Throughout this pandemic, we have seen the Government award almost £1.5 billion to Tory friends and donors; send covid patients into care homes, leading to thousands of deaths; fail to equip our heroic health service with adequate PPE, then deny health workers a fair pay rise; row back on manifesto promises to pensioners, our armed forces and foreign aid; deny refuge to children fleeing conflict and persecution; repeatedly ignore the crisis in adult and children’s social care; exclude 3 million people from financial support; be shamed into feeding hungry children; silence any dissent and clamp down on freedom of speech, proposing to jail journalists who print the truth; and disfranchise millions from voting in future. Recently, we heard the Prime Minister tell us all that we need to simply accept that more people are going to die. If anyone is not deeply frightened or concerned about the trajectory in which the Government are taking our country, they have not been paying attention.
In spite of the Government, we have seen communities like mine in South Shields do the exact opposite. In the pandemic, we have fundraised and delivered food and essentials to our friends, neighbours and wider community. Stuart Hatton provided online ballroom dancing lessons, Stevey Sullivan held “Storytime with Stevey” and Shah Lalon Amin delivered free curries every single night. South Shields Volunteer Life Brigade, Women’s Health in South Tyneside and North East Animal Rights kept on with the volunteering. South Tyneside council staff, my amazing team and other keyworkers went above and beyond every single day. Our Port of Tyne secured us as the base for the biggest offshore wind farm in the world. Richmond and Westoe Taxis offered free taxi transport to elderly and vulnerable people to help them shop for essential supplies. Our pharmacists filled the gap left when GP surgeries were shut and they made sure that essential medication was delivered across the constituency.
Communities across the country, including mine in South Shields, have shown the absolute best of our country. My constituents make me proud every single minute of every day, but I have never felt more proud of
them than I have done throughout this pandemic. I have a simple message to the Government: do better, be more like South Shields.
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