IN the Commons last night all but two of Labour's Scottish MPs voted to axe the universal Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners. Not that you'd know that if your sole source of news was BBC Radio Scotland, which didn't think it was important to tell its listeners this morning how their elected representatives had voted on this important issue.

BBC Scotland was equally reticent about the voting record of Labour's Scottish MPs after they voted to retain the hideous two-child cap on benefits despite loudly proclaiming their opposition to it prior to the General Election in July. It's almost as though there's an emerging pattern here.

Only one Labour MP voted against the Winter Fuel Payment cut, and unsurprisingly he wasn't one of Labour's spineless Scottish contingent. The sole rebel was noted left winger Jon Trickett, who represents the Yorkshire constituency of Normanton and Hemsworth.

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In a statement published on social media after the Commons vote, he said: "In my view the government should be looking to raise revenues from the wealthiest in society, not working class pensioners. I could not in good conscience vote to make my constituents poorer."

Labour's Scottish MPs have no problem with their conscience, in large part because the evidence thus far suggests that they don't have one. The place in their psyche which is occupied by a conscience in normal human beings is fully taken up by careerism instead. Or, in the case of Pamela Nash of Scotland in Union, a burning desire to pretend that the only nationalism in Scotland is the pro-independence variety.

Scotland in Union founder and Scottish Labour MP Pamela Nash (Image: NQ)

To be fair, two of Labour's new Scottish MPs did not record a vote: Kenneth Stevenson, the MP for Airdrie and Shotts, and Euan Stainbank, the MP for Falkirk. However, it is unclear whether they missed the vote due to some conscience-related cracks in their brains' careerism centres, or because the whip's office had given them permission to miss the vote so they could get to the doctors in order to have the last remnants of Labour's socialist principles surgically removed.

Following July's vote on scrapping the two-child cap on benefits, Keir Starmer suspended the party whip from the seven Labour MPs who voted in favour of the SNP amendment demanding the cap be scrapped. These MPs were: Zarah Sultana, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain, Apsana Begum, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Richard Burgon, and John McDonnell.

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Yesterday none of them voted in favour of axing the Winter Fuel Payment. Five voted against, while Hussain and Long-Bailey recorded no vote. All nine SNP MPs voted against the Labour cut, as did independent MPs and MPs from the other parties represented in the Commons.

But even though 52 Labour MPs abstained, 348 Labour MPs voted to end the universal payment, making it means-tested for the first time. That outcome was never in doubt.

There are reports that Labour is planning to take action against those Labour MPs who refused to support the cut. Starmer is nothing if not vindictive, his authoritarian instincts are clear, even though there was never any risk of the cut not being passed.

Labour allow Rishi Sunak to be reborn as champion of the poor

Former prime minister Rishi Sunak will soon step down as Tory party leader

In today's PMQs, Starmer repeatedly refused to come clean about the impact of the cut in the Winter Fuel Payment on vulnerable pensioners. He would not commit to the publication of his own government's impact assessment of the policy and brushed off Labour's own assessment of making the Winter Fuel Payment means-tested, published in 2017 when the Conservative government of Theresa May was reportedly considering introducing a measure like the one Starmer has just forced through in the Commons.

Starmer has been accused of rushing the policy through without proper consideration of its effects on a vulnerable population. Ministers have been warned that the cut could end up costing the Government more money than the £1.4 billion it is calculated to save. If all those eligible for Pension Credit, which grants access to the Winter Fuel Payment under the new rules, take it up, then the cut will actually cost more to the public purse than leaving it in place.

Opposition leader Rishi Sunak (newly incarnated as the champion of the poor and vulnerable) said: “Pensioners watching will have seen that the Prime Minister has repeatedly refused to admit or to publish the consequences of his decision and we will continue holding him to account for that."

It's not war crimes that are the problem, according to Keir Starmer

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said 'fair-minded' people would support sending fighter jets to Israel

At PMQs, SNP MP Brendan O’Hara accused the Government of breaking international law by continuing to supply Israel with vital parts of fighter jets involved in the devastating assault on Gaza.

He said: “International law is clear: dropping 2000-pound bombs on densely populated civilian areas is a crime. And it’s beyond dispute that Israel has used F-35s [fighter jets] to do exactly that, yet the Government has chosen to exempt F-35 components from the arms licences suspension when all it had to do was say that Israel could not be the end user of UK-manufactured parts were included.

“Last week, the Prime Minister stood at that despatch box and he said, ‘We either comply with international law, or we do not’. Why has he chosen not to?”

Starmer brushed off the question, insisting that his government was complying with international law”, and adding: “I think all fair-minded members of the house would support the decision that we’ve taken.”

Presumably if you don't think it's right to continue to enable Israel's far-right government to commit war crimes against civilians in Gaza you're not being fair minded. Thanks for clearing that up, Keir.

It's not the war crimes that are the problem, it's those trying to stop them.

This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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