Humiliating climbdown over means-testing could mark the beginning of the end of Sir Keir Starmer’s time in No 10
OPINION
Is it goodbye for Sir Keir Starmer? (Image: Getty)
Sir Keir Starmer’s winter fuel payment U-turn could mark the beginning of the end of his time in No 10. A lot of Labour MPs already hated the Prime Minister. Hate may sound harsh, but it’s accurate.
The Left-wingers hated him because they thought he became leader under false pretences. He pretended to be one of them, on the Left and a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, until he won the crown – and then he turned on the Corbynites, purging many from the party.
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Some of those who supported him as leader of the opposition hate him because they served him loyally as shadow ministers, only to be denied ministerial jobs once they helped the party get into government. The fact he didn’t even phone them up to say thank you and mumble some excuses still rankles.
Labour MPs have been shocked by cuts to benefits for people with disabilities, which don’t have anything to do with whether people are working or not. They really didn’t enjoy having to defend those cuts during the local election campaign.
There’s also concern about briefing that certain Cabinet ministers are to get the sack, particularly as those targeted are women – including Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.
And now, Sir Keir has given his MPs another reason to hate him.
Many of them will think it’s a good idea to increase the means-testing threshold for winter fuel payments, so that more pensioners get the money. But they will have very mixed feelings, because they have spent the past few months loyally defending the policy and repeating the argument made by No 10 and the Treasury that means-testing was an essential step to fixing the economy.
Now, they look silly.
One thing MPs detest is being marched to the top of the hill by their leaders, and being marched back down again. That’s not just Labour MPs. Tories hated it too, when their party was in power.
They have told their voters the means-testing policy was good, and taken the popularity hit. Now, it seems all that pain was for nothing.
Labour MPs won’t actually oppose the climbdown. They will support it. But they will be asking how Sir Keir ever got them into this mess.
For a long time, there have been rumours that Sir Keir Starmer doesn’t really want the job of Prime Minister. He wanted to save his party from Corbyn and he wanted to defeat the Tories, but the grim business of actually running the country isn’t for him, some Labour MPs believe.
Today, they will be thinking about how they can encourage him to go and do something he will enjoy more instead.
