vivweb01blog

  This summer, Labour back-benchers finally managed to force Starmer to backtrack on the draconian restrictions to Winter Fuel Payments (WFP) first announced by Reeves shortly after the election i n July 2024. For that we should certainly be grateful to them. They weren’t, however, able to reverse the damage caused by this ill-considered measure completely. Instead of agreeing to re-instate the benefit for everyone and acknowledge it was all a terrible mistake, Starmer and Reeves insisted on attempting to 'save face' by applying a means test based on an income threshold of £35k p.a. This didn't cut much ice with the electorate if the polls are anything to go by, but it has set the scene for yet more pain for both the leadership and the Party…. Let’s take look at the practical implications of this move to find out why.... The plan now is for DWP to reinstate the £200 (£300 for over 80s) payment for all pensioners who were claiming their entitlement in 2024 before th...

  Rachel Reeves has a thorny problem on her hands. She needs to decide within the next 3 weeks (i.e. before the budget on Nov 26 th ) whether to break the manifesto promise Labour made in order to get themselves elected in 2024, i.e. not to raise Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance. She knows that breaking this promise will be a highly unpopular move and could spell electoral suicide for the party, with the process of decline starting in May next year, after the predicted whitewash of Labour seats in the next round of local elections. She is also facing the increasingly gloomy financial outlook for the UK prophesied by the OBR, and is desperate to give herself as much financial ‘headroom’ as possible without breaking any of her self-imposed fiscal rules or ‘spooking' the markets by doing anything they perceive as financially ill-advised. To add to the pressure, she has also been under the spotlight herself recently, in being yet another labour minister who has fallen fo...

  Editor's note: Please see the recent update at the end of this text for analysis of the Winter Fuel reversal announcement in June 2025, and its implications for the future of universal pensioner benefits.....You may also be interested in a more recent update on the recent rumours that Reeves may introduce means testing for the State Pension itself, and other real or imaginary prospective horrors, in this November's budget....  ----------------------------- Now that the dust has well and truly settled after Reeves’ so-called ‘Halloween Nightmare’ budget in October 2024, and its consequences have fully fitered through to the economy at large, let’s take a look at what actually happened to pensioner benefits…and what we might expect to happen in future. We all know about the loss of the Winter Fuel Payment for the majority of pensioners last summer – you would have had to have been living on Mars for the last year not to. Although Starmer obviously thinks it's 'done...