Keir Starmer took little time to show he is unworthy of voters’ trust

So when Keir Starmer tries to convince us that he’s the one that’s hurting by cutting pensioners’ Winter Fuel Payment, you know that it’s just another tactic to deflect blame.

We’re expected to believe that there’s one thing worse than facing the prospect of freezing over the cold and miserable months ahead – the prospect of unpopularity. The truth is that if there’s one thing worse than a bunch of newly elected MPs turning on the voters who trusted them with replacing the most morally reprehensible government in decades it’s seeing them squeeze out crocodile tears while they do it.

I have no sympathy with Labour MPs’ phoney show of pain when they are motivated entirely by naked determination to curry favour with their despotic boss. It is barely three months since Starmer led his party to victory in the Westminster election by promising change.

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Remember his victory speech: “You campaigned for it, you fought for it, you voted for it and now it has arrived. Change begins now.

"Four-and-a-half years of work changing the party. This is what it is for – a changed Labour Party ready to serve our country, ready to restore Britain to the service of working people ... Make no mistake, that is the great test of politics in this era – the fight for trust is the battle that defines our age.”

Never forget how hollow his empty words ring just weeks after they came out his mouth. In this battle for trust, Starmer has lost. He has shown himself unworthy of our trust. The same is true for every Labour MP who knows the scrapping of pensioners’ Winter Fuel Payment to be an act of cruel inhumanity but voted for it anyway.

The past few years have seen politicians brazenly lie in the hope that a blizzard of bullshit with befuddle the voters. Donald Trump cannot open his mouth without a lie tumbling out. Even Fox News was forced to recognise Trump’s performance in the presidential TV debate this week as a shameful embarrassment. Yet still, after a torrent of untruths about Haitian refugees eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, his depiction of America in decline has reportedly resonated with voters.

Boris Johnson was hardly better during his time at Number 10. Faced with difficult questions he simply tried to lie his way out of them. Trust in politicians has eroded because political leaders have shown themselves to be unworthy of it.

And now Starmer and his cronies have joined those ranks. After duping the voters with promises of real change he has fallen back on tired and discredited economic falsehoods to justify the latest and cruellest volte face in a long line of U-turns. Just three months ago, where was the honesty over his plans?

If he felt cutting this payment was the right thing to do, why did he not put the facts in front of the voters so that their decision took into account his argument? Instead, he hid his intention to get into power before he betrayed those who put them there.

And worse, he sought sympathy and admiration for a supposedly brave act of risking popularity for doing the ‘’right thing’. And those MPs who threatened to revolt over the cut meekly backed down and voted for it or indulged in virtue signalling by abstaining instead of acting on their conscience by voting against. It was pathetic.

Starmer seems to believe that unpopularity is a sign he’s willing to take the brave stand. That the more unpopular his actions are the braver they are. It’s a dreadful echo of Tony Blair insisting on backing George Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq despite the absence of any credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Trust me, said Blair.

(Image: PA)

If you had seen the evidence I have seen you too would see the invasion as necessary, he insisted, And his MPs went along with it. We invaded Iraq and thousands died. America was avenged for the attack on the twin towers and the world was made no safer. That’s what Labour do. They do as they are told.

I vowed then never to trust Labour again. This summer I watched as a new generation of voters who had not lived through 9/11 and its terrible consequences were seduced by the Labour schtick. They voted for Labour because they were not the Tories.

And really, who could blame them? If you lived in England who else could you vote for? No other party had a hope in hell of forming a government and some – hello Nigel Farage – would have been even worse.

Scotland did have a choice but had somehow lost faith in it. We decided to give Labour another chance. Anas Sarwar told us that austerity was off the table. Enough voters believed him.

I’m not going to berate those voters. They were right to want the Tories kicked out of power. The route they chose to achieve that aim has proved to be a dead end. We now face a real challenge to the whole philosophy underpinning the welfare state.

When it was established by Clement Attlee after the Second World War it was built on the principle of universal benefits. We all contribute, we all received the same benefits. Our education system is not free. Our NHS is not free. Our pensions are not free money.

It might be convenient for politicians to paint them as such but it’s simply not true. They are free at the point of use, which is a very different thing. We all pay for them. And don’t be fooled. We will not pay less if we are robbed of these benefits. The money will go to the mythical “bottom line”.

The Winter Fuel Payment is a universal payment to all pensioners which eases the spiralling costs for keeping warm for ALL pensioners.

To introduce means-testing would be expensive to administer – probably more expensive than any savings to be made – and an attack on a fundamental principle which remains as sound today as it did when introduced. To ditch it is simply to indulge in divide-and-rule nonsense to encourage envy and suspicion.

The welfare state was built and expanded after the Second World War, at a time of great austerity. Tough times do not rule out policies to make lives better. In the 1970s we were poorer, but we could somehow afford libraries, community centres, even – gasp - swimming pools.

Today our social fabric is crumbling as our energy companies pocket eye-water profits by pushing pensioners into poverty. Today the cost of living crisis thwarts even progressive political policies and pushes more families into poverty while literally billions of pounds are lost through tax evasion.

This, finally, is Thatcher’s Britain in full bloom while everything it touches withers and dies.

And the response from a Labour government – A LABOUR GOVERNMENT – elected on an agenda for change and as an alternative to Tory austerity – is to claw back universal benefits, to eye with naked jealousy Scottish policies – Scottish Government supported and fully funded within a balanced budget – such as “free” prescriptions and “free” tuition fees.

We have fallen through the looking glass to such an extent that the Tories can, with a straight face, pose as the champion of free school meals for all primary pupils and of maintaining cheaper off-peak rail fares when their own policies have contributed to massive financial pressures on Scottish Government budgets.

Rage seems the only rational response to Labour’s betrayal and the Tories’ staggering hypocrisy. So let’s get one thing clear. Let’s ditch the macho-man crap which suggests Labour MPs are hurting at having to inflict the Winter Fuel Payment cut.

They are not. They can afford their fuel costs … and they can and do charge allowances to meet them in any case. It’s not big or brave to risk “unpopularity” in well-heated homes with well-stocked fridges.

It’s not big or brave to battle through the tears to inflict real pain – the kinds that really hurts – on the most vulnerable.

And yes, I believe independence offers solutions to these horrors. Independence offers the chance to finally establish the priorities and political bravery to finally acknowledge that the problem in this country is the very rich and not the very poor.

And yes, there is an urgency in making that case and making it well. But today rage is right.