Children in poverty are suffering, we need an election now - Yorkshire Post Letters

The Westminster media storm around Truss and Sunak has drawn attention even further away from the plight of children in poor families.

This winter, more than a million people will be pushed into poverty by rising food and energy prices, and the Resolution Foundation says poorer households will face “a catastrophically bad year”.

The Trussell Trust food bank charity is making an emergency appeal for donations. The Child Poverty Action Group reports that one in three school-age children in England living in poverty miss out on free school meals despite their families struggling with the cost of living.

As a consequence of long-term government under-funding, reading ability among seven-year-olds from poor families fell at double the rate of those from affluent homes.

The NHS already gets less per capita than in 2010, schools already spend less per pupil, roads have deeper potholes, and social care has all but collapsed.

Meanwhile, our newest Prime Minister – the fourth in three years – is a multi-millionaire and ex-hedge fund manager who seems determined to make matters worse.

During the previous-previous Tory leadership campaign he said, “We inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas and that needed to be undone. I started the work of undoing that.”

This reveals the Conservative Manifesto 'levelling-up' commitments in 2019 as a cynical sham to attract votes.

After 12 years in power, the Conservatives have run out of ideas and competence and we deserve a change. I have written to urge my MP to support an immediate General Election.