The five considerable problems with the chancellor's U-turn on winter fuel payments
First, Rachel Reeves has executed without working out how to pay for it.
This, for an iron chancellor, is a wound that opponents won't let her forget. A summer of speculation about tax rises is not a summer anyone looks forward to.
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Second, the fig leaf that she and Treasury ministers are using is an improvement in economic conditions.
If you were being polite, you'd say this is contested.
The OBR halved growth this year and the OECD downgraded UK forecasts, albeit only by a little, last week.
The claim that interest rates are coming down ignores that their descent is slower because of government decisions of the last six months.
Third, the question immediately becomes, what next?
Why not personal independent payments (PIP) and the two-child benefit cap?
At this stage, it would feel like a climbdown if they did not back down over those.
But then, what will the markets - already policing this closely - make of it, and could they punish the government?
Fourth, this is aggravating divisions in the Parliamentary Labour Party: the soft left Compass group and ministers like Torsten Bell pushing bigger spending arguments.
Those MPs in Tory-facing seats who rely on arguments that Labour can be trusted with the public finances are worried.Fifth, this has created a firm division between No 10 (the PM) and No 11 (the Chancellor).
No 10 is now conscious that it does not have enough independent advice about the market reaction to economic policies and is seeking to correct.
Others, I am told, are just critical of the chancellor's U-turn - for she wobbled first.
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Given the litany of arguments against, why has it happened?
Because the hope is this maxi U-turn lances the boil, removes a significant source of pensioners' anger and brings back Labour voters, a price they calculate worth paying, whatever the fiscal cost.
We wait to see who is right.
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The Department of Data craves queries. What are you curious about? Is this an unusually bad time to be a white-collar worker? What's the best way to measure YouTube's or TikTok's gains against traditional television? How much of America's disused rail lines have been converted to trails already? Just ask! If your question appears in a column, we'll send you an official Department of Data button and ID card. This week, we owe one to data editor Dan Rosenheck at the Economist, whose post on X helped inspire this analysis. We also owe thanks to historian J.L. Granatstein, who helped us understand how U.S.-related tariffs helped decide the 1911 Canadian election.
