Let’s call it the Boris Johnson test. When our rightly disgraced former prime minister was collecting numerous freebies at a time of acute social crisis, were you outraged?

It’s only eight weeks into Keir Starmer’s administration, but he has made clear how he intends to rule. The refusal to scrap George Osborne’s two-child benefit limit imposes poverty on 250,000 children, and drives 850,000 kids further into hardship and squalor. Labour’s decision to radically restrict winter fuel payments in England and Wales, meanwhile, will withdraw support from 800,000 impoverished older people who are eligible for pension credit but don’t receive it – an inevitable evil generated by means testing – as well as another 1 million pensioners just above the breadline.

These are choices Labour has made in power. Meanwhile, there has been no talk of meaningful taxes on the mega-rich to raise revenue and ensure security for all citizens from cradle to grave (the richest 350 British households have a combined wealth of £795bn: bigger than Poland’s annual economy). Then there are the choices that cast Starmer’s own behaviour in an unflattering light, as he........

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