Freeze Them
Socialist Press1979 1979-10-31Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 4 →
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More than 2½ million people will lose government cash help with their electricity heating bills this winter, as the Three million had been benefitting from the discount scheme, which was introduced by the last Labour government as a cosmetic measure to offset the plunge in working class living standards brought about by Healey's IMF-dictated policies-at a But Social Services Secretary Patrick Jenkin has scrapped the scheme, and substituted a pathetic 95p per week handout to pensioners over 75 and to families on supplementary benefit who have a child under 5: the total in these two categories is only The saving is thus a cool £22 million per year-while thousands of impoverished families face a staggering 18% increase in electricity bills and an overall 17% rate of inflation this winter.
Jenkin smugly pronounced that "in general, people's incomes STARVE T'EM Thousands of working tion into the comprehensive result of a Tory economic measure.
total cost of £38 million.
345,000 people.
are keeping pace with rising fuel bills."
And, if not, why should he care? class children at present alice childron at nrocent svstem. receiving free school meals because of the poverty of their parents will receive no meal at all as a result of the £200 million cut in school meals subsidies announced last week.
As expected,. Education Corretary Marlicle nut forward a Bill which lifts the legal obligation don Local Education Authorities to provide school meals at a set price and provide them free to certain children.
School closures will also be made more straightforward.
But alongside savage spending cuts the Tories are actually to spend up to £70 million more in order to reintroduce selecHand-picked "bright" children in state schools will be siphoned off and state funds will be provided to send them to private schools-effectively providing a direct subsidy to these bastions of class privilege.
Meanwhile working class school youth in crumbling buildings, crowded classes and usina aneing honks and equioment, will be bombarded with lying Tory propaganda assuring them that high-priced baked beans on toast and similar snack meals are as nutritious as the old-style school dinner.
Not content with condemning school youth to a lifetime on the dole, the Tories are determined to make school days some of the hungriest days of their lives.