Rachel Reeves must be cursing the Treasury advisor who slipped into her briefing the suggestion that an easy, painless way to raise some money would be to means-test Winter Fuel Payments. After all, the public will understand that it makes no sense to give tax-free bungs of £300 to octogenarian billionaires and retired cabinet ministers. Won’t they? She and her ministerial colleagues seem surprised by the torrent of criticism, and some abuse, much of it from Labour-sympathising lobby groups and voters. All to raise £1.5billion: small change set alongside the size of the fiscal ‘black hole’ So,…
