Keir Starmer used his first major interview as Prime Minister over the weekend to declare that he was willing to be “unpopular”. In view of early opinion polling that might be just as well (Starmer’s net approval rating has fallen to -21).
Unpopular is certainly an accurate description of the planned cuts to winter fuel payments (introduced by Gordon Brown in 1997). Back in mid-August I revealed that ministers were opposed to Rachel Reeves’s decision, that lifelong Labour voters were abandoning the party, and that usually loyal backbenchers were furious (“as a standalone cut, it’s almost suicidal,” one told me). Matters have not improved since then.
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