Gordon Brown has warned that Universal Credit could lead to civil unrest, akin to the Poll tax riots.
The Labour grandee will predict “a return to poll tax-style chaos in a summer of discontent.”
The Thatcher administration introduced the poll tax in 1990 and it caused major rioting and it was one of the main reasons that her leadership came to an end.
He will say at a speech in Edinburgh: “Surely the greatest burning injustice of all is children having to go to school ill-clad and hungry. It is the poverty of the innocent – of children too young to know they are not to blame.
“But the Conservative government lit the torch of this burning injustice and they continue to fan the flames with their £3bn of cuts. A return to poll tax-style chaos in a summer of discontent lies ahead.”
Mr Brown will also say: “Because almost £3bn has been cut from its budget, Universal Credit does not achieve its objectives.
“It was advertised as making work pay and empowering those on low incomes but in fact two-thirds of poor children are now in families where someone is working.”
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