We can’t afford Corbyn

SIR – Philip Johnston (Comment, May 31) is bang on the money when he warns that Jeremy Corbyn would bankrupt Britain.

My disability has forced me to rely on benefits in the past, and it may well do so in the future. We cannot afford a Corbyn government that patronises disabled people by telling us money grows on trees, while digging the country ever deeper into debt.

Labour has been an honourable party, but its legacy is a painful, salutary lesson: on its watch, money always runs out. And when it does, disabled people and those who depend on the welfare state’s safety-net pay the price.

London SW1

SIR – Successive governments have created a new class stratum: those who live outside society – the workless, the homeless, the broken. They are lost to ambition, ignored by social improvement, kicked to the kerb.

But who’s that hovering above them? The countless defenders of the poor. They see nothing wrong in warehousing others in ghettos of inactivity and hollow opportunity.

I’ve been through the poverty of London’s slums. I got out. And I know there are thousands of others who could’ve done – and can do – the same.

Don’t mistake me. My big issue is not the people living in grief. It’s the cyclical, suffocating system of poverty that I want to see the back of.

Those at the bottom must be given chances to fly. Those at the top must ensure their wings are not clipped.

Will anyone elected on June 8 take up such an agenda of prevention, speak out and act? The parties seem to be listening. Once the new Parliament sits, it’ll be the time for action.

The Big Issue London N4