Beverly W

Its currently freezing here and I'm sneezing and sniffing constantly. I wish I could afford the luxury of switching the central heating on for longer than 2 hours a day. It doesn't seem too long ago we had the option to do this and far more little luxuries besides but it seems to me the government has well and truly put a stop to allowing families like mine to thrive let alone survive.

It's not as though I'm not constantly on the look out for new or different ways to save money. Short of filling a flask with boiling water every day to save re boiling the kettle or wearing a coat indoors on a permanent basis during winter months its all getting rather tiring to continue living life like this and it's taken its toll on my spirit my stamina and my sanity.

Last week the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published their study about the amount of children who experienced destitution last year, Universal Credit changes are making it harder for single parents to 'single parent' and the DWP also held a consultation on drastic changes they plan to make to the Work Capability Assessment.

All of the above is diabolical news and is likely to have catastrophic consequences to millions including me.

The country is completely broken in my humble opinion.

The government believe benefit claimants like me, are a drain on the system. They believe claimants like me cannot manage their money adequately. They try to make us out to be the enemy of the tax payer, yet we all pay taxes one way or another at various times in our lives. Lets not forget we subscribe to a system of paying taxes as UK citizens. I for one would gladly pay my taxes for the benefit of others without question. My brother has no problem with paying his. My friends pay theirs, my Dad paid his all his working life and was glad to do so and so on.

We've had 13 years of austerity under the current government and yet government spending is so far out of control the best answer they can come up with is to cut back even further on help for the poorest in society.

Someone needs to wake them up in Whitehall. In my view, from what I've heard in recent times, the vast majority of politicians are so far out of touch with the difficulties of the common man or woman in the street I seriously doubt any of them have a good idea to reach a conclusion between them at this time.

I think we need a new political party altogether and a systems overhaul. Is it too controversial to sack the Royal Family? I'm not sure how much more these cut backs and extreme hardship I can take?