• THERE has been so much noise about how the Conservative Party manifesto will affect the elderly, with the changes to social care funding quickly rebranded as a “dementia tax”.

This is understandable given the objective impact of such a policy but also the breathtaking hypocrisy from a party that once accused Gordon Brown of threatening a “death tax” when he suggested something similar.

However my concern at this election largely echoes that of Hampstead and Kilburn resident Jamie Oliver, who quite eloquently (but angrily) outlined his total objection to the slashing of free school lunches.

Under the Conservative proposals, about 900,000 children from struggling families will lose their right to free school lunches. According to research from the Education Policy Institute, that figure includes more than 600,000 young children recently defined as coming from “ordinary working families”.

The EPI go on to say that about 100,000 children who will be affected are in relative poverty, which trashes the Conservatives’ justification that free school lunches simply subsidise school meals for better-off parents. It is clear that many vulnerable children will suffer as a result of this measure.

Casting my vote in Hampstead and Kilburn, I will be weighing up what kind of British society I want our children to grow up in. I am of the view that the Conservatives are seemingly intent on make life worse for vulnerable pensioners and vulnerable children.

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