Winter Fuel Payments? Safe with me!
I see the new ‘Chair’ of the North West Labour Party is up to her old tricks; stating on Twitter: “If you were eligible for Winter Fuel Allowance from the start, you have received £2500 towards your heating bills. Tories will scrap this.”
Utter rubbish and the last, desperate attempts to cling on by scaring some of the most vulnerable people into voting for you. See here for more. Not particularly ethical but not particularly surprising either. No doubt they will be saying I support fox hunting next…
Let’s be clear: the Conservatives will not scrap the Winter Fuel Payment. Full stop.
March 1 2010: UPDATE: the spat has been covered by the Daily Post here
August 19 2010: UPDATE (2) I see Cllr. Baldock is getting all excited again about the latest alleged ‘cuts’ to Winter Fuel Payments. Once again, without any link to any factual statement made by the Government, as far as I can see…
Dear Ian, please clarify what you mean by saying I am “up to my old tricks”. This sounds like libel to me and would definitely be something I could take up with your monitoring officer. I suggest you edit this post. Re the substantive issue, if you wish to comment on the entry on my blog, showing me evidence of where the Conservative Party shadow cabinet have stated unconditionally that they wont scrap the winter fuel allowance, then I will of course publish the comment (providing it too is not libellous).
Hello Louise.
You may be aware that I sent you a direct message on Twitter when you claimed on your blog, on January 11, that, in respect of the Winter Fuel Payments, ‘The Tories would scrap this’. Sadly, you didn’t reply to that message or use that opportunity to correct your statement. Indeed, you appear to have since blocked me on Twitter. What a shame.
Our policy on Winter Fuel Payments was clear when the Shadow Chancellor on Tuesday 6 October 2009 (three months before your blog article) addressed the Conservative Conference in Manchester: http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/10/George_Osborne_We_will_lead_the_economy_out_of_crisis.aspx
The policy is also clear on our website: http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Pensions_and_Older_People.aspx
Please now produce the evidence to justify your original claim. I cannot think why you would make such a statement. Mind you, you’re not the only Labour politician making this claim but that doesn’t make it right.
You may be aware that in July 2009, Brian Strutton, of the GMB, said: “It’s scandalous that two million pensioners live in poverty and immediate action is needed.”
Indeed, the latest Government figures show that the number of UK households in fuel poverty rose to 4 million in 2007, an increase of 500,000 on 2006 levels. Using the Government’s own projections for the rate of growth of fuel poverty numbers since 2007, it can be estimated that there are now more than 6 million households in fuel poverty – one family in every four (DECC, Annual Report on fuel Poverty Statistics 2009, 21 October 2009).
The number of pensioner households currently in fuel poverty at over 2.4 million – one pensioner household in every three. This is a four-fold increase in the number of pensioners in who were in fuel poverty in 2004 (Hansard, 2 December 2009, Col. 819-20W; DECC press release, 21 October 2009).
In terms of my reference to your ‘old tricks’, it is a reference to your regular criticism of your political opponents, although at least in the case of the Conservatives (in this particular article) you didn’t call us ‘b*****ds’. However, if you feel it is libellous, I will happily amend it but would ask you to contact Mr Bill Norman, Wirral’s Monitoring Officer, in the first instance.
I therefore ask you to now:
a) correct the statement on your blog and
b) in your position as NW Chair of the Labour Party, make your colleagues elsewhere in the region aware of this error so that they can also cease misrepresenting their political opponents.
In view of the seriousness of the issue and the importance I, and my Party places on supporting pensioners and tackling some of the issues I have raised in this message, I have copied this exchange to the local media.
Kind regards
Ian Lewis
Conservative Councillor for Leasowe & Moreton East
Hi Ian, I have corrected the statement on my blog at your request. I see that you have changed your article too, to remove the reference to my name. This is a start, you must have taken some advice, very sensible of you. I remain defiant however about the need to challenge the policy of other parties, that is after all what we are about, as politicians. Best wishes, Louise
Hello Louise. Thank you for correcting the statement. I realise why you made the statement but I don’t think either Party needs to resort to Lib Dem tactics. I will now use your example and contact those Labour politicians on this side of the water who continue to repeat the false statement re Winter Fuel Payments.
In terms of removing your name, I haven’t and I certainly haven’t taken any advice over your earlier comments re libel or referring me to Wirral’s monitoring officer but thanks for the ‘sensible’ remark…
By all means challenge – your updated blog post no doubt motivates your base but is it relevant today? Any more than the fact the greatest fuel problem pensioners have ever faced was not being able to get any – namely under the previous Labour Government’s winter of discontent. Do history lessons, no matter how rose-tinted, win votes? Not sure on that one.
Anyway, I trust your blog hits are up today by as much as mine and for that, I think, credit must go to David Bartlett…
Regards
So the Councillor for Kensington and Fairfield got it wrong?