Dear readers,  I haven’t mentioned Christmas because I know how hard this time of year can be. Not everyone has a family that cares, and many of us can’t afford to buy food let alone presents. But I do wish you all a happy new year, and a better new year. God knows this year has been bad enough, but next year will potentially even harder.

 

We did an hour outside the Jobcentre this morning, but it was quiet. I’ve found that the DWP like to give appointments, sanctions etc before Christmas to leave people without money over the Christmas period, its the DWPs way of saying merry Christmas.

It was quiet today, people rushing in and out not wanting to speak. For the above reasons there wasn’t a lot of people to speak to. Those that were there dashed past muttering words such as ‘They are horrid in there, Its a load of crap and suchlike.

I thought that I’d post a newspaper article that I wrote and was published last Saturday. I don’t get paid for this but its good for the campaign.

Anyway, here it is I hope that you like it.

 

So five years ago myself and others decided to fight back. I couldn’t just sit back and allow this to happen, and five years later myself and the team are still outside Ashton Under Lyne Jobcentre helping people, advising them, signposting and feeding them.  

The awful fact is that more people are interested in what Jeremy Corbyn did or didn’t say rather than the real news that’s right in front of them. 

People are dying. A further three million people will be forced into poverty next year due to the further roll out of universal credit. To be realistic I feel that number is underestimated. 

Even more children will be forced to go hungry, their parents will be even hungrier. What sort of society do we live in that allows this?

Homelessness will increase drastically due to the long wait for a universal credit payment to be processed. Many landlords don’t want anyone claiming any type of benefit to live in their properties, so in the absence of decent amounts of social housing being built, most homeless people will remain homeless for the foreseeable future. 

Thousands of self employed people will be forced out of their positions because its almost impossible to  fill the government’s impossible remit for self employment under universal credit. This will have a devastating effect upon local communities. This has also been underestimated. 

More and more disabled people will be persecuted by the government, be made to go hungry and not able to access the care that they desperately need. Many will become homeless as a result of being transferred to universal credit. 

We need to continue to fight against this cruel government and to be honest we need to stop being so nice about it, after all they aren’t showing any compassion towards those most in need, and they aren’t listening to polite requests to stop either. 

I spoke to lots of people today, none of whom couldn’t afford food over Christmas. We handed them food parcels which will tide them over until next week.

I had a conversation with a young working single parent. She says that her life has been destroyed by universal credit.

She took a loan out from the DWP to tide herself and her young child over until her claim was processed. She now has to pay this loan back at the cost of £150 a month.

After paying all of her bills off she’s left with £90 a month for her and her son to live off. This meagre amount is supposed to feed them both for a month. Could you manage on this small amount? It’s impossible, so she’s now reliant upon food banks to literally keep them both alive.

I helped and advised her and handed her a food parcel. I wish that I could do more but I can’t.

This is a damning indictment of the way the government regards working class people of this country. Combine this with the possible effects of Brexit, we could well see more poverty than has ever been seen in modern times. 

We need to do more, we all need to do more, both for our future and our grandchildren’s futures. If we don’t the future will look very bleak indeed. 

 

Many thanks to members of the team that came out today to help. I really do appreciate this, thank you so much.

Massive thanks to everyone that reads, shares and supports my blog. Thank you!

Please read, share, tweet, email my blog. This is very important and I can’t stress how important it is to get the word out there.