Elected with just 40% of the vote to represent one of the most deprived parliamentary constituencies in the country, East Thanet Labour MP, Polly Billington, has revealed herself to be a cold hearted enemy of the tens of thousands of people in Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs who are struggling hard to get by.
“Poverty” Polly, as she is now becoming known, failed unlike more principled MPs to call for an immediate end to the two child benefit cap. In fact she actually voted against this proposal in Parliament and by doing so forced thousands of East Kent children and families into a frugal hand to mouth existence.
Poverty Polly also stood silently by whilst her Labour Government bosses denied winter fuel payments to millions of poor pensioners across the country who will now, with the loss of these payments, and the recently announced 10% fuel price rise, be facing energy bills which will increase by at least £600 a year.
This will have a catastrophic impact on older people in Thanet and is likely to cause the premature deaths of older vulnerable people.
What makes her actions even more despicable is that just two years ago as the Director of her self-promoting bandwagon, UK100, Poverty Polly praised winter fuel payments describing them as “short-term help which is desperately needed in the face of the current crisis”.
If short term help to support people unable to pay their energy bills was desperately needed in 2022, why all of a sudden is it OK to end this support in 2024? Not only is Polly a purveyor of poverty, but she is also an hypocrite too who perpetrates the lie that there is insufficient money in the treasury to remove children from poverty and to keep pensioners warm.
Whatever nonsense Poverty Polly spouts to defend the indefensible the Labour Government can, if it wishes, increase taxes on the rich and wealthy and close the many tax advantages enjoyed by them. Even a modest tightening of the generous taxation regime these people enjoy will be more than enough to end the poverty and suffering of millions.
But of course this will never happen because, according to reports, the Labour Party is now totally dependent upon donations from wealthy individuals and companies, whilst ordinary fee paying members have left the party in droves disgusted by the policies of Pime Minster Keir Starmer.
Hypocritical poverty pedalling Polly will not be a good MP for East Thanet, or anywhere else.
It is time for the strong independent voices of those who put their communities first to come forward to replace self-serving career politicians and their outdated power grabbing political parties at the next local, regional, and national elections.
Our corrupt and discredited political system must be pushed aside by honest folk from all backrounds who genuinely care about the those they are elected to serve. Nobody should be left behind.