A Tory ‘stealth tax’ doesn’t surprise me – does it you?

I’m not surprised to read about the government’s “stealth tax raid”. It’s in the DNA of the Tory party and government who use the system to keep the lower paid in society suppressed, whilst rewarding their paymasters and supporters with tax breaks and the like.

They are the party of millionaires. It’s amazing that the other members of the parliamentary party all keep quiet about the effects of their policies on their constituents, although perhaps they only think of their buddies in the constituencies they are supposed to be representing.

It is yet another case of trashing the country and the lives of ordinary people without thinking about the impact of their actions, other than what they get from their supporters who are unable to bring themselves to tell the truth about the situation they have created. It’s a case of WIFM (what’s in it for me) and not WIFA (what’s in it for all).

John Stockwell

Ware, Hertfordshire

The government claimed that the large pay rise for nurses would cost each working family £1,000 per year – a figure that has not shown to have any basis in fact. Now your correspondent Adam Forrest reports that their stealth taxes will cost us all £5,000 per year – a figure backed by the OBR and others.

G Forward

Stirling

There is a section of the UK workforce that is so invisible that few people even consider them workers. These people are “on call” every night. Their home is their workplace. They don’t have a union that represents them. They don’t have any employment legislation that protects them. They don’t have days off or paid holidays. They rarely have any opportunity for respite from their work. They can’t go on strike.

There are an estimated 10.6 million carers in the UK today. Millions of people who are working relentlessly, day in and day out with no break in sight. If carers strike, then vulnerable, sick or disabled,people will suffer. Strikes often aim to affect the profits of greedy companies, to make the point that it is the workers who generate the profits. Rightly so. Nothing was ever achieved without the workers.

The only way carers could make a financial impact, to show how significant they are, would be to force the government to provide paid home care workers to replace them while they strike. I think we all know that’s not going to happen because the social care sector has been destroyed. Brexit was the final nail in the coffin. Anyone who has tried to recruit a support worker, for the person they care for, recently will understand the shortage of care workers.

If carers strike, then the person they care for has nobody to look after them. Nobody to give vital medication, nobody to make meals, nobody to carry out personal care. The only people who suffer are those loved ones, whom more than 10 million citizens have given up their livelihoods to care for. And carers can’t risk the lives of those we care for.

So what does this section of the workforce do in this situation? Conditions are intolerable. Poverty is rife. This sector needs change. Carers need a living wage, not a pitiful allowance. Carers need an hourly rate that reflects the work they do, that pays their energy bills, and allows them to heat their homes and buy food.

The government has us trapped. They know we can’t strike, as they have stripped away any replacement for us. They know we won’t leave our loved ones without care. They know we can’t protest on the streets or stand outside with placards. They are content that we remain out of sight. Out of mind. Hidden.

So I ask you. How do we protest for our rights? How do we demand better? Suggestions welcome.

Rachel Curtis

Northumberland

Congratulations and thank you to Simon Calder for his well-deserved recognition at the British Journalism Awards. Always insightful and informed and entertaining.

Gordon Ronald

Herts