Voters desensitised by creeping poverty and broken services must be told they deserve more – and that the UK can afford itA decade of austerity has shrunk the British state to such a degree that it is no longer able to fulfil its basic functions. Just ask the cancer patient waiting for […]

Natalie Bloomer visited the Weston Favell scheme in Northampton every month for a year. Here is her diaryMy first session comes at a busy time of the year as staff gear up for Christmas. Each person who comes through the door is offered a hot drink and some toast while they tell volunteers their […]

Mr Johnson once thought ‘destitution on a Victorian scale’ might be a good thing. With Tory policies he may yet deliver such a dystopiaDid Boris Johnson watch Channel 4’s documentary Growing Up Poor? He should have. The film is a seminal moment in television which has made people […]

Food bank use | Peerages | Nigel Farage | Climate crisis | Attender/attendee | EyewitnessRe the letters from Kay Murphy (27 November) and Estelle Smart (29 November), the Hexham Courant reported on a hustings event last week. When asked about the use of the local food bank, the Conservative […]

Food banks | Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral | Attendant Liam Fox | Avanti trains | Buddhist saying | Electoral neutralityFurther to Kay Murphy’s letter (27 November), when told that the number of people using food banks in the Malvern Hills area had risen by 50%, Conservative […]

We’ve lobbied our local MP several times, and contacted the responsible secretary of state. All we get back is a total lack of responsibility, writes Kay MurphyIf Val Harrison and other readers write to their MP and ministers about food banks as she suggests (Letters, 22 November), I hope […]

Thinktank Resolution Foundation predicts social crisis will worsen if Boris Johnson wins general electionChild poverty is at risk of rising to a record 60-year high under a Conservative government because its manifesto retains the coalition’s benefit cuts, according to the Resolution […]

Deductions to cover loans are forcing many to turn to food banksMore than a million households on universal credit – 60% of everyone receiving the payments –are having their benefits cut to repay debts and loans.Data sourced under the Freedom of Information Act show that in May – […]

The scale and efficiency of the operation is impressive but also depressing – we shouldn’t need them in the first placeIn the course of making a radio programme I found myself in a food bank – a Trussell Trust place in Hastings operated by King’s Church. It was as inspiring […]

Party warns of soaring food bank use as it highlights plans to boost pay and reform welfareLabour will promise to eliminate what it calls the “10 modern scourges of poverty”, from soaring food bank use to childhood deprivation.In its latest attack on the Conservatives’ record in […]

Jane Middleton urges readers to vote Labour to end the Tory-induced epidemic of food bank use, while Jane Streather says the next government must increase funding for the provision of free food to childrenThe latest statistics from the Trussell Trust indicate that almost three-quarters of people […]

Signatories including Pragna Patel and Mary-Ann Stephenson are fighting for equality and women’s human rights, and are calling on candidates from across the political spectrum to adopt policies to redress any imbalancesThis election falls between the 101st anniversary of some women winning […]

Millions now excluded from mainstream society, says study by IPPR thinktankSocial security payments have hit their lowest level since the launch of the welfare state, excluding millions from mainstream society and fuelling food bank use, according to research.The £73 standard weekly allowance […]

Trussell Trust reveals steepest increase in five years as it hands out 823,000 emergency food parcels in six monthsMore people than ever are being forced to turn to food banks, after welfare problems over the last six months have led to the steepest increase in emergency food parcel handouts in […]

The living wage movement began in 2001. It’s an affront to decency that millions of workers still earn too little to live on • John Sentamu is the archbishop of YorkEveryone in the UK today knows what political uncertainty is. And they don’t like it. Yet far too many of our […]

They change countries to take up new jobs. But when these fall through or they can no longer work, thousands are finding there’s no safety net to catch themIt was more than a decade after Hana* moved to Australia from New Zealand that she discovered there wasn’t a social safety net to […]

Guardian readers respond to the Advertising Standards Authority ruling on the government’s advertising campaignAditya Chakrabortty’s article (The government uses your money to gaslight poor people, 6 November) revealed the depth that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will go to […]

A Trussell Trust report details shocking levels of poverty, driven by a benefits system that has tossed large swathes of the public asideDepending on who you listen to, the stakes of this election couldn’t be more different. Believe the panic of the super-rich reportedly preparing to flee the […]

Research says evidence ‘clear’ policies such as universal credit can cause destitutionFrances Ryan: The Tories can’t run away from the horrors of Food Bank BritainWelfare changes such as universal credit and the bedroom tax are a key factor in the sharp increase in food bank use […]

Austen Lynch says Tory policy should be vigorously fought with composure, while John Airs and Colin Arlett praise Aditya Chakrabortty’s piece on food banks and the issues at the heart of the next electionEmma Brockes (Opinion, 31 October) considers Boris Johnson’s behaviour […]