The ex-Labour MP who drunkenly punched a constituent has blamed Sir Keir Starmer‘s winter fuel cuts for the party’s loss of the once safe seat he held.
Mike Amesbury, who quit parliament after being convicted of assault, said Labour’s loss in Runcorn and Helsby last week was due to “some big political mistakes from the government”.
“I sincerely hope Keir Starmer, the Labour prime minister, and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, not only listen, but learn and respond,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Asked whether he felt responsible for having sparked the by-election by attacking 45-year-old constituent Paul Fellows, he pointed to Labour’s losses elsewhere in what was a disastrous set of local election results.
As well as losing Runcorn to Reform by just six votes, Labour lost 187 councillors across England.
Mr Amesbury said: “The constituents of Durham or up and down the country did not vote how they did because of my mistake.”
But the ex-MP expressed regret for the incident, saying: “I live that moment every day of my life. Of course I regret that, and if I could turn back the clock and change things that evening I would have done the right thing and walked away.”
He added: “I’ve paid a price and I will learn from those mistakes. And politically I want this government to succeed.”
And he warned the government must not continue making “political mistakes”, citing Sir Keir’s winter fuel cuts and cuts to disability benefits.
In a plea to his former colleagues, Mr Amesbury added: “People on those benches, now is the time to say, you are not being disloyal, but say ‘come on now’ to the leadership, ‘just think again on this’.
“If we are serious about having two terms of a Labour government transforming this country for the better, we have got to listen to the electorate and do the right thing.”
Labour’s decision to means test winter fuel payments payment, which affected around 10 million pensioners, was seen as one of the biggest factors in its dire local election performance.
More of the public are aware of the change than any of Labour’s other policies, while around two-thirds of voters dislike the policy.
More in Common director Luke Tryl has described it as Labour’s “original sin” and said it had a major impact on the party’s disastrous performance last week.
And on Monday the director of the influential Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank warned Sir Keir has become “known around the world” for the winter fuel cuts.
Paul Johnson told Times Radio: “I was talking to the head of an international insurance company recently who said that the one thing everyone around the world knows about this government is that it’s taking money away from helping the cost of fuel for pensioners.
“So it’s one of those things which actually from a sort of fiscal point of view is pretty small but has turned out, I think, to be much bigger from a political and reputational point of view than the government expected.”
But on Tuesday health secretary Wes Streeting defended the cuts, arguing the money saved is being invested in the NHS and improving Britain’s state schools.
He said Labour has “had to do a lot of heavy lifting to get the country out of the hole it was left in”.
Discussing the fallout of the drunken incident last October, Mr Amesbury said what has occurred since has been “like being buried alive… I am in the position through my own fault and own mistakes”.
