Stephen Hepburn MP: Theresa May the '˜Mr Bumble of Downing Street'

I’ve always believed we must all pay into the system through tax and National Insurance and we all deserve help when it’s needed, just as we do with the NHS.

Nobody is spared the venom of these Tory slashers who have taken their knives to a Support for Mortgage Interest benefit allowing low-income pensioners, folk on in-work benefit payments and Jobseekers’ Allowance to keep a roof over their heads.

What the Tory sneaks are doing is changing a benefit paid to more than 124,000 households every year into a loan so they’ll need to repay what’s currently free.

It’s another £190million bite out of decency by the Tories and will hurt skilled workers and middle class families who might have wrongly believed cuts were imposed only on the long-term jobless or sick and disabled.

We’ve been hit hard up here with South Tyneside unemployment nearly double the national average and a sharp rise in the last year alone in insecure zero-hours contracts.

More cuts put more pressure on Foodbanks bailing out victims of Tory austerity.

So much of the misery inflicted is down to the poisonous politics of a failed austerity Tory ideology.

The proof is in the success of almost 60%, that’s three-in-every-five, of challenges at an independent tribunal against unfit medical assessments wrongly claiming the sick and disabled are fit for work which, let’s be honest, doesn’t exist anyway.

The Tories rewinding the clock and going full circle by turning the country into a giant Oliver Twist theme park makes Theresa May the ‘Mr Bumble of Downing Street’.

It’s not right the Tories cut taxes for millionaires and gift Northern Ireland’s DUP £1billion in a cash-for-votes deal while hammering hardworking families.

It’s not right that the Tories are stripping our public services to the bone, depriving our local councils of funds to such an alarming extent that 4,000 jobs have been lost in the South Tyneside and Gateshead areas alone.

And it’s not right that the Tories continue to swing a human wrecking ball into our NHS, with local hospital services under threat or axed.

The Tories have got their priorities all wrong and we know they don’t give a damn about you, me or anyone else in this area.

That’s why we need a Labour Government led by Jeremy Corbyn. Now!