Sunak has no idea how other half live

THE gulf between Rishi Sunak, the man charged with getting to grips with the cost of living crisis, and the millions who are feeling the squeeze on their budgets could not be wider.

In fact the chasm has been measured. It stands at £730million, which, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, is the combined wealth of the Chancellor and his wife Akshata Murty.

This is a very rich man, in a Cabinet of millionaires, who knows nothing about prioritising help for the poor.

Just how out of touch Sunak is was demonstrated when he didn’t know the price of a loaf of bread because in his house there are several types of bread.

Meanwhile, he presides over a Government that has decided to hit our poorest families with a £20-a-week cut in Universal Credit – enough to keep food on the table for many families.

Many of them will struggle to feed their families and heat their homes as inflation, benefit cuts and rocketing energy bills push them into poverty.

Sunak explained he could not increase benefits to meet the costs of rampant inflation because the Government’s IT system was incapable of being adjusted.

He doesn’t get it. His answers to the cost-of-living crisis are to promise a tax cut in time for the next election and to offer a council tax rebate of £150 on fuel bills that have increased by nearer £700.

Like his promised tax cut, the fuel discount and the joke £200 payback loan for October’s fuel price rise benefit middle class and wealthy households.

Yet it is the poorest who are most exposed to rising food and energy prices, the poorest who were unable to build up savings during lockdown and the poorest who benefit least from the tax cuts that have been announced

The Chancellor cannot say he feels their pain. But he has no idea how the other half – or the vast majority who are poorer than him – live.