This should be an election at the heart of which are the issues of poverty, inequality, precarity and low pay. It is, after all, a campaign in which the cost of living, the state of public services, the price of austerity and the failure of politicians and institutions to listen to the public, dominate discussion. Yet Labour’s fear of dropping the Ming vase – its terror of slipping by giving the Tories any political ammunition – has led it to shadow Conservative tax and spend policies, and to row back on policy after policy, from workers’ rights to wealth taxes. That groan you can hear is public frustration.
The facts are stark. Twelve million people, more than one in five of the population, live in absolute poverty once housing costs are taken into account – the first rise for 30 years. More than seven million inhabit “food insecure” households. In two-thirds of parliamentary constituencies, at least one in four children live in relative poverty. There are more food banks in Britain than there are McDonald’s restaurants.
