Labour must beware crying wolf about a run on the pound

As winter approaches, and fuel prices go up, Keir Starmer’s honeymoon period is well and truly over. The Labour government is clearly getting a little nervous about Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision to scrap the £300 given to millions of pensioners to help keep warm over the winter. It is now claiming that it had no choice but to save some money somewhere. ‘If we hadn’t taken some of these tough decisions we could have seen a run on the pound, interest rates going up and crashing the economy,’ argued Commons Leader Lucy Powell over the weekend. ‘It’s something we were left with no alternative but to do.’

Seriously? Is Powell really suggesting that the Bank of England might have been forced to step in with emergency support? Would runways have been cleared at Heathrow to allow the plane carrying officials from the IMF to land as quickly as possible? The claim that Labour had little choice to scrap winter fuel payments for pensioners not receiving pension credit is complete nonsense.