Why does Labour hate older people? Not content with stripping pensioners of their winter fuel payments, it is now being reported that concessionary rail fares for the over-60s are also about to be cut.
Train operators, which these days are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Treasury and soon to be nationalised fully, are reducing the railcard discounts of up to 35 per cent.
OAPs aren’t the only passengers affected, admittedly. The savings are also being withdrawn from the disabled, military veterans and young people.
So that’ll teach Kirstie Allsopp’s teenage son the next time he fancies swanning round Europe on a budget.
I have no idea what the disabled have done to justify cutting cut-price travel. Perhaps, like ex-soldiers and older folk in general they are suspected of voting Tory – or, worse, Reform UK.
Maybe it only applies to disabled people over the age of 65. If it does, it would be entirely consistent with Labour’s vindictive policies designed to make pensioners on fixed incomes poorer and colder.
When Martha Reeves and the Vandals got rid of the £300 winter fuel allowance in order to shovel money to train drivers, junior doctors and other favoured public sector client groups, we should have realised the rest of the cash was going to have to come from somewhere.
Withdrawing the winter fuel allowance is alleged to ‘save’ Starmer and Reeves £1.5bn a year
Presumably, trimming railcard discounts is one way of off-setting the cost.
So, in future, hard-up pensioners will miss out on taking the train to visit their grandchildren because fares have gone through the roof. They’ll just have to stay home and watch Bargain Hunt, if they can still afford the BBC licence fee.
Only those on pension credit enjoy free TV licences, but they’re probably next in line for the chop. The money for Gary Lineker’s seven-figure salary doesn’t grow on trees, you know.
No doubt Labour will come up with some other implausible excuse, such as the fictitious £22 billion ‘black hole’ Martha’s always banging on about.
Just how stupid do they think we are?
Yesterday it was the turn of someone called Lucy Powell (nope, me neither), described as Leader of the House of Commons, to insult our intelligence.
She claimed that had the payments continued, they would have caused an economic crisis and a run on the pound.
Oh, for goodness’ sake. Grow up, love.
Withdrawing the winter fuel allowance is alleged to ‘save’ the Treasury £1.5 billion a year. That’s not even a round of drinks in the context of £1,200 billion in public spending annually. It’s also pennies compared to Aslef’s backdated, trebles-all-round pay deal, which puts train drivers on £70,000 a year for a basic four-day week.
(The biggest rail union, the RMT, is about to get a similar ‘no strings attached’ pay rise, at a cost of goodness-knows-how-much, and one for yourself.)
And the fuel allowance is dwarfed by the £8 million a day spent putting up asylum seekers who have crossed the Channel illegally in luxurious four-star hotels. They’re all about to be given an amnesty by Pixie Balls-Cooper, so they’ll be cashing in their benefit cheques any day now. How much is that going to cost?
As for causing a run on the pound, do Labour really expect us to believe that global hedge fund bandits like George Soros — the man who broke the Bank of England on Black Wednesday 30-odd years ago — are going to crash Sterling because Howard and Hilda from Hemel Hempstead are continuing to receive 300 quid towards keeping both bars of their electric fire on this winter?
Shamefully, the Government is even refusing to allow a vote in the Commons on the withdrawal of the fuel allowance, fearful of a revolt by angry backbenchers.
Meanwhile, Labour ministers will keep on reading out the ludicrous, doom-laded Starmer script about how things can only get worse before they get better. If they keep running down the economy, then a run on the pound will be nailed on.
The truth is that by comparison with our European rivals, Britain is booming. The pound is rising against the euro and is predicted by the big banks to go back above $1.40 against the US dollar in a few months’ time — its highest level since pre-Covid.
Yet, as if scrapping the fuel allowance and cheap rail fares isn’t enough, there are also reports that in her ‘emergency’ Budget, Martha is planning to tax state pensions, get rid of the tax-free lump sum and launch another Gordon Brown-style raid on private pension funds.
Don’t believe them, either, when they tell you that the triple-lock is safe. Meanwhile, public sector and civil service pensions will be ring-fenced, index-linked and gold plated. Nice work, etc.
Back in 1997, I dubbed Gordon ‘The Man Who Stole Your Old Age’. Martha and her stone-faced boss Starmer are set to take Gordon’s assault on pensioners one step beyond.
We’re on the Last Train To Clarksville under Labour. It can only be a matter of time before it hits the buffers.