Labour is set to block a vote on cancelling pensioners' winter fuel allowance in Parliament this week - prompting fury from across the benches and within the party itself.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has hailed the controversial paring-back of the payments as the "right choice" in order to fill the so-called "black hole" in public finances after 14 years of Tory rule.
Writing in The Observer, Reeves said: "They were not the choices I wanted to make or expected to make but they were the right choices to put our country on a firmer footing."
And the Leader of the Commons, Lucy Powell, claimed that if the payments - expected to save taxpayers some £1.5billion annually - were kept in place, Britain could be forced to endure a run on the pound.
Despite both Conservatives and Lib Dems urging ministers to consider holding a parliamentary vote on axing the payments, Government insiders have shut down the idea.
Across the benches, MPs say the scale of the winter fuel cuts mean the measures should be given airtime in the Commons.
But a Government source said succinctly: "We are not going to do that".
Shadow Treasury Minister Laura Trott slated the plans to push through the allowance cuts, saying: "This simply shows how desperate the Labour government is to run from responsibility for the tax rises they always planned but hid from the public during the election.
"After handing billions in inflation-busting pay rises to their union paymasters, no one believes Labour's 'Chicken Little' strategy.
"They should stop trying to deceive the public with ridiculous fantasies and instead have the courage to let Parliament debate cuts to winter fuel payments for the sake of those pensioners who will lose out thanks to the decisions of this Government."
The plans to axe the payments - despite the fact they'll be kept open to pensioners taking home less than £1,000 per month - have seen wide-ranging condemnation, not least at the hands of Age UK, which has written to the Chancellor in a push to make her reconsider, and whose petition has reached almost half a million signatures.
Labour's own Rachael Maskell, MP for York Central and chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Ageing and Older People, said: "This is not going to go away - the Government cannot run away from it."
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Cleverly vows to ABOLISH 'perverse' stamp duty as Tory leadership race heats up
James Cleverly has pledged to abolish stamp duty on all homes if he wins the Conservative leadership contest - and the 2029 General Election.
The ex-Home Secretary has pushed for what he labelled the "perverse" "bad tax" to be eventually canned for all residential property-buyers in a move to push more people on to the housing ladder, writing in The Telegraph.
In the newspaper, Cleverly wrote: "The truth is, too many young, aspirational, hard-working people have deserted us and our ideas.
"Just as Thatcher gave council tenants the right to buy, we need to give young people a bigger stake in our society.
In a warning to Tories following July's historic election washout, Cleverly called the leadership race a "survive or die moment", writing: "For the Conservative Party to win the next election, we need to resell our Conservative values, be the party of prosperity, and remake the argument for capitalism."
One candidate will drop out of the race on Wednesday after the first round of voting by Tory MPs.
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