Amid the growing furore in the UK over the cancellation of the winter fuel allowances for pensioners, by the New Labour government, something is missing. No one seems have honed in on two very obvious questions regarding this withdrawal of charity to all but the most destitute. The first is why in the 21st century, in one of the richest countries in the world, have pensioners who have worked all their lives needed state assistance to help to keep themselves warm during the winter? The answer politicians are dodging lies in two neo-liberal socio-economic processes.

First, the costs of electricity, other fuels and other essentials such as food, mortgages and rents have shot up to unprecedented levels due the the privatisation of energy provision (and much else) initiated by the Thatcher headed Conservative government. That policy has been continued by every subsequent government whether dominated by Conservative, Liberal and Labour party elites ever since. Secondly, whilst this neo-liberal, decades long privatisation process was taking place and establishing itself, the salaries, wages and pensions (in real purchasing terms), of ordinary working people in the UK was steadily shrinking.

On the surface the introduction of a state funded fuel allowance appeared to be an act of chaity but in fact it was political bribery dressed up as charity. It was introduced precisely because low paid pensioners could no longer afford to keep themselves warm and healthily fed on their incomes. Fuel and food poverty during the last several decades have resulted in government allowances for housing benefits, working tax credits, and the emergence of food banks as well as winter fuel allowances, to keep the poor barely alive and managing. These were all indirect subsidies to commerce and industry who could then keep wages and salaries low and profits high.  The winter fuel allowance became also a shrewdly contrived political bribe because the retired populations could and might vote differently if one of the parties in government rescinded or withdrew it.

So why has the Mark 2 ‘New Labour’ government in 2024 decided to withdraw it for the majority of pensioners in the UK? The answer has nothing to do with ‘balancing the books’ or ‘fiscal responsibility’, as Labour Party officialdom claims. That could have been demonstrated by increasing taxation for the already excessively rich in the UK, or by any number of other measures for reducing excessive war based state expenditure. It has nothing to do with fulfilling a mandate with the UK voters either, for their was no such mandate to withdraw winter fuel allowances or to balance the books. I suggest these are just a feeble attempts to disguise what is the real political calculation which is being made by the string pullers in the Labour Party and among its advisers.

The calculation of ‘New Labour Mark 2’, headed by Kier Starmer, like the calculation of New Labour Mark 1, led by Tony Blair, is to gain political power for themselves and retain it for as long as possible. The Mark 2 version under a knight of the realm Sir Keir (that should tell us a lot about the class orientation of Labour) has been handed a ‘get out of opposition’ card in the game of political monopoly they been playing since the end of the Second World War. The previous Conservative government were such a bunch of hedonistic incompetents and scoundrels; what with Pandemic mishandling, Post Office prosecution scandals, general NHS neglect, contaminated blood purchases and Grenfell Tower cladding (and other such housing) mismanagement disasters, that even many of their traditional Conservative supporters abandoned them.

Not only that but many of the traditional labour supporters who in disgust at previous labour government track records voted conservative when it was headed by part time Pepper Pig clown, Boris Johnson. I suggest a significant part of the current political calculation by the Labour ‘establishment’ is that there is so much universal disgust with the conservatives, that in the medium term Labour calculate that they only need to placate one influential section of the current three class system of the UK. They think (and undoubtedly hope) that the majority of the rest of us will be glad the Tories have gone and in the meantime we will just moan and persevere.

However, the one section of the UK that could end the New Labour Mark 2’s current and future lucrative hold on political power and the official and unofficial salary structure they needed to milk the system, is one or other of the sections of finance capital. Jusr remember the following! It was this sector that caused the banking collapse and restructuring of it by austerity and bailouts during and after the 2008/9 financial crisis, and who then collaborated to bring the post-Boris Mavericks such as the short-lived Liz Truss government to heel. Her rapid replacement with Rishy Rich, demonstrated yet again that the influential finance capital sections of the ruling elite have more power to influence policies, programmes and expenditure, than voters, striking workers, demonstrating students and communities campaigning against the genocide in Gaza, or the chilling thought  of freezing pensioners, warming themselves on hot water bottles.

So what better way could be found to convince the powerful financial elite that you are intending to stabilise the current system – in all it’s current inequalities and injustices – than by giving an ‘up yours’ cold shoulder to those who may be poor – but are not yet in actual immediate danger of dying. This miserable unprincipled episode (and more yet to come, I predict) should once again demonstrate that this current hierarchical mass society system of human living and working is not fit for a humane form of living. Politics, no matter what colour or trend, it assumes as camouflage,  once again is demonstrating that it is  part of the problem for humanity, not part of any humane solutions.

In order to stay in power for more than one parliamentary session, which all politicians are dedicated to achieving, politicians always calculate who they need to impress and who they don’t yet need to placate. So having worked all your life in the working and lower middle class occupations and paid taxes on everything apart from breathing air all your life, that is apparently not impressive enough. In the present calculations of the Labour Party establishments ambitions, a lifetime of hard work and tax paying  means absolutely nothing.

With regard to politics, think of those in Gaza at the mercy of Israeli and American political decisions to supply and bomb men women and children. Think also of all those in other parts of the world suffering from corrupt and incompetent politicians. So although it is not yet as bad here in the UK, it is already the case that if you have managed by all those decades of hard graft, and despite crippling taxes on everything you have obtained a pension just above a miserably low limit, then under New Labour Mark 2, social and economic fair play or charity – does not start with you!

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2024)