McDonnell’s ‘4,000 deaths’ scare

CLAIMS that Conservative policies could lead to the deaths of almost 4,000 more pensioners this winter led to the Labour Party being accused of ‘irresponsible scaremongering’ yesterday.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said the Tory programme – including scrapping the pensions ‘triple lock’ and means-testing the winter fuel allowance – represented ‘the single biggest attack on pensioners in a generation’. The party cal- culated that if the Conservative plans were to lead to 90 per cent of pensioners losing the allowance it could be expected to lead to an additional 3,850 deaths this winter.

But last night Damian Green, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said: ‘We have been very clear that we will always look after the most vulnerable. This is irresponsible scaremongering by Jeremy Corbyn – who can’t be honest about the fact he is relying on his magic money tree.’