A Tory MP ripped into Labour over winter fuel payments during tonight’s BBC Question Time. Graham Stuart said the first thing Sir Keir Starmer’s government did after winning last July’s general election was “attack your nan”.
He made the fiery comments as the show debated Reform UK’s success in last week’s local elections. Mr Stuart told the audience in Hull: “We had a tremendous performance in 2021… and we had our record defeat last year in July.
“And it’s less than a year since that and people have not forgiven us yet, we’ve got to work hard to rebuild trust and get back.
“What normally happens is you get a new government in, it’s given a honeymoon, even if you didn’t vote for it you give it a chance, don’t you? You hope it’s going to do something.
“The first thing it did was attack your nan and take away the winter fuel payment.
“Nearly a million people, the very poorest people, people who are eligible for pension credit but don’t claim it for whatever reason, it’s those people losing out.”
Earlier in the programme, host Fiona Bruce put Labour minister James Murray on the spot over the controversial winter fuel policy which saw the allowance restricted to only OAPs on pension credit.
She said: “Winter fuel allowance, that came up a lot on the doorstep, that’s what lots of your MPs are saying.
“You know lots of Labour MPs, including one former Cabinet minister, are very, very unhappy at the performance of Labour at the moment.
“Keir Starmer is saying we will go further and faster, does that not sound like more of the same?”
MMr Murray replied: “When Keir Starmer talks about going further and faster, when I talk about that, when we talk about that as a Government, what we mean is look we’ve had to take tough decisions, difficult decisions, because of the mess we inherited, what we need to go further and faster on is delivering the change that enables.”