A VETERAN MSP has said Labour’s decision to cut the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) will be an “albatross around their neck forever”, as she insisted voters will never forgive them for the move.
The backlash to Labour’s decision to make the previously universal payment means-tested has continued to bubble away at the party’s conference in Liverpool, with boos and jeers ringing out on Monday as a vote on the matter was postponed until Wednesday, when Keir Starmer will no longer be at the event.
Speaking to The National, SNP MSP Christine Grahame said she believed it was a policy move that would haunt the party for the rest of their days.
Similarly to how the LibDems have struggled to get voters back on side after they backed a rise to tuition fees south of the Border, she believes Labour have condemned themselves to the same fate.
“That policy change will be an albatross around Labour’s neck, I think, forever,” Grahame said.
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“It’s one of those totems that people will never forget. Policy changes are terribly important.
“It’s like tuition fees and the Liberal Democrats. When they said they’d never [put them up] and then they did.
“It’s the fact it was the first thing they did. It wasn’t later [they proposed to cut it], next year, so pensioners can get used to it. They also knew that something like just under 40% don’t claim it. So when they factored in the money they would save they must’ve factored in the number of people that wouldn’t claim.”
Grahame was speaking to The National in the build-up to the Scottish Parliament’s 25th anniversary celebrations, with the full interview being published this weekend.
She stressed how she felt that policy can often be even more important to the success of a government than the amount of legislation it introduces, despite how governments are often measured by the latter.
Grahame added: “This is big for them [Labour] and to marry that up with the fact someone like Keir Starmer who is hardly poor gets money for a pair of glasses, when there will be pensioners wondering whether they can afford to get anything done because they’ve no longer go it [the WFP], I really do think this has been a big, big mistake.”
A poll from More In Common this week showed three in five people already think Labour will lose the next General Election, despite the party sweeping to a historic landslide fewer than three months ago.
The survey comes after multiple polls have shown a huge dip in Starmer’s popularity within his first few months of being Prime Minister.
A More In Common poll earlier in the month showed his net approval had plunged to a record low of -20, a drop of 32 points in 50 days.
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Former Labour MP Les Huckfield told the Sunday National he thought the WFP cut would “stick like Thatcher and the milk” for Labour, referring to how Margaret Thatcher is still known to this day as The Milk Snatcher after taking free milk from schoolkids in the 1970s.
During the conference, Starmer and his team have spent a lot of time attempting to fend off huge criticism over accepting donations and freebies from donors.
Starmer has acquired the unfortunate label of #FreeGearKeir on social media after it emerged he had accepted more than £100,000 worth of gifts.
Donations to him from Labour peer Waheed Alli included an unspecified donation of accommodation worth £20,437, "work clothing" worth £16,200, and multiple pairs of glasses equivalent to £2485.
He has also declared £12,588 of gifts from the Premier League, numerous hospitality tickets to Arsenal matches costing well over £10,000 in total, plus two Euros finals tickets costing £1628 and thousands of pounds' worth of tickets from other Premier League clubs.
Other senior Labour politicians have also found themselves at the centre of the row, including Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner who failed to declare her former boyfriend Sam Tarry – who was Ilford South MP at the time – had joined her on a holiday funded by Alli.
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