Have you been so caught up with Brexit you forgot the nightmare the Tories have made of your country?
Debbie Ballard (right) with partner Ryan Gifford: She had a miscarriage after being switched to Universal Credit without her knowledge.
The news is all about Brexit at the moment. Is it to stop you thinking about the people who are dying every day – some on the streets – because of Conservative government policies that are going unchallenged because of the big EU distraction?
I mean, do you know about Aimee?
Michelle knows. She’s a member of the Paper Clip Project, which runs Labre House – a building providing respite from living rough, but that can’t change users’ long-term circumstances.
She told The Guide Liverpool: “A thirty year old woman was found dead in a tent in our city. How did this become normal? How did seeing homeless people on the streets every single day become a normal occurrence? It should never be normal.
“The young woman had a name – her name was Aimee. She could have been any of us. In 2019 it’s so easy to end up on the streets. Our volunteer group, The Papercup Project, see so many people from so many different backgrounds in tents and doorways across Liverpool.
“We knew Aimee, we saw her on Monday night. We laughed and chatted with her. She hugged me and I told her to take care of herself. If I had known it was the last time I would ever have seen her, I would have done more. Hugged her a bit longer. Spoken to her a bit longer. Given her more food, more clothes. Told her she was loved by people. (She was.)
“Let’s say no more – no more people dying on our streets. Her name was Aimee. remember her.”
Will you remember Aimee when the result of next week’s “meaningful vote” in Theresa May’s Brexit deal comes in?
Will you remember Mark Scholfield, who died aged 62 after being diagnosed with advanced mouth cancer – penniless? He had been advised to claim fast-track Employment Support Allowance but due to the administrative creativity (and I use that word in the most derogatory sense imaginable) we have come to expect of the Department for Work and Pensions, the money arrived the day after he died, after six months on the bread line.
His partner described the Tory benefit system as “barbaric and inhumane”. That is a kind description.
Will you remember Debbie Ballard, who lost her baby after the Department for Work and Pensions (again) missed an automiatic rent payment after putting her on Universal Credit? She was thrown out of her home and spent 15 nights sleeping rough in a car park and had a miscarriage because of the stress – to which she should not have been subjected, and would not – if the UK government were civilised.
Will you remember people in your home town, who have suffered and died in similar ways?
Or will you just join in with the mass hysteria over Brexit?
The UK’s problems run far deeper than a bad decision made in 2016. And they won’t go away while we have Conservatives running the country.
Brexit or no, the first priority for the UK has to be the removal of the Tories from power at the first possible opportunity.
It’s a matter of life and death.
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Thanks for reminding us of the pernicious policies of a grotesque and ghastly Government and its vile ideology.
The Brexit shambles takes the spotlight off the daily reality of the lives of the vulnerable.
No. Not me. But … has it, for you? ;-) :-)
The Electoral Commission found evidence that the 2016 referendum was corrupt and illegal, as well as being supported with deliberate lies and fake news. Brexiteers as the 37% minority of The People, claim they want to make their own laws, but what about the laws we ready have? Why do they not pursue the crimimal VoteLeave campaigners in the courts?
Similarly, the Tories claim to be the party which has a core belief in ‘rule by law’, so why do they not pursue the crimimal VoteLeave campaigners in the courts?
How can anybody believe either group when they so readily sweep the major criminal activity revealed in the recent TV program under the carpet? They are both composed of shiesters unfit to govern anything.
Some good news, probably brought about by legal advice rather than any thoughts of altruism or fair play but none the less still good news. Let’s hope that this heralds the scrapping of the whole of this disguting eugenics policy.
https://news.sky.com/story/universal-credit-gets-reset-as-amber-rudd-scraps-two-child-benefits-cap-11604082
Universal Credit gets ‘reset’ as Amber Rudd scraps two-child benefits cap extension.
.Amber Rudd is not the first to try to destroy a certain section of society there was a certain monster named Hitler.
Hitler’s ‘Aktion T4’ program during WWII, a program that was designed expressly to dispose of those that the Nazis considered ‘Useless Eaters’ living ‘Burdensome Lives’, and the Gas chambers were born. Heaven knows what the total is to date. Tories Britain is somewhat similar
A very good point. Whenever we finally get a General Election, we should remember that we are in the EU now and we have rising homelessness and rock-bottom wages. If we leave the EU, we will probably have an even worse situation. But it will depend on what Party is in government , regardless of whether we are in or out. I would much rather we stayed in the EU and I regard Brexit as a poisoned chalice for Labour if we get back in. Once again, we would be forced to adjust to a disaster not of our own making and, yet, try to improve the lives of the many ,not the few. But even if we stayed in the EU and the economy stayed reasonably buoyant, we would still need a Labour government to make sure that the wealth was fairly distributed.
No, I certainly haven’t. But the majority, who only see mainstream media output, could well done so.
While it good that you still seek to support Corbyn, you miss the point that a labour govt, even if it could gai9n power with a manifesto which includes seeking a brexit, when indications are that such a policy would decimate the party: “A Labour government coming to power in these circumstances would be like a street cleaner having to gather the horse dung after a Tory hunt has passed down the high street. It wouldn’t be long before the public started blaming Labour rather than the “Tory Brexit”. One of the delusional ideas still whirring around Westminster is that, having “done Brexit”, we can rapidly get back to addressing our real problems, such as housing, health and education. Brexit won’t be done for a decade, and the economic cost of even the softest Brexit will leave less money available for already stretched public services. The people hardest hit will be Labour’s working-class voters.”-https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/11/labour-peoples-vote-second-referendum-blindfold-brexit
If you want labour to succeed then you need to campaign for it to promise a people’s vote on whatever deal it can get, and given the level of distrust this issue has created for Corbyn, that bare minimum may not e enough: Labour outright campaigning for remain, which after all aligns with the desires of its supporters in what Corbyn is supposed to have made a more, not less, democratic party, may be necessary as well.
I actually heard a Brexiter saying that it was, “A price worth paying.” Needless to say the self centred clown who uttered this remark isn’t losing his job, …yet.
Sorry wrong article for that comment. I meant to say:- The numbers of poor people living rough on our streets, the potholed roads, the boarded-up shop fronts are constant reminders of these evil Tories.