In my column in May, just as rumours were beginning to circulate about a snap General Election, I wrote about how I successfully amended a Labour motion on the need for more women in politics, emphasising that warm words are meaningless unless followed by actions that directly benefit women.

I also wrote about my own successful motion that the council write to Rachel Reeves MP to demand a cast-iron guarantee that WASPI women are due compensation in relation to the injustice they experienced regarding their pensions and will receive full compensation and that immediate action is taken in Westminster to right this wrong.

One General Election later and a record 263 women were elected to the UK Parliament on July 4, 2024 – the highest number ever. Of the current 263 female MPs, 190 represent Labour (46%) with Glasgow West amongst them. The new cabinet is the most gender-equal ever, with 46% women, compared to 31% in the previous Conservative cabinet.

Labour's Rachel Reeves announced a series of public spending cuts including Pension Credit. Only those on Pension Credit or means-tested benefits will get the Winter Fuel Payment going forward. This means about 1.5 million people will be eligible for the payment, compared to 11.4 million when the payment was universal.

Scottish Labour Leader, Anas Sarwar MSP, has argued that these cuts are justified. He said, “Let's look at it in a crude way. We don't need people that are millionaires to be receiving a payment in winter”.

Apparently, 27 per cent of pensioners are millionaires.

The statistics come from the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) measure of total household wealth. This is not simply a measure of how much disposable wealth people have in the bank. It is a crude calculation of the amount of money in household pensions, as well as the value of their property.

So, where are these millionaires that are raiding the pension pot and the winter fuel payment? Fourteen per cent of the population of the Drumchapel/Anniesland Ward are 64+, so statistically, just under 4% of these are rolling in it under Labour's arithmetic!

Personally, I don’t meet many millionaires shopping in the Drumchapel Shopping Centre.

The average household private pension wealth in Scotland is around £105,600, below the UK average of £111,700. The average house price in Drumchapel/ Anniesland is £158,322. A “crude” calculation totals this as just over £263k household wealth.

Crude if not cruel. 52% of pensioners in Glasgow have told us they are not managing well, but I wonder if Anas Sarwar knows much about households struggling to heat their homes or put food on the table.

As Martin Lewis has pointed out, many pensioners eke out the £100 to £300 Winter Fuel Payments to allow them to keep some heating on through the cold months. The Energy Price Cap is likely to rise 10% this October and stay high across the winter, leaving most energy bills nearly double that pre-crisis, at levels unaffordable for millions.

Scotland contributes more to UK energy supplies than we use, we have the coldest weather, and the highest standing charges for gas and electric in the UK, with no mitigation. Oh, and a state pension that is among the lowest in Europe. Cold comfort, but we can always wrap ourselves in a Union Jack!

Labour has been reported as making another raid on pensions. ‘Reforming’ public pension funds, seizing power from local government who manage the pensions of home care workers and pooling them to fund a range of riskier UK Government long-term priorities like infrastructure, startups and private equity.

Pooling and sharing is nothing new to us in Scotland, we were told of the benefits of this during the independence referendum. Ten years later, one new London Underground line open and the scrapping of HS2 link to Scotland, we know how that works.

Hardly waving a red flag, and Reeves has no riddy about raiding the pension pot like Gordon Brown before her.

Westminster has always been criticised for providing comfy benches for elderly men to sit around and do nothing for their constituencies. In the 2024 parliament, a number of WASPI-aged women have been elected. Whilst Glasgow Labour councillors voted against pension justice for WASPI women, all the females included, let’s see if Glasgow Labour MPs, two of them pension age this year, continue to offer warm words whilst pensioners and others freeze.