“Extremist” right-wing rag the Mail on Sunday was condemned yesterday for a politically motivated stunt in which it paid a sneak reporter to lie to a food bank and claim food he was not entitled to.

The tabloid, which infamously supported Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts in the 1930s, sent one hack posing as a benefit claimant to a Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) in Nottingham, where he obtained vouchers for use at the local Trussell Trust-run food bank.

The paper said other undercover reporters had posed as volunteers at two trust-run food banks in Nottingham and London.