Liz Truss is now the fourth Conservative Prime Minister in 12 years. The question people up and down the country are asking themselves is whether she will tackle the cost-of-living crisis? The cost-of-living crisis is where hard pressed families are struggling to pay their rent, feed themselves and are unable to buy basic items such as toiletries and clothes. I remain doubtful that she understands the full scale of the challenge facing her.
Her offer to the British public falls shamefully short of Labour’s energy plan that would see a windfall tax on oil and gas companies and offer meaningful help to struggling households. This would deliver the solutions that the public needs!
In the 12 years the Conservatives have been in power they have failed. They have failed with housing, failed our NHS, failed families, failed homeless people and failed with halting household debt. The economy is a mess, wages are low and inflation is high. I do not want my constituents to suffer from hardship and to struggle to make ends meet.
In Lewisham, 14,928 three-day emergency food parcels were given to people in 2021-22. The problem here is not just that demand is likely to increase but donations are drastically decreasing.
Although, I must give credit to the part she played to secure the release of my constituent Anoosheh Ashoori who was detained for nearly 5 years in an Iranian prison after falsely being accused of being a spy. Yet as an MP I cannot ignore how she voted for cruel austerity policies and as Foreign Secretary she has damaged our relations with the EU over proposed changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Never should we dismiss the fact that she has served a government that has left Afghans, who fled the Taliban, forgotten in hostels. Only last week I visited an Afghan family of five that have been in a hostel for 10 months. They have not progressed from the day they landed in the UK and they remain at the mercy of a bureaucratic Home Office.
It is clear that the only party that can actually create the fresh start our country desperately needs is the Labour Party. I will do all I can to get a Labour Government elected at the next general election.