After Labour’s poor election results on 1 May and the general over-excitement caused by Reform's "success", Starmer promised to "rethink" some of his anti-working class policies.  Especially since Farage, the billionaire, revamped his "worker" image and promised to restore pensioners' winter fuel allowance and scrap the 2-child benefit cap.

    In fact Starmer’s winter fuel allowance cut left 10.3m pensioners worse off - including 2.5m who were already under the "Minimum Standard of Living" and struggling to make ends meet.  To have announced this as one of Labour's first austerity measures was always going to cause uproar - but Reeves and Starmer thought they could get away with it.

    They didn’t expect Farage to capitalise on their cuts, however!  Now even Tory leader Kemi Badenoch says “her party” would never have touched this allowance.  But Starmer has so far not provided any clues as to who might be eligible, if he indeed makes a U-turn over it.  As for when, this might be announced only in the next budget in October - too late for this winter!

    We are now also told that scrapping the 2-child benefit cap, is "on the table".  But which table that might be, nobody in Starmer's Cabinet seems to know!  And in the meantime, Farage is going all-out to try and steal Labour's thunder (if there is any working class thunder left in the Labour cupboard), while Starmer is doing an excellent impression of Enoch Powell.

    He is announcing yet more measures against immigrants - which will prevent overseas workers from getting visas to work in social care, for instance, when there is no other way to cover these jobs!  And he is literally promoting the drowning of asylum seekers by not providing safe entry routes - which is the only way to "stop the boats".  One could well ask "who needs a Nigel?"

    In the meantime, the cost of living crisis is alive and kicking.  The RPI rate for April hit 4.5% - the highest in nearly 2 years!  But teachers and NHS doctors have been offered just 4% on pay, while other NHS staff are offered only 3.6%.  When they’d need a 30% pay rise, just to make up for the cut in real pay since 2015!

    Today, doctors are balloting for strike, and teachers will soon follow.  The bosses and their parliamentary mouthpieces are using every trick in the book to turn the screw even tighter on the working class.  Workers across sectors, both public and private, would do well to prepare for a "summer of discontent"!