Mrs Merton, the comic interviewer created by the late Caroline Aherne, famously asked Debbie McGee what first attracted her to the millionaire Paul Daniels. In the same satirical spirit, voters have been wondering what it was about the Reform party’s surge in the local elections that prompted Keir Starmer to tighten his immigration policy and row back on cuts to the winter fuel allowance.
Some welcome the winter fuel reversal and even give Labour some credit for listening and learning. More sceptical voters, of whom there are plenty, see a weak Government that can’t make a decision and stick to it. Some wonder which taxes will rise to pay for the U-turn.
On all sides, the link between Labour’s plummeting popularity and the winter fuel climbdown is obvious (in my research, Starmer’s explanation that his newfound largesse was the result of an improving economy just made people laugh). ‘You’ve kind of gotta sniff a bit of desperation,’ one 2024 Labour voter told us.
The same is true of Starmer’s recent conversion to tighter immigration controls, with promises of stricter education and language requirements and a longer wait for settled status.
On this issue, voters are, if anything, even more doubtful – for at least three reasons.
