It seems that as life becomes more expensive, the amount of financial aid available gets drastically reduced. The latest thing to go is Macmillan cancer charity. They used to give struggling cancer patients a grant every 2 years. It had lately gone up to £300 a year. I myself received one of these grants in November 2023, I was due to become eligible for another this November coming and was relying on it. Now I won’t get it because Macmillan have decided to save money by no longer giving grants and no longer giving benefit advice to cancer patients (so they can cut staff numbers). Meanwhile there are news reports that they are hiring more managers on inflated salaries.

My local council used to give a £150 cost of living grant to low-income people twice a year. It was a lifeline. Then they cut it down to £100. Now they’ve scrapped it altogether. Why? Because:

The government decided to cut winter fuel allowance. They used to give all Old Age Pensioners the winter fuel allowance - a few hundred pounds to see them through the winter so they could afford to keep the heating on a bit longer and not freeze to death. Well, the government decided to make the winter fuel allowance available to far fewer pensioners, to save money.

So my local council has decided, instead of giving the Cost of Living Allowance to all low-income people in the area, they are going to give it all to pensioners to replace the winter fuel allowance. So younger poor people get nothing.

Meanwhile MPs, many of whom are millionaires, have given themselves a pay rise worth millions. Just when they’re making disability benefits harder to claim too. Money is always being taken away from the poorest and extra given to those who don’t need it.