COLOUR me careless. I just signed a Conservative Party petition. A big mistake.

But also a sign of how cute the Tories have become in this new topsy-turvy world, where “socialist” Labour hammers pensioners and the “valiant” Tories portray themselves as champions of the elderly at Westminster. It’s weird.

I followed a link for a petition opposing means-testing the Winter Fuel Payment on www.whatlaboursaid.com. It looked clear, no-nonsense and straightforward – “Labour has announced cuts to the Winter Fuel Payment, taking away up to £300 per pensioner. Sign our petition to stop this.”

Fine. But once done, you’re taken to a Conservative Party fundraising page. Now fair enough. Looking carefully, I saw “produced on behalf of the Conservative Party”, in tiny small print on the homepage.

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But this cunning effort shows the vanquished Tories are back – hoping everyone has developed total amnesia about their horrible behaviour over the last 14 years and can be coaxed into raging against the new Labour machine instead. The thing is, it may well be working.

On Twitter, the hashtag #starmergeddon is trending – led not by the outraged left but by righteously indignant Tories and the Daily Mail, contrasting the early release of champagne-drinking convicts with the cut in pensioners’ incomes.

Of course, this is so rich, coming from a ferociously punitive Conservative Party and press, it makes you want to scream.

Indeed, Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall almost blew a gasket as she fulminated about “faux outrage” from the well-heeled Tory benches during the Winter Fuel Payment debate.

Liz Kendall is Labour's Pensions Secretary (Image: PA)

But if crocodile tears chime with genuine public outrage, the Tories’ hypocritical support for the pensioners they themselves “rewarded” with the developed world’s poorest pension, may yet gain traction.

The Telegraph has been doing the maths and reports that Rachel Reeves has claimed £4400 for her own heating bills and Labour MPs have claimed £400,000 in the last five years.

Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain asked a stunned Labour MP why an MP on £91,000 can claim for their energy bill whilst a pensioner on £11,500 cannot claim their winter fuel allowance. “Surely you should cut the energy payments to MPs for their second homes before cutting pensioners’ energy payments?”

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There’s just no answer to that. And if Keir Starmer thinks such comparisons are out of the public’s mind because he railroaded his weak MPs into unscheduled away days or gritted teeth support for the means test – he’s totally wrong.

Awkwardly though, since the SNP is so diminished at Westminster, it’s the Tories who will clean up.

Especially with the surprisingly deft performance by Rishi Sunak in Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday. The Tory leader asked Starmer for the impact assessment civil servants must have done on means testing Winter Fuel Payments and whether Labour’s own previous estimate of 3850 likely deaths still stands.

There was no answer. Which means that it does.

Former prime minister Rishi Sunak is finding opposition suits him

In response, Starmer gave the poorest response I’ve seen from a Prime Minister.

Just as Sir Keir mentioned his toolmaker dad endlessly during the election campaign in a desperate attempt to sound normal, he mentioned the Tory-created £22 billion black hole in public finances seven times in as many minutes.

Of course, public finances are grim. But Sunak’s questions were reasonable and Starmer’s responses were a brazen autopilot. And here’s the point.

SNP leaders beware – you are starting to sound the same.

Yes, I know. There is no real equivalence. Westminster has fiscal freedom whilst Holyrood must balance the books.

Labour won’t consider raising taxes on higher earners while the SNP have already done it.

One Westminster decision has created half of Holyrood’s “black hole”.

Scottish Labour's Anas Sarwar has strongly backed the cut to the Winter Fuel Payment

Meanwhile, Anas Sarwar promised there would be no austerity and he would stand up to his London boss over Scottish interests. In case Anas hasn’t noticed, it was snowing yesterday in Braemar.

So yes, Scots inhabit a new post-election political landscape of unbelievable hypocrisy.

And yet.

Yesterday's votes at Holyrood make it too easy for Tories to proclaim that Labour and the SNP are peas in a pod – two failed lefty-sounding parties ditching universalism at both Westminster and Holyrood.

Yesterday, MSPs backed Tory motions in the Scottish Parliament backing universal free school meals and the end of peak rail fares on Scotrail – defeating the SNP who insist they haven’t the cash to fund either, thanks to inflation and Westminster funding cuts.

The Tory motions are not binding but the SNP’s defeat will be spun by a relentlessly hostile media and speaks of serious budget trouble ahead since Scottish Greens voted with Unionist parties.

Yes, it is priceless.

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The Tories – who opposed Holyrood having any welfare powers – are leading the charge against “the uncaring SNP” for restricting the rollout of free school meals in P6 and P7 to kids receiving the Scottish Child Payment, instead of making them free for all, as meals are for younger pupils.

It’s also true that the Scottish Tories’ Westminster bosses resolutely refused to provide free school meals south of the Border. And their own Scottish MPs voted for a two-child cap that callously disregards the very existence of third, fourth or fifth children in poor families most of whose parents are actually in work.

But to be fair the Scottish Tories have backed free school meals since 2020.

Still, as Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth repeatedly asked, where do they now suggest cuts should be applied in order to finance a universal rollout at approximately £256 million a year?

Tory MSP Liam Kerr suggested cutting Scottish Government spin doctors, special advisers, foreign trips and Angus Robertson’s entire external affairs budget because his brief covers reserved matters.

Replacing most advisers with genuine experts would be no bad thing. But that’s not what Kerr demanded.

Ross Greer for the Scottish Greens made the only effective political dig – “the Conservative Party is the single greatest driver of child poverty” – and the longest list of alternative cuts; frozen spending on trunk roads, ending tax breaks for shooting estates, raising the charge on second homes, creating a new levy on supermarkets selling alcohol and fags, ending standardised testing in P1, stopping grants for Scottish-based arms dealers, giving councils new powers to levy a carbon land tax and meantime updating the valuation used for council tax from its current, totally inaccurate 1991 baseline.

Now of course, some of these will be unpalatable to the SNP. And the “lost” votes are only advisory.

If the Scottish Government changes tack on free school meals after the Holyrood vote, they should logically ditch peak rail fares permanently as well, since that second motion by the brass-necked Scottish Tories also got Labour, LibDem and Green backing.

Priceless, isn’t it.

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The Tories wrecked the railways through a disastrous privatisation and brought bus travel to its knees by deregulation. But here they are wagging a big morally censorious finger at the SNP, which bucked their chaotic system and effectively nationalised Scotrail.

Priceless too that while Scottish Labour waged another finger over means testing free school meals, 100 charities have sent a letter supporting just that policy south of the border to UK Health Secretary, Wes Streeting MP.

In short, Scottish Labour’s own UK Government is being pressed to introduce universal free school meals, failing to respond and getting no brickbats or press coverage.

It’s tempting to shrug, blame Westminster cuts and carry on.

But pointing fingers and whatboutery won’t help the SNP.

The fiscal constraints at Holyrood are real, but appearing to meekly rubber stamp cuts produced by discredited Tories and a regressive UK Labour Government is a bad look and even worse politics.

Labour may think it can play the blame game endlessly.

The SNP should not follow suit.