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  Editor's note: What a difference 400-odd worried back benchers makes..... Reeves' almost ecstatic 'reversal' of her July '24 winter fuel payment means-testing change yesterday masks a deep humiliation on the part of the Labour leadership.  This flagship 'no-nonsense' policy, introduced within days of taking office, was meant to set the scene for 5 years of strong and reforming government, backed by the largest majority in recent history. All it in fact did was to alienate a substantial proportion of the voting electorate, and set the scene for a winter of hardship, and thus for many of those affected a lifelong hatred of the new regime. Was it all worth it, you may ask ? Let's first take a look at the financial costings.  The cost of WFP in 2023 was £2.2Bn; it reduced to £0.3Bn in 2024 by aggressive means testing, thus saving £1.9Bn that year. However, in response to active encouragement by DWP,  an additional 285,600 people applied for pension credit ...

Editor's Note:  Now that Labour's October 2024 'Disaster Budget', as some still call it, is long past, and its full depressive effects on industry are feeding through, it is to be hoped that the leadership will have learnt its lesson. The inevitable drubbing Labour received at the hands of Reform at the May local elections will also have left back-benchers in fear of losing their jobs in 2029.   More inflationary pay claims, although temporarily in abeyance over the winter and spring, are now starting to resurface, with the BMA already gearing up for industrial action in the face of an already above-inflationary pay offer somewhat  north of 5%. ASLEF, as always, are grumbling for yet more for their deprived 45% taxpayers and you can be sure  there will be plenty more demands, and no doubt cave-ins by Starmer, in the name of 'industrial peace' before the year is out. Tax rises are therefore inevitable in October to fund all this largesse for public sector workers...

  We are indeed all living in a time of great change.... I have to confess, until very recently I've been somewhat perplexed about the direction of travel in world politics, and have had trouble understanding why everything suddenly seems to be happening all at once....and I suspect I won't have been the only one..... Being someone who likes to try and make sense of it all, rather than just take things at face value and move on, I have to admit that the complete upheaval we seem to have experienced since the start of Trump’s 2 nd term did at first sight seem incomprehensible and illogical, almost to the point of absurdity.  Why on earth would anyone with such a weighty responsibility on their shoulders risk ruining an economy still growing and prosperous, and until recently unchallenged as the largest on the planet, by deliberately trying to upset our hard-won, tried and tested world order ? But then I thought…what if it's not just about the random whims of yet ano...