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

IN ANY other pub in London, I would expect to walk in unnoticed and buy myself a drink, sit in a corner and ruminate in peace.
However on the rare occasion, on a late voting night in Parliament, if I wish to have a quiet drink alone in the MPs’ bar, you would think I’d walked into the gents’ toilet by mistake. The world stops. You hear crickets. They stare and snicker. It is unbelievably rude. And of course deliberate.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the House of Commons, the age-old custom of barracking is a daily trial. It is calculated to intimidate and belittle.



