Food banks handing out smaller parcels to meet demand means there's no excuses for Ed Miliband

Smaller emergency food parcels are the grim reality of life in a Britain that David Cameron wilfully ­misrepresents.

Packs were cut in size because so many thousands more destitute families rely on charity while the Prime Minister slaps himself on the back.

The inundated Black Country Food Bank, founded in the heart of England by ­Christians with a social conscience, trimmed them in Halesowen in the run-up to Christmas so that nobody hungry was sent away ­empty-handed.

Campaigner Stephanie Peacock, Labour’s candidate in ­Halesowen and Rowley Regis, uncovered the harsh truth as she dropped off donations to the centre.

“Demand is soaring and as a result they had no alternative – the size of parcels had to be reduced,” she told me.

“People going hungry in Britain is a shameful indictment of Tory failure.”

Gritty Halesowen, near Birmingham, is only 90 miles away by road from the Prime Minister’s country retreat, stately Chequers in Buckinghamshire.

Yet out-of-touch Cameron sounds as if he’s on another planet when he talks as though we’re on the verge of ­unparalleled prosperity.

The extra tax cuts he’s preparing to gift millionaire chums are charity for the wealthy as he makes life tougher for the hardworking majority.

Any economic recovery worth the name must mean more than leaving most people to wait for a few crumbs from the rich man’s table.

To be fairer, Britain needs stronger trade unions, work for all, living wages, improved public services, new houses plus an end to zero-hours-zero-pay contracts and wage-cutting contracts.

Ed Miliband shouldn’t just demand cheap foreign workers mustn’t undercut British workers.

The Labour leader needs policies to protect every worker, British and Bulgarian, from exploitation.

Cameron smiling, pretending the slowest recovery in history is an economic miracle, is deceitful politics.

Tory peer Michael Ashcroft’s latest mega poll shows it’ll be hard for him to win the next election, a third of Tory voters in 2010 deserting the incompetent PM.

Forecasting what’ll happen in May 2015, however, is difficult.

I was on the money long before May 2010, predicting a smug Cameron wouldn’t get a majority.

My 10p next time is Labour as biggest party but falling short, raising the ­possibility of a LabDem coalition.

I admit I’m less certain in 2014 than I was in 2008 and 2009. The ConDem coalition and wider disaffection with politics is changing the landscape.

Old road maps are of limited use in largely uncharted territory.

Miliband’s Labour retains a credibility problem despite riding the wave of falling living standards.

Smaller food parcels are a damning indictment of Cameron.

They’ll be a crushing verdict too on Miliband’s leadership if he fails to win.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/kevin-maguire-column-labour-no-2992682

Brilliant article!

This country is bleak enough for the poorest in society already, another Tory term will mean a return to slum dwellings and a full return to Victorian Britain.