#endausterity

Good to see

Dear MP

I live in your constituency at [INSERT ADDRESS] and I am concerned at the current state of affairs we find ourselves in. Although parliament has now closed for the Christmas period (20th December 2018 to the 7th January 2019) I find in these circumstances that it would be appropriate for your and your colleagues to reconvene as soon as possible in order to prevent this governments policies causing any further unnecessary pain, harm and suffering. I am aware that by doing this you would perhaps miss out on precious time with your family and loved ones over the Xmas period, however there are a number of wholly inappropriate practices being allowed to carry on that have not been addressed and need to be attended to as a matter of urgency.

1. Roll back 'privatisation' of the NHS. 2. Scrap University tuition fees. 3. Renationalise energy, water, railways, buses, the Royal Mail and care work. 4. Introduce proportional representation (STV) for parliamentary elections and local elections. 5. Abolition of the House of Lords. 6. No Second jobs for MPs, including a ban on holding paid directorships or consultancies. 7. Tighten the rules on media ownership so no individual or company owns more than 20% of any media market. 8. Repeal the Welfare Reform Act 2012. 9. Make 4,000 additional homes available for rough sleepers to end homelessness. 10. Free school meals for all primary school children. 11. End to zero hours contracts. 12. A Robin Hood tax on high value transactions in the finance sector.

I have no doubt that with the resources available to parliament and with a concerted effort, both you and your colleagues will be able be able to reach a satisfactory conclusion on the above with minimal disruption or further loss.

Please note, I will not be returning to work or participating in any economic activity until parliament is re-opened.

Kind Regards [STATE YOUR NAME}

I am fed up of being convinced by parliament that I am a little person with no ability to change my fate. I am fed up of other people being convinced the same.

I am so determined to show the people of Britain that we are not the minority, we are the majority. We are people broken and battered by Tory rule forced into boxes, denied food, heating, clothes, silence and ignored. We are a majority which has been lied to, and pitted against each other until we forgot that we were a majority. Tory rule breeds hate among the people of Britain every day. Our government has forgotten that it too is a part Britian. And they must answer for the wrongs they are inflicting on their people.

I urge everyone who reads this to just think on it a little. I grew up below the poverty line. I have never lived in a house we owned, I have lived in private rent, council rent, council temporary housing, and a b&b over my years, as well as with relatives when the help just wasn’t there for us. I lived in one room with my mum, my sister and my teenage cousin, paying £55 quid a night that we didn’t have because the council policy meant we had to stay in a registered b&b; but they couldn’t provide enough help towards the costs, why? Because my mother had a job and we had a regular income.

My mother was a single mother living on a receptionist wage of around 15,000 a year at the time, with 3 children to look after and no home.

We struggled and pushed to get through it together and hope everyday that one day they would just say ‘okay, we’ll help you’.

The system failed my mother. The welfare state is there to help when things get hard. But instead my mum was left to fend for herself and us.

I have gone without food. I grew up eating mashed potatoes from a tin because we couldn’t afford real ones. I didn’t eat vegetables and only rarely fruit. I grew up with an eating disorder, diagnosed. Really? I grew up with malnutrition caused by poverty. My mother needed help from the welfare state. And she also needed guidance. She received nothing more than any family above the poverty line would receive.

The sad thing is? I am not the only one and that number is rising every day. I know hundreds of kids who grew up like I did, and I know hundreds more that grew up a lot worse.

I have watched incredible young people grow into drug abuse, alcohol abuse, homelessness, crime, and suicide all because they could survive and there wasn’t any help. Because it was the only option they could see.

I’m just going to stop now before I totally lose traction and focus. I just want you to think about it. Think about the way things are, if you’ve never experienced these things, try to imagine experiencing them or your kids experiencing them. A lot of people on Britain are fairly comfortable and earn a good amount, they live in the same areas as other people who earn enough, you might never have seen the absolute devastation and desperation that you find on my streets. You might never have seen a queue for a food bank that runs the length of the street, you might never have sat down with a junkie to learn that they were given heroin at 12 years old and have paid for that one bad decision the rest of their lives. You might not have been friendly with homeless people as a teenage and you might never have seen the joy even some human contact can give someone so desperate. So please just have a think. I hope that at least someone will read this and think a little and that person might decide; I am a big person, I have a voice, I will use it.