# Freezing This Christmas

"Freezing This Christmas" is a Christmas charity single released in December 2024. A parody of the 1974 single "Lonely This Christmas" by Mud, this parody version is a political protest song that references the backlash against the means-testing of the Winter Fuel Payment by the Starmer ministry in July 2024.
The song's lyrics are written by Chris Middleton, a freelance writer from Newcastle and performed by Dean Ager, a singer and Frank Sinatra and Michael Bublé impersonator, under the name Sir Starmer and the Granny Harmers, with all proceeds going to elderly charities.
In the week before Christmas, the cover reached number one in the Singles Downloads Chart and number 37 on the singles chart. It was beaten for the Christmas number one by "Last Christmas" by Wham!.

## Background

The Winter Fuel Payment is a state benefit paid once per year in England and Wales to some people old enough to have been born before a specific date. It is intended to cover the additional costs of heating over the winter months. First introduced in 1997 as a universal benefit for pensioners. The payment was first introduced by Tony Blair's Labour government in 1997 as a universal benefit for pensioners, and was first announced by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in his pre-budget statement of that year.
On 29 July 2024, just over three weeks after gaining power in the 2024 general election, the new Labour government led by the new prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced plans to abolish the winter fuel payment for pensioners in England and Wales (these payments are the responsibility of the devolved governments in Northern Ireland and Scotland) who were not poor enough to receive pension credit or other means-tested benefits. The effect of this announcement by the new chancellor, Rachel Reeves, which she said was required because of the previous government's "undisclosed" overspending, was that around 10 million pensioners would no longer be given the annual winter payments which were worth between £100 and £300. The payments had been given since then to everyone above the state pension age, and were intended to help with winter heating bills.
The announcement of this policy to remove fuel payments from pensioners took the nation by surprise as it had not been publicised in advance or included in Labour's manifesto for the election. With the announcement being made shortly before the Commons party conference season recess, there was only a limited initial response. However, several Labour MPs returned to Westminster complaining that their constituents were "furious and, in some cases, deeply worried". The decision to abolish the Winter Fuel Payment for all but the poorest pensioners gave rise to a significant backlash. Negative reaction came from Labour MPs, opposition MPs, trade unions, pensioner organisations, and the general public.
Following the commons vote, the results from a JL Partners/38 Degrees focus group of more than 100 people suggested that the new government was losing public support at the expense of Nigel Farage's party Reform UK. The group comprised different age groups, regions, and voting intention. The most critical were older Labour voters, some younger voters were more sympathetic with the governments case, but most were critical of the policy. A Savanta opinion poll commissioned by the Liberal Democrats party, and published on 29 October, found that 59% opposed the policy with 46% of Labour voters agreeing that Reeves was wrong to bring forward this policy while 35% agreed she was right. The poll also showed that 78% of people aged 55 and over said that Reeves should not cut the winter fuel payments.

## Lyrics

The song's lyrics are written by Chris Middleton, a freelance writer from Newcastle and performed by Dean Ager, a singer and Frank Sinatra and Michael Bublé impersonator, under the name Sir Starmer and the Granny Harmers, with all proceeds going to elderly charities including Age UK.
Most of the lyrics reference the backlash against the means-testing of the Winter Fuel Payment by the Starmer ministry in July 2024, with the song being sung from the perspective of a married elderly man who has had both his and his wife's fuel payment ended. Because of this, he and his wife have faced increasing difficulty due to the additional costs of heating over the winter months, mentioned in the line "And she told me that she doesn’t get out of bed till midday, because she didn’t want to turn the heating on." He calls Rachel Reeves a "fraud" and mockingly wishes Keir Starmer a merry christmas before saying "I hope you can sleep at night", previously criticising Starmer for being warm while they are "freezing". He also alludes to the previous winter when Rishi Sunak "was here", thinking at the time that the following Christmas wouldn't be as bad, only for it, in his opinion, to have been even worse for them this year due to their fuel payment ending.
A voice clip of Reeves saying "We inherited a situation where there was a £22 billion black hole in the public finances" is sampled during the song's instrumental break, alluding to a claim often used by both Reeves and Starmer of them inheriting an unexpected £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances from the Sunak ministry. They later published a breakdown, external of how it had got from the Treasury's £9.5bn shortfall in February to the £22bn "black hole". The song also includes references to "foreign wars" (referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Israel–Hamas war), "open borders" (referring to the UK's illegal channel crossings) and the "Two-tier Keir" nickname used during the UK riots. These are mentioned in the lyrics "The only things I see are foreign wars and open doors and a freezing OAP" and "And we really need warmth, but two-tier here doesn’t care at all".

## Music video

The song was accompanied by a black and white music video.

## Charts

In the week before Christmas, the cover reached number one in the Singles Downloads Chart and number 37 on the singles chart. It was beaten for the Christmas number one by "Last Christmas" by Wham!, which had also won the previous year. The BBC received criticism from Middleton, as well as Conservative MP Greg Smith, for not playing the song, with it being skipped on Radio One's chart show.
| Chart (2024) | Peak position |
| UK Singles (OCC) | 37 |
| UK Indie (OCC) | 5 |
| UK Singles Downloads (OCC) | 1 |