VOTE THEM OUT
Olivia Porter lost her leg to meningitis when she was just two years old
Olivia Porter lost her leg to meningitis when she was just two years old.
The killer virus also robbed her of the use of her right arm. Despite being in almost constant pain from her prosthetic leg Olivia, now 10, is an extraordinarily resilient little girl.
But not even she could cope with the shock of last week’s ruling from the Department of Work and Pensions. Olivia has been told her Disability Allowance will be stopped because she is “not disabled enough” to continue receiving £300 a month in benefits. But as Olivia’s aunt, who looks after her since her mother died of cancer, says: “How disabled do you have to be?”
On the surface they see a
happy little girl.
What they don’t see are the tears at home, the sores and the regular hospital trips that eat up those benefits.
Cutting off her Disability Allowance will throw the family into financial turmoil, not to mention the emotional fallout. This little girl has been left high and dry by the very people who are meant to care for her welfare.
Olivia’s case highlights the gross inequity of the benefits cuts that are slashing families to bits.
We all applaud the decision to flush out benefits cheats, but when a 10-year-old girl is treated as shabbily as a welfare scrounger you wonder how anyone at the DWP can sleep at night.
By making savage benefits cuts, George Osborne claims the Coalition is pursuing “the right course for the country”. But tell me what is right about a policy that is crucifying the most vulnerable souls in the country?
With one hand he’s handing out corporation tax breaks, and with the other he’s squeezing the life out of hard-grafting families who are already struggling to cope with the soaring cost of living.
Despite the hollow words of Cameron and Osborne, that they are a family
friendly party, tell me how the next avalanche of 45 tax
increases and benefits cuts due to hit in two weeks will possibly help families who are already on the edge?
Take your average working mum. Chances are she’s furiously juggling childcare and a part-time job to help make ends meet.
So how is she rewarded? By being slapped twice as hard as men with tax and benefits changes. She will get nothing from Osborne’s increase in tax allowance, but will be hit for six by the loss of child tax credit and child benefits, not to mention the crippling increase in VAT.
They do not understand there is no more slack to cut. Nothing. They appear to be perfectly happy to stand back and watch people tip across the poverty line. Pensioners are already being forced to make the choice between “heating and eating”. New research shows one in five people in the UK are already too hard-up to visit the dentist. You’d think that news alone would raise a few alarm bells in Whitehall.
Austerity has gone too far when people can no longer afford something as fundamental as a visit to the dentist. But austerity has gone stark raving mad when a disabled girl is dumped by the Government, which pretends to care.
