pensioners

Posted by Keith-264 <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Keith-264' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 13, 2024, 1:37 pm, in reply to "Anyone worked out why Starmers shot himself in the foot over the winter fuel payment?"

It seems to me that it's a small version of Bliar's war in Iraq. Starmer has let everyone know who is regime is for, flushed out a few rhetorical dissidents and softened everyone up for the abolition of the remnants of the NHS.

The last working-class hero in England.

Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016
Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018
Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021

He "can make tough unpopular decisions that need to be made"; NHS is next,, and/or war w Russia?. nm

Posted by marknadim <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=marknadim' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 13, 2024, 3:58 pm, in reply to "Dead pensioners"

Dead pensioners off the telly! Nm

Posted by Shyaku <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Shyaku' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 14, 2024, 9:32 am, in reply to "Dead pensioners"

"Shut it Steven you ginger bollix"....nm

Posted by Keith-264 <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Keith-264' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 14, 2024, 8:56 pm, in reply to "Dead pensioners off the telly! Nm"

The last working-class hero in England.

Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016
Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018
Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021

Re: Anyone worked out why Starmers shot himself in the foot over the winter fuel payment?

Posted by Mark Doran <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Mark+Doran+66' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 13, 2024, 3:53 pm, in reply to "Anyone worked out why Starmers shot himself in the foot over the winter fuel payment?"

It's been an attempt to rub in right from the start 'how bad things are' -- in readiness for post-labour Labour's principal policy: private capital's war on the NHS, which started yesterday with all that talk about 'fundamental reform'.

M.

Working class pensioners are not an attractive cause for the political class to support

Posted by SueC <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=SueC' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 13, 2024, 11:03 pm, in reply to "Anyone worked out why Starmers shot himself in the foot over the winter fuel payment?"

Those over 70 are one of the demographics least likely to vote Labour so there's an element of punishing them with, as Starmer probably sees it, little cost electorally. Then there's the myth of 'every other pensioner is a millionaire' spread by folk like inherited-wealth enjoying, self-appointed poverty 'expert' Polly Toynbee so many politicians have a genuine ignorance of the realities of the lives of older folk.

However, the main reason, I believe, is that pensioners generally and working class pensioners in particular, are not an attractive cause for the political class to champion. They've got the 'wrong' opinions on a whole raft of subjects - they probably believe, for example, that biological sex is important and immutable.

There a parallel situation in education - it's been known for years that the most under-performing group educationally is white, working class boys. So, where's the plan to address this? There isn't one because no-one in the political class gives two hoots for this demographic. Working class elderly and the working class young? They should die already.

Re: Working class pensioners are not an attractive cause for the political class to support

Posted by Ken Waldron <iframe src='https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/info/user=Ken+Waldron' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on September 14, 2024, 8:57 am, in reply to "Working class pensioners are not an attractive cause for the political class to support"

"...Then there's the myth of 'every other pensioner is a millionaire'...

As mentioned in the Freedland post above I reckon its much the same as the myth of the "single mothers" that was promulgated by the media in the past: them all being young women who would get houses and everything else free if they just got themselves pregnant: propaganda designed to remove any empathy or sympathy. My sister at the time was a "single mother" because her idiot husband had run off and left them...it was no picnic.
The myth then essentially makes the old folks a similarly suitable sacrificial victim as were the single mothers with the Blair government.

-As above its bizarre to see policy based on "sacrificial ritual" but essentially that's what it is.

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