Labour under pressure to say how many pensioners will die from winter fuel raid
Labour is facing mounting backlash for its failure to assess how many pensioners would die as a result of its winter fuel raid.
Labour’s own analysis during the 2017 election campaign – under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn – found that 4,000 pensioners would lose their lives if the winter fuel allowance were means-tested.
A sound reason for referring to Starmer and Reeves as dolts is that they should have done a basic political impact assessment of predicted deaths versus tax gained. The traditional back of a fag packet assessment would have been more than adequate.
It should have taken them about a minute because they already knew that any deaths wouldn't be worth it politically. Yet apparently they didn't see that.
7 comments:
I loathe Toni Blair, a dim and evil little man, but I'll grant that he was usually politically astute. But this pair? Very odd.
There are none so blind as those who will not see past their dogma . . .
That's got to be a really dodgy statistic, because it can only be based upon a whole number of generalisations gleaned from other situations in the past. Nobody has ever means tested the fuel allowance before.
But the government ought to be really wary of calculating numbers of deaths (and other bad outcomes, like crimes, miscarriages of justice, etc.) directly resulting from policies. Once it's stated, the policy is effectively ruled out forever.
And this applies to parties in opposition, especially those without principles. Labour lifted the sword to swing at the nasty Tories, only to find it was double-edged.
More than that, the budget was inept with little understanding of how everything is interconnected financially. Also Labour showed little understanding of politics. Regardless of the consequences on the economy of taking away the winter fuel allowance, taking on the farmers, or adding VAT to school fees (all clearly the politics of envy) - the first rule of politics must be to make sure you don't p*ss off substantial proportions of the electorate. Maybe the reason is that Rachel Reeves is totally unqualified and lied on her CV. Prediction: she'll be gone by the end of the month.
Me: I'm a pensioner of over 10 years. Does the loss of the winter fuel allowance affect me? Yes. But then I would, and never have, voted Labour.
Cheers Yet Another Chris
dearieme - it is odd, I've still not seen a convincing explanation of why they are there, the Labour party must have known about their limitations.
Jannie - can't see past it apparently, can't even see that it's dogma.
Sam - yes, whatever its reliability, the number is out there, linked to a grim cause and effect everyone understands however dubious it might be. Politically the payments wasn't worth bothering about, but somehow they were persuaded otherwise.
Chris - yes it was inept, appointing Rachel Reeves was inept and the controversial measures don't even raise much tax, if any. All pain and no gain. I think they were suckered into it by people who wanted to undermine them from the off.
This lot are so lacking in ability that it seems to go well below the average. Quite curious.
Anon - curious to the point of suspicious, as if the dimmer the better for pushing obviously harmful policies.
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