Do you agree with our readers? Have your say on these MetroTalk topics and more in the comments.
Reeves’ winter fuel U-turn for pensioners sparks backlash
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has restored the winter fuel payment to nine million pensioners having all but axed it when Labour came to power (Metro, Tue).
Introducing means-testing was due to hit 11million pensioners and save the Treasury £1.5billion. Now, that figure will be just £450million. Reeves has not said how the difference will be met and anybody who believes she has simply found more money is deluded.
This is not an economic decision, it’s a political decision made in fear of losing out to Reform. The public won’t buy it. James Bradshaw, London
Labour councillor blames Rachel Reeves for local election defeats
This U-turn hides many overlooked casualties – hundreds of Labour Party councillors and their losing Runcorn and Helsby by-election candidate.
How many Labour candidates had abuse on the doorstep while canvassing for votes and went on to lose their seat, all for a government U-turn in the end?
The six votes by which Reform beat Labour at the Cheshire by-election and those which led to Nigel Farage’s party taking control of ten councils are all due to Rachel Reeves. Cllr Andrew Edwards (Labour), Tidworth Council, Wiltshire
Winter fuel allowance or universal basic income?
The winter fuel allowance is to be restored to pensioners receiving up to £35,OOO per annum. Means-testing like this effectively makes this a universal allowance. The government will probably rob the unemployed and the disabled to finance it. Alan, Greater Manchester
‘Hardworking pensioners like us nothing’
I expect the pensioners who still won’t get the allowance will be the likes of us, who have worked all our working lives, paid our national insurance and tax and also paid all our utility bills and never claimed a benefit. Makes you think who the daft ones are… Den, Dartford
Readers slam Trump’s double standards on National Guard
It’s interesting that the moment the people of Los Angeles protest the treatment of immigrants, Donald Trump sends in the National Guard (Metro, Tue), yet on January 6, 2021, he was slow in dispatching the National Guard while the MAGA thugs attacked Capitol Hill, culminating in the death of police officers as well as many serious injuries. Martin Hyde, Brighton
Is Trump heading toward civil war?
Donald Trump has often boasted that he’s the only US President in 72 years not to have any wars. He now looks set to be the first US president in 160 years to have a civil war. Julian Self, Wolverton
Consultant psychiatrist speaks out against assisted dying
As a consultant psychiatrist who has worked in mental health for more than 30 years, I was saddened by Dr Hilary Jones’s comments that rejecting the assisted dying bill could take medicine ‘to the Dark Ages’ (Metro, Mon).
Assisted dying may seem compassionate but it sends the wrong message – that some lives aren’t worth living. Most suffering can be eased with good palliative care. What people often fear is not pain but being a burden or feeling alone.
True compassion means supporting people through suffering, not helping them die. Respecting autonomy doesn’t mean agreeing to something harmful.
We don’t allow suicide in other situations, so why here?
If this bill passes it will take medicine into the Dark Ages as we will create a specialism of doctors killing people.
It will be disguised as compassion but it is the weak and vulnerable who will be most affected. Dr Sunil Raheja, via email
‘Scrounger’ slur shows how invisible disabilities are still missed
I sat near a man engaged in a phone conversation on the Norwich to King’s Lynn bus, during which he complained about people he knew who were ‘benefits scroungers’ because they ‘just’ had social anxiety, depression, ADHD and other mental health problems. I have complex psychological issues that render me unfit to work and I’m claiming £1,250 a month in social security.
I’m sure I would fit this man’s definition of a ‘benefits scrounger’. I find it very strange that someone can be declared unfit to work by a qualified benefits supervisor, GP, psychologist and psychiatrist (among others) and yet swathes of other people will still insist that person is just a lazy scrounger who needs to pull themselves together.
I wonder if they would feel the same if they could see my problems, if I was physically disabled.
What was really funny was that the man on the bus later said that ‘more people need to see things from other people’s point of view’. I absolutely could not agree more with this. Rob Slater, Norfolk
