Lib Dems embrace ‘gimmick of a policy ‘ – but get it wrong

In a recent post, the excellent Cornwall blogger mudhook points out that the Lib Dem promise to abolish Labour’s winter fuel payment for people aged 60-64 who presently get it (people of 65 and over would still get the payment) may be asking the vulnerable poor in their early sixties to pay for other vulnerable people.  Some of the people who will lose their payment will be vulnerable and poor. The  Lib Dems say half the money saved would go, regardless of means, to the severely disabled and the terminally ill of any age as winter fuel payment of £200.  There are about 32 000 people aged 60-64 in Cornwall who would lose the payment and, says mudhook, ‘ the Lib Dems are silent about the poor and vulnerable in Cornwall who would lose by their policy’.

In 1999, the Lib Dems described winter fuel payments as ‘a gimmick of a policy’.