Winter fuel U-turn and a rift at the heart of government

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

After sustained speculation and a local elections drubbing, Keir Starmer announced today at PMQs that the government will be softening their policy on winter fuel. Whilst it won’t come into effect for some time, they have agreed to ensure that ‘more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payment.’

This comes hours after a memo was mysteriously leaked to the Telegraph. It contains an extensive list of recommendations from Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner to the Treasury, including a set of eight tax rises such as reinstating the pensions lifetime allowance and altering dividend taxes. This amounts to a direct challenge to Rachel Reeves’s fiscal approach and preference for spending cuts.

The bigger story, of course, is what this says about feelings within Labour – it’s clearly not a happy family. Sources suggest that Angela Rayner is uneasy with the direction of travel in the Treasury and speaks for a silent majority in the Labour party who are fed up with defending controversial measures such as winter fuel. So who leaked this memo? Could Rayner be leading a mutiny? And will the U-turn on winter fuel placate the rebels?

Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Isabel Hardman.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Transcript

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0:46.4	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.
0:50.3	I'm Oskredminton and I'm joined today by James Hill and Isabel Hardman.
0:54.3	Lots to discuss on the podcast.
0:55.6	We've got a potential rift right at the heart of government.
0:58.5	But up first, I suppose we should talk about PMQs, where Keir Stama seems to have U-turned on winter fuel.
1:05.5	James, can you tell us about it?
1:06.8	Sure.
1:07.0	Well, this seems like a partial U-turned by Keirstama, who stood up just before he was going to answer Kimi Badox questions. It was the second question that was on the order paper, and it's from Sarah Owen, Labour Backbencher. Clearly, it was sort of organised with number 10. This question was sort of, you know, suitably loyalist. The economy's improving, Q laugh from the Tory side, but we need
1:28.1	more support for pensioners. And then Kirstarmer stood up and said it was going to be reviewed and looked
1:31.5	at. Now, the suggestion here, I think, is that they're not going to do a full U-turn in terms of
	...

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