DISABILITY campaigners have branded the government’s new strategy to tackle loneliness “pure hypocrisy” in light of years of Tory cuts to social care.
The Tories yesterday appointed Chatham and Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch as the new “minister for loneliness,” to help tackle an issue affecting around nine million people, young and old, in Britain.
The role is part of The Commission on Loneliness project which was first set up by the late Labour MP Jo Cox before she was murdered in 2016.
Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports


