‘Does anyone know if our new Labour MP is voting for or against winter fuel payments for all OAPs’ appealed a message on a local Facebook group this week.

Usually flooded with descriptions of missing cats, offers of scrap metal, a debate over the best primary school and whether the nearby motorway junction was open - up cropped a lesser-spotted political post.

And yet within hours of the question being asked more than 30 other comments had waded in.

Some bemoaning rising energy bills, others offering advice on how to check voting results alongside those furious at the cost to pensioners and the sheer audacity of Keir Starmer to take away from a generation who had paid into ‘the system’ all their lives.

While no one was of course able to confirm exactly which way certain elected members are likely to vote ahead of Tuesday afternoon’s event - the sheer level of engagement in a residents’ group usually more preoccupied with town centre traffic jams indicates the move to strip millions of older people of the extra cash is not only a contentious one but critically one in which busy people are actively engaged in.

Even during this summer’s general election - as the party leaflets were dropping through the front door like letters from Hogwarts - the closest this social media group came to a political post was a grumble about parking at a polling station.

Never before, as far as I can remember at least, has anyone felt the need to publicly draw attention to exactly which way a politician tasked with representing the area is going to vote.

Labour’s decision to scale back winter fuel payments will save the country - it is estimated - £1.3bn as it attempts to plug the gap in what the party alleges is a £22bn black hole opened by the Tories.

But just two weeks into September- and with the Met Office already forecasting the first icy snap of autumn is on the way - I wonder how quickly the policy will leave some of our MPs out in the cold?