Labour politicians have an uncanny ability to leave the economy in a worse state than they found it. PM Keir Starmer has already got to work on that.

Now pensioners have a new reason to be afraid. The left has decided pensioners are sitting on a pile of unearned wealth and wants to grab it by taxing their pensions, savings, capital gains, inheritances and anything else it can think of.

And that’s not all. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is after older people’s state benefits, too. In fact, she couldn’t wait for the autumn Budget to show her hand.

In her first set-piece speech, she made the shocking announcement that she was axing the Winter Fuel Payment for 10million pensioners.

That was the first of those “difficult decisions” Reeves is lining up to plug the £22billion “black hole” she claims to have found in the nation’s accounts. A huge number of them are aimed at pensioners.

The sheer cruelty and political stupidity of snatching up to £300 from pensioners on as little as £11,350 a year, continues to astonish. Even Labour’s trade union backers are campaigning against it.

This isn’t the only way Reeves has targeted pensioners. She also axed the proposed £86,000 social care cap, which wasn’t perfect but did at least stand in the way of older people bankrupting themselves to cover long-term care fees.

In its place Reeves has proposed – nothing.

As yet, we don’t know what else she will do on October 30, but most of the mooted changes will hit older people.

Reeves looks set to cap the amount of tax-free cash the over-55s can take from their pensions, and charge inheritance tax on any unused pension on death.

There has been talk that she will axe the 25% council tax discount for people living alone, which will disproportionately hit pensioners living alone after death or divorce.

As if that wasn’t enough, Reeves is now being urged to scrap free NHS prescriptions for the over-60s.

Today, prescriptions are free from age 60. The Intergenerational Foundation wants that aligned with the state pension age of 66.

It calculates this could save the Treasury more than £6billion over the next decade, but like many of Reeves’ tax plans, this one could have unintended and expensive consequences. If people can’t afford to pay and fall ill as a result, the costs of treating them on the NHS could outweigh the savings.

It’s also unfair as the measure will only apply in England. In Scotland and Wales, NHS prescriptions are free for everyone, with English taxpayers largely footing the bill despite not benefiting themselves.

Former Conservative PM Rishi Sunak ruled out removing free prescriptions for those aged between 60 and 65 in 2023.

If Reeves takes a different view, it will be yet another blow in the intergenerational warfare Labour has unleashed.

It’s almost as if it wants to punish older people for refusing to vote for them. Pensioners certainly have no reason to do so in future.