Labour stand up for vulnerable

Guest article by Cllr Teresa Murray; Spokesperson for Health.

Teresa is responding the article in the Guardian yesterday about the leadership of Ed Miliband:

Saturday's interview with Ed Miliband portrayed him as the personable, determined leader we in the Labour Pary know him to be who won't be distracted by less confident Party technocrats who are losing their nerve.

We have to play a long game and as Polly Toynbee rightly says, there's no shortage of battles to fight while this old style Tory government do what they know best,attack the vulnerable.

Here in Medway we are fighting to save the only day centres left for elderly and disabled people.

The local Tory council are doing what Eric Pickles wants them to do, shutting down as many public services as possible before the next election in the hope that by then, voters will have forgotten what they did and be grateful for the inevitable tax cut in the pre election budget.

We have seen this before but it doesn't stop it hurting. Our centres, now under threat of closure or privatisation give therapy,hope and respite to those who have no other means of socialisation and no possibility of finding such facilities or friendship groups elsewhere.

These groups also face losing up to £70 per week in Benefits making it even harder for them to fund their limited activities if the centres close.

This is the real fight and the Labour Party is up for it.

Cllr Teresa Murray

Rochester East Ward