REVEALED: The number of pensioners Labour could have kept warm this winter with £11million sent to Syria

Sir Keir Starmer has come under fire for sending £11million to Syria while pensioners in Britain choose between heating and eating after Labour slashed the winter fuel allowance.

The Prime Minister’s humanitarian aid package comes in the wake of the fall of Assad’s regime in the middle eastern country.

Starmer said: “From cutting the cost of living for hardworking British people, to building resilient supply chains or supporting communities in Britain, what happens in the Middle East matters at home.”

But some commentators and voters have lambasted the move, asking why there is money for Syrians but not vulnerable British pensioners.

Indeed, analysis has revealed no less than 36,000 pensioners could have been kept warm this winter had Labour chosen to prioritise them.

This is based on the fact that pensioners born before September 1944 are eligible for £300 payment. (£11million/£300= 36,666 pensioners).

However, the number of pensioners who could have received the winter fuel money could be significantly higher as the payment falls to £200 if you were born between 23 September 1944 and 22 September 1958.

Using the same formula (Syrian aid / winter fuel payment = number of pensioners who could have had winter fuel allowance), the number rises to 55,000 pensioners.

And it doesn’t stop there. Both these calculations assume the pensioners in question live alone.

But the same payment applies to pensioner couples, meaning anywhere between 73,000 and an absolute maximum of 110,000 pensioners could have been kept warm this winter.

Reacting to the news, commentator and pollster Matthew Goodwin said on GB News: “You can take money off pensioners, you can smash family farms, but some tinpot dictatorship falls and suddenly there’s £11million for them.

“We don’t know who these people are, we don’t know what they want. We don’t know what they’re going to do to people in Syria,” added Goodwin who was sceptical of what the money would end up being used for.

This comes as Keir Starmer continues to deflect accusations of hypocrisy after warm hubs and food banks have seen demand from pensioners shoot up.

For example, Bow Foodbank in Bethnal Green, east London, says it has had to change the way it provides services due to demand becoming “unmanageable”.

Joanna Read, executive director, said since she started working there a year and a half ago, the number of pensioners using their services has risen from 17 to up to 70 a week.

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Warm hubs have also been opening to support pensioners who can’t afford to heat their home after losing winter fuel payments.

Warm Welcome, a leading campaign group, have reported 500 new warm hubs opening across Britain since October.

The hypocrisy allegations have come from this because Starmer, as Leader of the Opposition, described warm hubs as “evidence” of the Tories’ failure to protect people in 2022.

During an interview, Sir Keir said it was “serious and tragic” people needed to use warm banks and that it was “powerful evidence of the failure of [the government]” and that “we shouldn’t need that in 21st century Britain”.

Charities have accused Starmer of “pure hypocrisy” after one of his first moves in government was the winter fuel raid.

Labour argues it is taking tough decisions now to plug the £22billion black hole left in the nation’s finances by the Tories.

Defending the decision, Sir Keir said: “This government was elected to clear up the mess left by the party opposite, to bring about the change that the country desperately needs. Our first job was to audit the books, and what we found was a £22bn black hole.

“So we’ve had to take tough decisions to stabilise the economy and repair the damage, including targeting winter fuel payments whilst protecting pensioners.”