ON Thursday December 20 we held a special Christmas memorial service outside Ashton-Under-Lyne jobcentre. 

We do this every year in memory of every person who has died as a result of the government’s heartless treatment of the poor and disabled. 

Austerity measures, the further roll-out of universal credit and failed Employment and Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payment “medicals” have all ensured that the poorest and most vulnerable will be living in poverty for years to come.

Thousands have died, and many more will die through a combination of the above and the lack of funding to the NHS which means that many can’t be offered the help they need. 

Local councils, especially Labour-held councils, are struggling to provide essential services for their local community. Some might become bankrupt like the Tory-held councils that have already done so.

Local communities are frustrated, and I imagine Labour MPs are too as they are often wrongly blamed for cuts to local services that it wasn’t their decision to make.

Cuts to funding from the government have forced local councils to withdraw services. While I don’t agree with this, I do understand why they’ve had to do it. 

Call it what you want, but I prefer to call it a war against the poor because that’s exactly what it is.

The government has also taken away many of the means of appeal that people previously accessed. 

Legal aid is almost non-existent and organisations that assist people in poverty have had their funding cut to the bare minimum, making it difficult for them to exist.

I’m under no illusion that this was implemented accidentally. The government simply doesn’t want working-class people to have access to legal aid and help from the NHS.

I firmly believe that the government regards us as a burden, not worthy of any help. In fact not worthy of anything. 

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 I and the team are still outside Ashton-Under-Lyne jobcentre helping people, advising them, signposting them towards help 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 universal credit payments 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. 

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 we need to stop being so nice about it — after all it isn’t showing any compassion towards those most in need, and it isn’t listening to polite requests to stop either.

I spoke to lots of people at our last demo, none of whom could 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 on. This meagre amount is supposed to feed them both for a month. 

Could you manage on that? It’s impossible, so she’s now reliant upon foodbanks to literally keep them both alive.

I helped and advised her and handed her a food parcel. I wished that I could do more.

This is a damning indictment of the way the government regards the 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.