There’s no way a Conservative chancellor could have got away with it. They’d have been slammed. Just imagine the outcry.
Reeves has only survived so far because she delivered the dire news during the Labour government’s post-election honeymoon period.
Poverty charities that would have skewered a Tory Chancellor in seconds didn’t know how to respond. Isn’t Labour supposed to be the party of the poor?
Now they’re getting their act together. More than 50 charities and campaign groups have written to Reeves, warning that her decision may trigger a public health emergency as millions of elderly people face winter in cold and damp homes.
Somebody earning more than £11,343.80 a year, the threshold for claiming pension credit, will lose their £200 winter fuel payment (which rises to £300 if over 80).
Labour has justified the decision by saying it can’t afford to subsidise wealthy pensioners, given the £22billion “black hole” Reeves has identified.
Reeves always had a strange idea of what wealthy means. As we discovered in January, when she admitted she struggles to live on her MP’s £86,000 salary.
Apparently, Reeves “winces” at her bank balance being “increasingly short” at the end of the month, as “the money coming in is increasingly short of the money going out”.
That was a staggeringly daft thing for a politician to say then. It sounds even worse today.
Reeves must have an awful lot of money “going out” if she can’t scrape by on £86k. Especially since husband civil servant Nick Joicey earns more than £170k.
I imagine things are a little more comfortable in the Reeves-Joicey household today. As chancellor, she’ll be on roughly £150k a year. That must push total household income towards £320k.
I don’t think she’ll miss the winter fuel payment. However, a single pensioner on £11,350 definitely will. As will a couple earning just above the pension credit threshold for couples of £17,313.
The estimated 880,000 who earn less than the pension credit threshold but fail to claim the benefit will find the going even tougher.
I’ve been bombarded with messages from pensioners who can’t believe they’ve lost their winter fuel payment. And they can’t believe Labour did it.
I can’t either. I actually gasped out loud when Reeves announced it.
Like those charities, we’re all on a rapid learning curve.
Many on the left have got it into their heads that all pensioners are doing very nicely, and they need to do more to support the younger generation.
Some pensioners clearly don’t need the winter fuel payment. Many young people face huge student debt, stagnating wages and unreal property prices.
Yet Labour’s view is crude and simplistic.
Reeves’ new tax adviser Sir Edward Troup responded to her winter fuel payment raid by saying the support was “always undeserved”.
He has previously called for the over-75s to lose their “ridiculous” free TV licences, and a heap of other benefits, too.
The UK faces more than enough strife right now. The last thing we need is for the government stirring intergenerational warfare, too.
As Labour’s brief honeymoon ends opposition to the winter fuel axe will steadily grow and this puts Reeves and PM Keir Starmer in a tight spot.
As Reeves has repeatedly said, she needs to make “difficult decisions” on tax and spending. That won’t get any easier, if she’s forced to reverse the first big move she made.
She might have to, though.
As winter looms, she will get under come under even greater pressure.
She has until her autumn Budget on October 30 to come up with something. That’s when we’ll see whether she’s really worth that £150k a year.
Reeves won’t just target pensioner benefits, she’ll also tax their wealth. Here’s how to fight back.
