It seems as though for every article in the Daily Mail and The Telegraph about anxious pensioners fearing the loss of the winter fuel payment, there are pages and pages of advice on how to shield wealth and assets from ‘Labour’s tax raids’, avoid inheritance tax and maximise income from second homes.
Many of the people reading such articles will be beneficiaries of the universal winter fuel payment and anyone over 70 will have directly benefitted from free health care, free education (including university), refuse collections, streetlights, libraries, leisure and other services.
We know that thanks to the Tories firing both barrels of austerity and lack of investment while freezing tax allowances, most of those services are a distant memory but when pensioners talk about ‘paying in all their lives’ and now not getting what they believe they’re entitled to perhaps it’s time for a gentle reminder of what they have had. Figures based on the 2021 census show that around 53% of households got more in benefits that they paid in taxes.
Nobody likes paying tax but everybody wants and expects better public services.’ Twas ever thus and the question surely is not how much tax we pay but how it is spent and how the governments that spend it are held to account. Politicians know that and are far too willing to paint over the cracks, promising ‘oven ready’ Brexit deals, new hospitals, prisons, schools, teachers, jobs and investments while lining the pockets of their friends and donors and ignoring the warnings about collapsing infrastructure, the huge burden of social care and the health impacts of poor housing and filthy air. Rather like leaving the theatre on a winter’s evening after a jolly panto, we’re now in the metaphorical cold and rain, grumpily waiting for a bus home.
There are many tests facing Keir Starmer’s government and while we know his huge majority was more about despair at the Tories than enthusiasm for Labour, what we have got for the first time in decades is a Prime Minister who appears to treat us as adults.
That’s tough. It’s much easier to believe that everything will be fine, don’t need to worry, they know what they’re doing even though, in our hearts, we know that is pure fiction. Unfortunately, with a predominantly hostile print media against him and a badly executed announcement on winter fuel payments, the desire for fairy tales will override the reality.
Are we, as a country, grown up enough to face the truth about difficult decisions? It’s a huge gamble for Labour because most of the improvements that are so desperately needed are not quick fixes. If Starmer trusts us to face the music, he also needs to find a way to finish that line with ‘let’s dance’.
