Should the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance be cut? For most people it’s a simple question, though most people’s opinion is of no account. For 404 Labour MPs, however, it is indeed of account. They get to vote on it.

Yet up to 50 are said to be struggling, with dozens being persuaded by their whips merely to abstain rather than vote against. What is the point? With a majority of 158, abstaining means yes. It is mere virtue signalling and a plea to the Lords to show more guts when they vote on the decision later this week. An abstaining MP’s conscience may be a little warmer, but the pensioners will be just as cold.

The withdrawal of the allowance is Treasury machismo. Given her failure to stand up to her most outrageous wasters, the chancellor Rachel Reeves’s £22bn “black........

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