Tories like Rishi Sunak have no idea what real poverty means

It’s possible that I may have one thing – but only one – in common with Rishi Sunak. I don’t have to worry too much about the huge increases in the overall cost of living.

This is not because I am as wealthy as the chancellor, rather that I have been lucky about when I was born.

I experienced some of the deprivations of war, but I have never experienced poverty. Our first flat in London cost £100 a year to rent, and 10 years later, we were able to buy a five-storey house in Islington for just under £7,000 (now worth about £2m). We couldn’t afford expensive overseas holidays but we could drive over two days to a campsite near Ravenna, pitching a small tent in any available field for an overnight stop.

When credit cards were introduced (my first Barclaycard dropped through the letterbox uninvited) they helped manage day-to-day finances. But I was able to earn a decent salary and build up a good pension. We weren’t troubled with tuition fees. We have some savings, we have benefited from ridiculous increases in house prices, and in retirement have no mortgage. Our three sons are all fortunate in being able to own their houses. How will their children get on?

But none of us are starving, or can’t keep warm, or struggle to care for our children. Like Sunak, we have no idea what it’s really like to be suffering from real poverty and deprivation. It takes some emotional intelligence to get near to understanding it, but that’s a quality not much in evidence in the higher levels of government, or among the huff and puff element in the lower orders of the Tory party.

This is where capitalism and the current economic models so revered by the political right have got us.

David Buckton

Cambridge

On behalf of Britain’s pensioners and low earners, I thank the Tories from the bottom of my heart for their extraordinary generosity towards us in yesterday’s spring statement.

If a touch of sarcasm could be detected there, it is only because I could not find anything in yesterday’s utterances that could possibly be seen as helping the above body of people, except of course the 5p cut in fuel duty – for those of us lucky enough to still drive.

I have calculated that in my own case, driving 4,000 miles per year, this will save me £22.99 over 12 months or to put it another way – 44p per week. I am genuinely excited, as this 44p will go some way to offsetting the near £12 per week increase in my energy costs from 1 April (the significance of the date does not escape me).

Once again, the Conservative government has shown utter contempt for pensioners and people on low incomes. How they are going to survive the next year or so with inflation predicted to be in the order of 10 per cent escapes me. Heat or eat will be the order of the day.

If all the above comes across as “poor me” and I am berated for having the audacity to complain, as I should be happy with my lot after all, I should point out that we have paid into the system for most of our lives.

Having said all that, it does not compare with the devastation that is ongoing in Ukraine and I for one would be fully supportive of foregoing the fuel tax cut and using the £5bn that it would cost to fund more humanitarian aid to that country.

Scott Cassie

Aberdeen

I see there has been an interesting change of tactic from Vladimir Putin, in stating he is still keen to attend the G20 in Bali later this year. For the uninitiated, this is pure Boris Johnson: promise everything, deliver nothing, blame someone else.

He is as likely to attend as I am, and after copious rhetoric will blame one or more of the other attendees for being politically rusticated.

Of course, if one were cynical, one might say the G20s achieve absolutely zero anyway and is just one big jolly; which is, without doubt, another reason to literally leave the Russian president firmly out in the cold.

Robert Boston

Kingshill, Kent

Rishi Sunak has a fair bit in common with Edwin Chadwick and the designers of the notorious Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.

By ensuring that the level of benefits will lag well behind the rate of inflation, he promises the most vulnerable in society the hardest of times. The existence of food banks all over the country shows of course that the level of benefits is already inadequate.

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One cannot expect rich public schoolboys like Sunak and Johnson to understand the plight of ordinary people. However, they may well feel a comeback at the May local elections and, almost certainly, when they are forced to have a general election.

Rev Andrew McLuskey

Middlesex

Not normally one for writing letters, I’m almost (but not quite) at a loss on where to start with this.

What were the Cambridges thinking when embarking on this taxpayer-funded tour of Jamaica? Yes, it’s in celebration of the Queen’s platinum jubilee. Normally I’d support this, as she’s amazing.

But a majority of people in the UK are facing huge uncertainty, unable to pay their basic living costs, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. How much will this trip cost?

There’s a war on. Women and children and being murdered in Ukraine. The timing here is a disgrace.

And to top it off, didn’t anyone in Buckingham Palace or William and Kate themselves do their homework beforehand? Jamaica has been making noises for some time about independence from the Commonwealth. So what was the point of the tour?

There’s a right time, and poor timing. At the very least, this was the latter.

Mike Struthers

Orkney Islands