'Rachel Reeves is setting our country on a course to poverty'

RACHEL Reeves' screeching U-turn on winter fuel payments is a sign Labour is running scared of angry voters and Reform. Which is remarkable when you think they have a huge majority in parliament but the polls are clear, voters are done with Labour whatever they do and Starmer's claim the economy is improving is deluded.

- Tim Newark Political commentator

There is one reason and one reason only why the Chancellor has reversed her tough stance from her first budget. It was intended to send a message to the financial markets that she was the Iron Chancellor who would do anything to protect the economy, including depriving the elderly of £300 to help with sky-high energy bills. If she could do that, the logic went, she would be equally resistant to everything her left-wing backbenchers wanted her to spend money on. The announcement sent a shiver through the Labour party and impressed many Conservatives who, whisper it, thought it was actually a good idea to means test fuel payments. Now that's all gone out the window as Reeves has decided it's more important to protect the Labour vote than the economy.

TIME and again, Labour campaigners during the local elections in May heard it was winter fuel payments that most angered electors who had been inclined to vote Labour last time round.

Labour councillors fell by the dozen and Reform rocketed to the top of the polls where they have remained ever since.

But removing the winter fuel payments was only one part of the tsunami of electoral anger.