SIR – I have written to Kris Hopkins many times during the past two years asking him about his party’s plans to hand control of the NHS to local commissioning groups, the increasing reliance on the private sector to kick-start the crumbling economy and how I am extremely concerned about the welfare cuts affecting the most vulnerable in our society, particularly the disabled.
Invariably, I receive a generic reply, which seems to come straight from Tory central office and barely disguises its contempt for me having deigned to question their policies.
Church leaders, the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the BMA, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Office for Budget Responsibility and the IMF, among others, are lining up to tell his party the cuts will lead to a society in which the poorest will become poorer and the disabled will lose many of their benefits and dignity, and that we will create a society in which the poor are demonised and such things as ‘food banks’ will become an accepted norm.
In an economy in which the Government has killed any prospect of a recovery, three times so far, and is now on target to push total Government debt in 2015 to £250 billion over previous forecasts, we are in real danger of creating a ‘lost generation’ of people cut adrift from hope and pride.
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