Labour's fear of Reform sparked Reeves's reversal

Last week’s exclusive weekly polling for The Independent is perhaps the biggest indication of why Rachel Reeves has performed a huge U-turn on winter fuel payments.

- DAVID MADDOX

The breakdown of the Techne UK weekly tracker poll revealed that 36 per cent of pensioners now plan to vote for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK – a full 20 points ahead of Labour’s 16 per cent.

As any political analyst or experienced campaigner will know, the group of voters most likely to vote are pensioners. Which may explain why pensioners with a joint income of £75,000 will now get the winter fuel payment – but hard-up younger voters who cannot even get a mortgage are left to struggle.

The same logic has been applied to the increasingly unaffordable triple lock on the state pension rise each year, while the government looks to slash benefits for the disabled and says it cannot afford to expand child benefit to more than two children per family.

Labour MPs and activists came back from the Runcorn byelection, which was narrowly lost to Reform, and the local elections in May with a simple message: at the doorsteps, people were complaining about the loss of the winter fuel allowance.