Dennis Reed, founder of the Silver Voices organisation (Image: Rowan Griffiths/Daily Express)

       And we thought that the campaigners in favour of scrapping the Triple Lock had slunk away to lick their wounds, for at least the rest of this Parliament; no such luck unfortunately.

       Both major parties had promised in their manifestos that the Lock was secure for at least five years, but it has only taken 6 months for this vital safeguard to come under pressure again.

       Labour has just appointed as its Pensions Minister, one Torsten Bell MP, former Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation and a fierce opponent of the Triple Lock.

       Bell led this think-tank for many years, leading architects of the false narrative that pensioners have never had it so good and need to be squeezed.

       Appointing a poacher as the gamekeeper of pensions is no mistake. It shows that Labour’s long-term aim is to attack the state pension system, either by abolishing the Triple Lock or by means testing the pension, or both.

       When we needed all Opposition politicians to stand firm in support of older people, up steps Kemi Badenoch to pour oil on troubled waters.

       She has appeared to suggest that the Triple Lock itself should be means-tested. This is a na？ve and incoherent policy.

       The Triple Lock is of course just the cost-of-living increase awarded on the state pension each year, and can amount to only a few pounds a week.

       To suggest a means-testing apparatus is set up just to claw back a few pennies from that is a ludicrous suggestion and the Tories are already in full retreat over their Leader’s faux pas.

       What Badenoch has done, tragically, is to provide cover for Labour to bring forward plans to means-test not the Triple Lock, but the state pension itself.

       We say to both major parties, tamper with the Triple Lock and the universal state pension at your peril.

       The duopoly of power of Labour and the Conservatives is already being questioned and if the two parties break their Manifesto promises on this issue, they will both suffer the electoral consequences.