OUR compassionate political leaders, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osborne, Ian Duncan Smith, et al, have rejected £22 million of EU funding for food banks.

Presumably this is on the assumption that there isn’t a problem and they agree with Education Secretary Michael Gove, who thinks the exponential growth of food banks has something to do with feckless individuals and families mismanaging their budgets and wasting money on Sky television, cigarettes, drink, gambling, payday lending debt, etc.

And we all know that our Prime Minister believes: “We are all in this together.” And if these brilliant politicians with Oxbridge firsts honestly believe that, it must be so.

Silly me for thinking that gross inequality, unemployment, underemployment, outsourcing of jobs, zero-hour contracts, low wages, public-service and welfare cuts, and a casino scam economy combined with corporate greed, wrongdoing by bankers and politicians, together with tax avoidance by multi-national companies and by UK billionaires and wealthy celebrities, might have had something to do with the cost of living crisis, personal and family debt, fuel poverty and homelessness, deprived neighbourhood communities and hunger.

E Jacques, De Grey Place, Bishopthorpe, York.