I Daniel Blake - Campaigning against ESA cuts

North Devon Labour activists joined forces with director Ken Loach for the I, Daniel Blake day to campaign against the “appalling” cuts to Employment Support Allowance (ESA). Local Labour members campaigned outside Ilfracombe’s Embassy cinema as Ken Loach’s acclaimed film was shown in North Devon for the first-time last Friday. They distributed leaflets encouraging the public to contact their MP and chancellor Philip Hammond urging an end to the brutal cuts The Government are planning on cutting ESA meaning that sick and disabled recipients will lose £29 a week.
North Devon Labour Party Chair Mark Cann said  
“At film screenings all across the UK, Labour are demanding that the Government scrap these appalling cuts to the most vulnerable in our society at the Autumn Statement.” “How can it be right, especially when we know people are already struggling – to strip £1,500 a year from sick and disabled people?
“This comes at the time when here in North Devon, we are seeing appalling levels of Child Poverty and more and more people becoming reliant on foodbanks. “Every way you look the most disadvantaged in society are being targeted by these callous policies.”
​ Ken Loach echoed these sentiments, saying: “Go to the food banks, Mr Hammond, have the guts to face the people you treat with such conscious cruelty. If you don’t know the suffering you cause you are not competent to be in Government. If you do know, you are not fit for the job.”