Rightly or wrongly, Labour decided that the first signal they should send as a new government was that they wouldn’t duck tough economic decisions. The cut to the winter fuel allowance was offered up as the ultimate proof of their seriousness; politically difficult but, we were told, financially necessary.

A direct line was drawn between this controversial welfare cut and the “£22bn blackhole inherited from the Tories.” Ministers went as far as to say that the move was necessary to “prevent a run on the pound” – a farcical claim at the time, rendered more so by last week’s decision by Keir Starmer to

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