With all my heart, I support Labour breaking the 2 child cap

Given what Labour has become nationally, but also locally, it makes it just that bit harder to publicly announce anything that I agree with them about.

But I was part of Labour since I was a boy - not fully understanding what socialism was - and there is a lot of my soul that still belongs to their idea.

I want so much for people who have no money to live comfortably - in good housing with food on the table. 

I want them so much for them to have as much opportunity as possible to become whoever they want to become and make a living doing what they love.

Why? Because I was one of them. 

Without playing the victim, I know exactly what it was like to grow up with the house falling apart, no heating, eating nothing but different types of jacket potatoes every night, being educated badly by a school that lacked the right ethos, and ending up on the inevitable trash heap like most of my friends initially after they left school.

I was brought up in a household of four children and a single mother.  She did everything she could to put food in the table up until the point she could no longer do it. 

Our mentality was not full of ambition and we didn’t know how to go about fulfilling our potential.  You have to be shown these things, so while my mother sacrificed her entire life for her children and could give no more, we were all left unequipped to make the best out of life.

I am eternally grateful for everything my mother did for myself and my siblings.  A child’s debt can never be repaid.  Yet, I was lucky.  My father has a work ethic like you wouldn’t believe and an insatiable ambition to match. He took me under his wing when I was 19 years old and going nowhere.  (I have forgotten to say my parents divorced when I was 3 years old.)

Running against me in the race for Mayor of Greater Essex, he will without doubt transform Essex into an entrepreneurial hive of success.  I have a different skillset, as he funded my late university education in which I proudly finished with an MBA.  (It has been so many years that I’m not sure if it means anything anymore, but I am grateful all the same.)

Very few at my school, who also grew up poor, were not as fortunate as myself.  But when I speak to my good friend and old school mate - one of Southends great fundraisers Lee Clark - we still connect in a way few can. We don’t moan about our childhood - in fact, we’re very proud of it.  We count ourselves lucky because we can truly empathise with the many and not the few.

As a result of our up-bringing both of us have an innate engine to help others who are experiencing similar.  Thorpe Bay High, the school we attended, to this day I do everything I can to help.  We have given speeches and offered work experience for the pupils.  And I’d do the same for all the other schools with children who are going through the same thing.

Being poor is nothing to do with victimhood, but it is very much to do with survival.  Thank god for those politicians who voted in favour of a welfare system that meant I could eat.  Had the two child cap been introduced when I was growing up we would have been saving the skins on our jackets for the next day’s dinner.

It is all too easy to criticise those on benefits and I get it.  I have paid astonishing levels of taxes and do not think it good that the current system incentives young people to have babies to claim benefits and get a council house.

Unfortunately, it is a failure of society that the best opportunity for a young person is to do just this.

This is what must change!

If we continue providing little opportunity the same cycle will continue.  Demonise them all you want, but what would you do if you had very few options?

The solution to this is to reduce class sizes and use technology in education to ensure everyone is able to learn, comprehend and head off to fulfil their dreams. Anything less will continue to see what is happening.

I feel so strongly that Labour and Starmer have made the right decision that, while I am totally against their digital ID dystopia and greenbelt destruction, on this I am extremely proud of what they have done.

Yes, it is easy spending other people’s money, but it is exactly right that my money goes to a child of whom would not be able to eat without.

It is not possible to continue giving things away as the country will quickly become bankrupt - if it hasn’t already - but on this they are exactly right.

Being poor is no fun at all and the welfare system is not the reason why the country is in such a financial mess. I recognise the need for sound financial management and lowering taxes, but I have to tell you I am proud of our country that we do look after people. What would happen if we didn’t?

The blind understanding of those who do not realise that it only takes a few twists of deeply unlucky fate for them to join the poor gets to me. They just don’t believe it could ever happen.

This is not a horror story, this is fact, and we all need that safety net.

For a fleeting moment, I remembered why I was Labour and againer the tidal wave of haters, I say on this policy, I wholeheartedly commend you.