LABOUR MP Ian Lavery pointed out in our paper yesterday that too many well-heeled MPs have no conception of the grimness of life for millions of people in foodbank Britain.

Lavery may not have expected to have his assertion confirmed so quickly or so conclusively, but the statistics revealed by the Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United Kingdom project expose a sorry reality.

Politicians of all stripes intone the received wisdom that the way out of poverty is through employment, which seems to make common sense.