Lucas hits out at “Victorian” cuts

For immediate release:  Friday 13^th September 2013

The Government is intent on demonising the poor and vulnerable, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion said today, as she described cuts to welfare as “worse than the Victorian era.”

In her speech to the Green Party conference in Brighton today, Caroline Lucas criticised cuts to local services:

 “The money can be found to replace Trident but not to keep our libraries open.  It can be found to speed the wealthy between London and Birmingham, but not for the rural buses that people who don’t drive depend upon.

“If you spend your time in the company of people from News Corporation, British Aerospace and Vodafone, then mending potholes, maintaining street lights or caring for the elderly must seem a bit beneath your notice.

“We have a government that is intent on demonising the poor and vulnerable.  That is tearing up the idea of society and of our inter-dependence.  That rejects collective solutions.  This is worse than the Victorian era.”

Lucas said that the Greens are increasingly offering alternatives that Labour and the Liberal Democrats are not:

“Much of the time we’re putting the alternative that Labour no longer wants to provide.  The alternative to austerity.   The alternative to zero hours contracts.  The alternative to Trident.   The alternative to a rail system that allows private shareholders to profit while passengers pay some of the highest fares in Europe.

 “Liberals supporting a government that pays for lorries to drive around with ‘foreigners go home’ painted on the side.  Liberals backing the bombing of Syria, without waiting for the United Nations to try and co-ordinate an international response.  This is the vampire kiss of this coalition.  You offer yourself to Count David, and before long you are one of them and you’ve sold your soul, and grown fangs of your own.”

View full speech and watch the video.