Winter fools
LABOUR’S U-turn on pensioner winter fuel payments is a belated admission of just how wrong-headed the original policy was.

Labour has finally admitted they were wrong on winter fuel payments[/caption]
What’s still far from clear, however, is how the Government intends to fix it?
Yesterday’s half-baked, half-announcement was devoid of any detail on how it might work or, who will get the cash restored.
Is it really fair to leave OAPs in limbo, waiting months until the cold weather begins, to find out if they will once again get help staying warm?
They are furious enough already at having been used as pawns in a political game intended to show the Tories had left behind a mythical £22billion black hole that needed filling.
What’s also a mystery is how ministers intend to pay for the partial U-turn.
Having already spent billions on pay rises for their comrades in the public sector, money remains in desperately short supply (unless it’s to send to Brussels for the “reset” surrender deal.)
Which makes standing up to Labour MPs who want a reversal of the welfare cuts even more important.
The worst thing Labour could do is be tempted by Angela Rayner’s idea of instead whacking more tax rises on families, workers and sensible savers.
God help us all if this die-hard Socialist ever sets foot in No11… or No10.
April shower
AS if near zero growth, rising unemployment and millions on sick benefits wasn’t bad enough, inflation is on the march once more.
Taking out energy and food prices, so-called “core” inflation in the economy now stands at 4.5 per cent.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves had an awful April[/caption]
That is grim news for Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Her double whammy of massive increases in public spending and a botched October Budget are having an immediate and unwanted impact.
Awful April saw bigger bills thudding on to doormats.
But the real pain came from the National Insurance rise on businesses, which has seen those higher costs passed on to consumers — just as Ms Reeves was warned would happen.
All that pain that householders endured to tame the inflation beast is in danger of being for nothing.
War on rapists
AT last a punishment which fits the crime.
The Sun has long campaigned for much harsher sentences for vile sex offenders.

Paedophiles and other sex criminals will be castrated as part of new crackdown on vile crimes[/caption]
Chemical castration has been an option for years but only now are ministers going to use it widely on rapists and paedophiles.
It’s the very least these monsters deserve — and could be a useful treatment to stop long-term offending.
But what mustn’t happen is that it becomes a soft-touch alternative to prison.
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