Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE

THE decision by Keir Starmer to block Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate in the next general election poses a significant challenge to Labour’s left — and it is far from clear that the left is rising to meet it.
Starmer’s announcement — for which his authority is unclear — had been long anticipated. That should not, however, diminish the sense of injustice. Removing Corbyn from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) was never anything more than an act of political vindictiveness from a man who once described his predecessor as Labour leader as “a friend.”
The ostensible reason for the decision was Corbyn’s response to the publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report into anti-semitism in Labour in October 2020.