WHERE did it all go wrong? Virtually the first act of Rachel Reeves on becoming Britain’s first female Chancellor was to end the universal Winter Fuel Payment for the elderly. From now on, only those claiming means-tested benefits – such as the pension credit – will be eligible.

This Scrooge-like act is designed to save money (aka “austerity’) and “stabilise” the economy, whatever that means. In fact, Reeves and Starmer are condemning millions to a colder winter. Welcome to Labour’s Britain.

Reeves presents this move as being moral and efficient. We are told universal benefits are wasteful because they end up funding the middle class who can afford to pay for themselves. Better then to focus scarce resources on the deserving poor. In this light, universalism is seen as a middle-class perk at best. At worst it is a poor use of public funds. Or is it? Is universalism really such a bad idea?

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Currently, the winter payment ranges from £100 to £300 annually, depending on age and other benefits claimed. Last winter, the payment was increased (temporarily) by an additional £300 to offset soaring energy bills.

We could see this as the taxpayer subsidising the already insane profits being earned by the big energy companies but at least it kept a lot of folk from hypothermia. It might have been better for the government to simply freeze energy prices but that was hardly in the Tory lexicon.

Reeves could also have frozen electricity and gas bills at the same time as axing the winter payment. But heck, she wants to convince City bankers that their loot is safe in Labour’s hands.

In the winter of 2023, some 11.4 million British citizens received this disappearing benefit. Slashing it affects a lot of people. It also takes a chunk of money out of consumption.

Effectively, Reeves is raising the energy bills of millions of pensioners. Middle class or not, that money will be diverted from buying other things. The impact of a cut in personal consumption is to slow economic growth. Reeves could find that slower growth reduces the Treasury’s tax income from other sources. So, not such a bright idea after all.

Means testing the Winter Fuel Payment in England and Wales will see the Scottish Government’s Treasury funding slashed by around £160m, due to a reverse Barnett consequential.

Result: Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville has announced that the SNP Government “has no alternative” but to replicate the cut in Scotland and restrict the winter payment to pensioners in receipt of eligible benefits – assuming they claim them, of course.

Naturally, Scottish Labour have denounced this in another spirited display of opportunism and hypocrisy. Mind you, the Scottish Government could at least have tried to find a few bob to mitigate the cuts. Shirley-Anne’s instant craven retreat to Reeves – just before the SNP conference – only goes to show the turmoil and confusion the party is in. In her position, I would have resigned.

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I quit the Labour Party back in 1996 when shadow chancellor Gordon Brown announced that an incoming Labour government would stick by Tory spending cuts. He intoned piously: “I cannot allow public spending to get out of control and I will not do so.”

And damn the consequences for the poor, he failed to add. Brown went on to announce the end of universal benefits and the introduction of wholesale means testing. At that point I decided New Labour was Old Tory and that Gordon was doing a convincing impression of Ramsay MacDonald. I am of the generation that remembers Labour’s earlier litany of betrayal.

First, a little history. At the end of the Great War, a modest form of unemployment benefit was introduced – called “the dole” – to deal with the problem of demobilisation running faster than there were jobs available for former soldiers.

In the aftermath of the sacrifices of the war, this was seen as simple justice. But the financial cost of unemployment benefit suddenly soared in 1931 with the onset of a global economic depression.

Labour PM MacDonald – distracted by numerous secret affairs with female aristocrats – resolved the financial problem by forming a coalition with the Tories, slashing unemployment benefit and introducing a “means test”.

The humiliation of this means test was seared into the memory of my parents’ generation. Government inspectors visited families in their homes to assess whether they were entitled to help.

If your furniture looked too good for a working-class household, you did not get your benefit. Many took their own lives rather than face the shame, my family included. As a result of this episode – MacDonald’s government should have borrowed to reboot the economy and create jobs – the post-1945 Labour government vowed to end the means test and introduce universal benefits. This included a “family allowance” paid directly to mothers, the greatest tool for alleviating poverty in the late 20th century.

But Gordon Brown, son of the manse, turned his back on the work of the Attlee government. Reeves is following in his footsteps. Dare to have more than two children and you won’t get extra child benefit.

Why support universalism? Because it removes the humiliation of state bureaucrats (often outsourced) probing your life, forcing you to attend humiliating interviews and sitting on judgment on your circumstances.

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This process leads many to eschew seeking their rightful entitlements. Currently, 100,000 older people in Scotland are missing out on the pension credit they are entitled to – worth around £189 million a year in total.

Of course, if the SNP Government ran a serious campaign to get these folk to claim their money, and gave them their resulting Winter Fuel Payment, it would wipe out Shirley-Anne Somerville’s budget savings. Oops!

Universalism is not just about justice. It is the key to maintaining social and political solidarity. Once you means test, then you open the road for those who pay taxes – but don’t receive benefits – deciding they are being taxed too much.

Means testing puts the focus on cutting benefits further. It is the first turn of the screw. But if everyone benefits equally, all have an incentive to pay in as they can afford. Universal benefits are a quid pro quo that encourages the middle class to pay higher taxes.

Universal benefits imply universal citizenship. Introduce means testing and you are on the road to social division.

A Scottish government should not be doing Westminster’s dirty work. Do John Swinney and Shirley-Anne Somerville think they will win popularity by cutting winter payments? Do we want independence so we can have a Scottish version of austerity?

If the SNP only tailend Labour then why not vote for the organ grinder rather than the monkey? How can you say independence will lead to a better life if the people leading the indy movement are those making the cuts - while letting Scottish Labour grandstand?

How can a country rich in energy resources let its elderly freeze to death? Is there no anger or pity left in the ranks of the Scottish Cabinet? Let’s have a Holyrood election now and put Labour on the spot.