Polly Toynbee writes about Rishi Sunak’s cynical spring statement (I’ve covered countless Tory mini-budgets. The cruelty of this one shocked even me, 25 March). The day after it, my wife and I delivered a couple’s first-ever food bank parcel. Their door was wide open so as not to miss the delivery and they greeted us with the words: “We were down to our last tin of beans.”
Week after week we deliver to people who try everything to make ends meet to provide food and heat for their families. Many are working but not earning enough to meet basic needs; some are looking for work that doesn’t exist; some are casualties of a bureaucratic and punitive benefits system that is unable to respond to changes in people’s circumstances.
