<p>We have rusty playgrounds and rundown town centres, yet the government fixates on its ill-conceived plan to penalise pensioners</p><p>As the nights begin to draw in, the brief euphoria of 5 July increasingly feels like something that happened in a lost time of sunny innocence. Today, amid deep dismay, the House of Commons <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/sep/10/mps-back-cuts-to-winter-fuel-payments">approved</a> the government’s ill-conceived and dangerous plan to withdraw the winter fuel allowance from most pensioners in England and Wales.</p><p>Rachel Reeves has reportedly given ministers and civil servants <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5e4cbe80-c759-4c1c-9f3f-bd8a0f4dacc2">until Friday</a> to draw up departmental savings. In some parts of Keir Starmer’s administration, meanwhile, minds are at least partly focused on interesting and exciting policies – but the Treasury is spreading a familiar sense of fear and foreboding.</p><p>John Harris is a Guardian columnist</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/10/keir-starmer-rachel-reeves-britain-pensioners-winter-fuel-allowance">Continue reading...</a>