Flashback: Rachel Reeves’ battle for winter fuel allowance

It’s fuel poverty awareness day today. So what better time to reflect on Labour decision to pull payments for pensioners, just weeks after taking office? Ahead of the release of pension credit statistics tomorrow, Mr S has been doing some digging into the Chancellor’s past. And it seems that ‘Rachel Thieves’ – as her critics like to jibe – has not always been such an enemy of universal hand-outs for the elderly….

A recently-unearthed leaflet from the University of Bristol archives reveals that Rachel Reeves made winter fuel payments central to her very first election campaign. Reeves stood for Bromley and Chislehurst in 2005 and made ‘More Help for Pensioners’ one of her key priorities to voters in the Tory safe seat. It quoted one local resident claiming how ‘extra help with winter fuel payments and council tax bills makes a big difference to me.’

Having lost in 2005 – and then again in the 2006 by-election – Reeves then moved up to Leeds West, where she was elected at her third attempt in 2010.