Tories’ tips for surviving testing times are insulting

Sir, – Here are top tips from the Tories for parents struggling to balance bills and feed their children, with workers juggling several jobs and more people being driven to foodbanks with food prices predicted by none other than the Bank of England to reach apocalyptic levels.

Learn how to cook said Lee Anderson MP. If facing food poverty it is because you probably don’t know how to cook, he said.

The Ashfield MP, who earns £85k per year and claimed £220k in expenses, states there is not a massive use for foodbanks in this country but we have generation after generation who cannot cook properly and cannot budget.

He alleged nutritious meals could cost only 30p a day.

Another, this time minister Rachael McLean, stated people need to work more hours, then claimed people are struggling with the impact of soaring energy and food prices because they don’t know how to budget.

Well, to be honest, people do not have enough money to budget with Rachael.

People, she says, are wasting their time choosing between heating and eating when they can just take on more hours or better yet get a highly paid job.

Simple enough, McLean should know. Before becoming an MP she worked in Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokyo with HSBC Bank then set up an IT publishing company with her husband which reported a £1.8 million profit for 2020.

Last year she claimed £203k in expenses

Another said buy own brand products – and that was from Environment Secretary George Eustice when asked what a family should do if they cannot afford to buy a chicken for a Sunday roast.

Martin Lewis, founder of Moneysaving Expert, said this was patronising and utter balderdash as people struggling to make ends meet already buy cheaper brands.

Lastly, some stellar housing advice for young people from another Tory, Jackie DoylePrice, who thinks we should all make use of granny annexes, self-contained flats we all have in our main homes. She said the government should encourage people to make better use of their housing asset for the whole of the family to ensure young people have some hope by having greater access to the wealth in their parents’ home.

This will actually save money in the health service because unnecessary hospital stays are more expensive than the little problem of inheritance tax problems. Yup, I don’t understand that either.

Oh, if you don’t have a granny annexe, don’t worry, just move to a house that has one.