IT’S 28 days since Labour was elected with a massive majority and it’s now three days since it announced its blatant attack on pensioners.

It’s now just over 365 days since I left the Labour Party, the party I gave my life to, the party I worked for for over 50 years.

I’ve seen Labour governments come and go and, like many, I’ve been disappointed so many times but kept the faith because I always saw Labour as the only alternative to the Tories.

I recall asking Tony Blair, face to face, if would he please take care of students, would he ensure they didn’t have to pay for their education.

Blair promised he would sort out the education system and — oh, yes, he kept his promise — he sorted it out all right.

Blair betrayed us on so many things: the fake Iraq IWD debacle, higher education — far from helping students he brought in more charges along with student loans.

Neil Kinnock was a man I really thought would be a friend and an ally to our class, a man who constantly reminded us of his working-class roots. A man who betrayed that same class in 1984 when he failed to support mining communities in their struggle for jobs.

Shirley Williams was never a leader of the Labour Party, but I remember her coming to one of the Labour Party women’s schools I attended. She spoke well and the audience of women stood to clap her. I recall my mam saying, “Stand up, Heather,” and my reply was: “I stand for no-one and I kneel to no-one, never put anyone on a pedestal.”

I was proved right. She sold out and formed another party. Another traitor.

It’s only now when I look back that I realise those two men told the exact same story as Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter and now Keir Starmer the tool-maker’s son.

They all professed to be just ordinary folk wanting to do good and they all went on to cause massive problems for our class.

Looking back there have only in my humble opinion been two leaders who would have carried out a socialist agenda, Michael Foot and Jeremy Corbyn and look what was done to them.

Those men were vilified, they were thrown to the wolves not only by the press and the media but by those who were meant to be of the same ilk.

Back to two days ago, I have never, ever felt so angry, so let down, so betrayed as I felt that day.

I knew we couldn’t trust Starmer, I knew he wasn’t a man of the people but I never for one moment thought he would betray pensioners by stopping the winter fuel allowance for all but those on pension credit. I never imagined he and Rachel Reeves could be so cruel as to hurt some of the most vulnerable in our society.

It’s only a few months ago Starmer was shouting from the rooftops when Rishi Sunak threatened to do the very same thing.

Starmer’s government has betrayed the youngest and the eldest in our communities. It has made the decision not to help families who live in poverty, children who are going hungry and now it’s the elderly.

Many will die of hypothermia, and many will go hungry so they can heat their homes but it appears our newly elected government couldn’t care less.

Their excuse, their reasoning behind this decision: “We were left with a black hole, a shortfall of some £22 billion.”

I cannot believe they didn’t know of this shortfall weeks before the election, you can’t tell me they were so naive. Not a mention of this in the manifesto because they knew how people would react, instead they led some folk to believe they were the saviours of the working class while all the time they were plotting against us.

Reeves with her unflinching, Thatcher-like pose, saying she had no choice — it had to be done.

Well, tell that to all those who rely on that money, to all those who have worked hard all their lives, those who have earned a worry-free retirement.

Tell them it’s OK for them to suffer rather than for the mega-rich to be made to pay higher taxes, tell them it’s OK for them to miss a meal or two or to put on an extra jumper, to wrap up to keep out the cold while we pay for MPs heating in their second homes, while we pay those in the House of Lords £500 a day to simply sign in and do nothing.

Tell them it’s OK for us to give the royal family, another unelected body that costs us a small fortune, a massive increase in salary.

We need the whole of the trade union movement to give their support. Some unions have already announced their dismay at the decision to deprive pensioners, but we need more.

We need folk on the streets, we need trade unions to be out there, standing with us, protesting at this outrageous decision.

I never ever thought I could despise a government as much as I despised Thatcher and co, but this one is 28 days in and I hate them.

Now hate is a strong word but when it comes down to it the decision to deprive some 10 million people of their winter fuel payment is wicked. It’s cruel.