Hunger haunts the Christmas feast

Will the explosion in poverty end the cruelty of the Tory years?

Like a tourist passing through the UK, the prime minister treats the spread of hunger with polite interest. He shakes his head and coos consoling platitudes, but shows no sense of responsibility.

“It is sad that anyone needs to use a food bank,” Sunak told MPs just before the Christmas break.  “Sad” is one word to use, but “shameful” springs more readily to mind.

MPs reminded Sunak that, during one of the several Tory leadership campaigns this year, he had said: “I want to build a country where ideally nobody needs to use a food bank”.

Ideally, I do not doubt he does. Ideally, having one in five people – some 14.5 million –spending Christmas in poverty is not ideal. Ideally, Sunak would offer an urgent poverty reduction programme.

But he had nothing to offer beyond the hazy hope that economic growth would arrive – a distant prospect considering we are likely to spend the whole of 2023 in recession.