Letter from Bob Edwards, Harlow Labour member
I’ve been involved in the Labour Party since around 1963, but I’ve never seen such anger has been expressed last month, both in the Party meeting and in talking to pensioners. You can guess the issue – Winter Fuel Payments. At the recent Harlow Labour Party meeting, as far as I could see only one member out of about forty present opposed a resolution raising concerns about the payments, and he is a former Labour minister.
He thought that the Tories had been “too generous” to pensioners “at the expense of the young”, but as one long-standing party member pointed out, this particular person will not only get his ex-MP pension, but he was for some years Chancellor of a university, so for him paying bills is not much of a problem.
Some of the best contributions in that discussion came from left members, and some of them had done their research, explaining that what is a relatively small saving for the government is heaping so much misery on many pensioners.
This mood is reflected in many of the discussions I’ve had with other pensioners around Harlow. I’ve lost count of the number of times people have said that Labour has ‘conned’ them, and that they won’t vote Labour again.
[Top picture from Wikimedia Commons, here]
