Chancellor Rachel Reeves set the tone for Labour’s approach to the elderly by scrapping the Winter Fuel Payment, leaving two million vulnerable pensioners facing a cold winter.
Moments later, she launched a second assault by killing off the proposed £86,000 cap on social care costs.
While not perfect, the cap provided some limit on contributions toward care. Without it, thousands face selling their homes to cover nursing or residential care expenses.
Labour’s third big pensioner betrayal was telling Waspi women to get lost.
Before the election, Keir Starmer had made a big pitch for the votes of 1950s women caught out by the rapid state pension age hike, by pledging to support their campaign for “fair and fast compensation”.
Victory secured, the promise was abandoned, leaving campaigners in the cold.
In a further blow, Reeves slapped inheritance tax on unspent pensions in her Budget. This comes into force from 2027.
It feels like Labour is singling out “boomer” pensioners for punishment, possibly because they’re the age group least likely to vote for them.
Now Starmer has given pensioners another slap in the face.
This morning, Labour announced a review of social care in England, aiming to build a “national consensus” for a new service to support older and disabled people.
I won’t waste your time with the details. There’s no point. All I will do is extend my sympathies to Baroness Casey of Blackstock.
Because Labour are taking the mickey out of her.
Governments establish such commissions not to solve problems but to delay solutions. Labour isn’t even pretending otherwise. That’s why they’ve given Baroness Casey until 2028 to report.
Just ask Sir Andrew Dilnot. In 2010, he chaired a commission on care funding, reporting within a year and proposing the now-infamous £86,000 social care cap.
Then nothing material happened until Reeves killed it in a sentence 14 years later.
An understandably embittered Sir Andrew has urged politicians of all stripes to grow up and address the social care crisis.
Instead, Labour is playing silly buggers for another four years.
By the time Baroness Casey’s social care report is ready, the 2029 election will almost be upon us. Which is exactly the point.
Starmer has made a disastrous start. He’s heading for annihilation in the 2029 election and hasn’t got the personality to do anything about it.
Social care is a minefield. Remember the notorious dementia tax, that left Tory PM Theresa May a mental wreck in the 2017 election?
Politicians have been terrified of social care ever since.
Today’s decision is a deliberate move to make sure Starmer never has to touch it.
It also confirms that he knows he’s unlikely to be PM after the next election. Basically, he’s handing this poisoned chalice back to the Tories, Reform or whoever follows his hapless administration.
It’s a bit early for Starmer to give up but given his hopeless start, it’s probably his wisest decision so far.
But it means families will continue to lose their homes throughout this Parliament and probably the next, too. Further proof that Westminster politics is broken. And so is this government.
