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Chancellor's U-turn restoring winter fuel payments to millions of pensioners is the correct decision

Chancellor's U-turn restoring winter fuel payments to millions of pensioners is the correct decision

Daily Record5 hours ago

Setting the new cut-off point at £35,000 seems reasonable and allows the UK Government to claw black cash given to the wealthiest.
But the original policy last year to slash the WFP to all but the poorest pensioners should never have happened.
Labour should always be the party that looks out for people on low and modest incomes.
They should never be taking money from people who need it and linking the WFP to pension credit was appalling.
Voters had waited a long time for a Labour government to pursue bold policies. They wanted Keir Starmer to dismantle the Tory legacy on welfare, not undo the policies of Gordon Brown.
But this disastrous mis-step overshadowed the early days of the Government and triggered a loss of trust in Starmer.
The Starmer administration has steadily improved from its rocky early period and progress is being made on a range of fronts.
The package on employment rights is excellent and trade deals with the US and EU should boost growth.
Starmer has also proven himself to be a serious politician who thinks carefully before acting. But his Government has to learn lessons from the WFP debacle.
It opened the door to Nigel Farage and allowed him to falsely portray himself as a man of the people.
This Labour government can be a resounding success but it must close the door on future blunders.
Sextortion fight
Social media has much to commend it, connecting like-minded people with shared interests across the globe.
But there is often a significant downside to the platforms we all use.
They can be a tool for bullies and the unscrupulous who seek to exploit vulnerable or impressionable people for their own gain.
Sextortion, a form of online blackmail using real or fake images taken from social media, has been used by criminals to terrify young people into parting with cash or be publicly shamed.
A campaign to raise awareness of sextortion and how to deal with it has been launched by the youth service Fearless. It urges young people not to panic, not to pay and to seek help. It is sad that in this day and age such a campaign is necessary.
And much like our own Our Kids... Our Future campaign, it acknowledges the pressures young people are under in today's Scotland.
But while youngsters are becoming more aware of sextortion, perhaps the social media companies could do more to keep them safe online.

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