Labour condemns Tory 'triple whammy' for older people

Conservative plans to end the pensions triple lock and means test the winter fuel allowance are a “savage attack on vulnerable pensioners”, John McDonnell has said, as he seeks to position Labour as the party representing older voters.

The day after the Conservative manifesto was launched, the shadow chancellor presented a 21-page riposte, explaining what Labour says will be serious adverse implications for working families and older people.

Speaking in London alongside the shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, McDonnell focused mainly on the Tory plans affecting older people, and called on ministers to immediately reverse their proposal to limit access to the annual winter fuel payment for those aged over 64, which rises when people are older.

The event saw the unveiling of a new Labour election poster warning of a “triple tax whammy for pensioners”, referring to the end of the triple lock, and the planned changes to winter fuel payments and social care funding. The slogan and poster deliberately echo a famous 1992 Conservative poster warning about Labour’s “double tax whammy”.

McDonnell also criticised Theresa May’s party for providing very few projected costings for their manifesto pledges, comparing it with Labour which provided a document carrying assumed costs and tax revenues, and predicted this could be a tipping point in the election campaign.

“Yesterday the Conservative party abandoned older people,” McDonnell said. “There was a triple whammy: the tearing up of the triple lock, the attack on the winter fuel allowance and the plans on care costs, so people can lose their homes.”

He cited a calculation by the Resolution Foundation thinktank that the projected savings from means testing the winter fuel payment meant five out of six pensioners, or around 10 million people, would lose it.

“To be frank, I am angry,” McDonnell said. “This is a savage attack on vulnerable pensioners, particularly those who are just about managing. It is disgraceful and we are calling on the Conservatives now to withdraw it today.”

While the focus was primarily on older people, the response to the Tory manifesto – printed in Conservative blue and with a title font mimicking the original – also sets out what Labour says is the prospect of tax rises for working people.

McDonnell noted that the Conservatives had seemingly dropped the commitment to not raise income taxes or national insurance levels, and that their manifesto did not once mention living standards, something he called “extraordinary”.

“There’s a clear and unambiguous threat to working people,” he said. “Labour is promising no increase in taxation on low and middle-income earners. The Tories in contrast have form on tax rises – they’ve increased taxes on working people before, and will do it again.”

Asked whether it was fair for the likes of Mick Jagger and Alan Sugar to receive the fuel payment, which they do under current rules, McDonnell said means-tested benefits tended to result in fewer people claiming them, noting that the form for pensioner credits is 19 pages long.

“The whole point of introducing a non-means-tested benefit is because means-tested benefits do have a deterrent effect on claims,” he said.

He was scathing about the general lack of costing in the Tory manifesto: “I think we’ve got to say to the Conservatives: politics has moved on. People expect a bit more honesty and openness and transparency, and that’s what we’ve done this week as a Labour party. We’ve done a fully costed manifesto. And we expect that of them. I think they’ve got hours to do it, otherwise their credibility is completely shot.”

He predicted a resultant rise in support for Labour: “You’ve seen a shift in the polls. I think there’s an underlying, subterranean move at the moment across the country, where people are now waking up that the election is in a few weeks’ time. They’re beginning to explore the policies, the real debate has happened.”