COVID-19 is still dominating all aspects of our lives, but the UK government has offered minimal support for its people. With 322 MPs voting against providing children in poverty-free school meals over the school holidays, millions of children who have no control of their socioeconomic status have plunged into hunger.
On the other hand, the government helped adults to eat out in August, and all MPs have their meals subsidised by the taxpayers over their £80k salary.
NHS staff have been denied a pay rise for their tireless and selfless work on the front lines. They work every day to help others at their most vulnerable while putting themselves at risk. Thousands of full-time nurses rely on food banks to feed their families, but instead of supporting them, MPs received a pay rise of £3,300 and an additional £10,000 for home-working.
For their hard work during the first wave of the coronavirus, nurses were given a lunch box or a commemorative badge (which is not allowed at work due to infection control)
The government's classist behaviour is widening the North-South divide.
The alternate offer to Andy Burnham’s fully-costed £65 million plan for a safe lockdown leaves Manchester, an area already facing economic hardship, with the equivalent of £8 per person to survive a tier-3 lockdown. The government has miscommunicated with the North via late-night briefings, newspapers or phone calls instead of facing the local MPs. Earlier in the year, a high volume of cases rising in London led to a national lockdown. The government is no longer giving the same amount of support now.
The United Kingdom has the wealth and resources to ensure that every child has enough food, that our NHS staff are appreciated and to keep our hardest-hit areas economically running. To impose hunger, poverty, and a general lack of support onto any of these people is an act of corruption.
Written by Ty
Artwork by Zara Masood
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