Poor better off under Tudors, says Mantel

BOOKER Prize-winning author Hilary Mantel has claimed the poor received better treatment centuries ago than they do today.

She said a ‘mood of harshness’ had taken over Britain and those in poverty were now portrayed as ‘morally defective’ by the Coalition.

The 62-year- old sparked outrage last year when she said the Duchess of Cambridge was a ‘plastic princess’ and ‘born to breed’.

She also recently attracted criticism after writing a short story about the IRA murdering Mar- garet Thatcher. In an interview to promote the German-language version of the story this week, she said the Tudors had a better view than today on how the needy should be treated.

She said: ‘When people feel they’re being mistreated, they lash out against people who are weaker than themselves, immigrants for example. What’s happening here at the moment is really ugly.’ She told the newspaper Der Spiegel: ‘The Government portrays poor and unfortunate people as being morally defective. This is a return to the thinking of the Victorians.

‘Even in the 16th century, Thomas Cromwell was trying to tell people that a thriving economy has casualties and that something must be done by the state for people out of work.

‘Even back then, you saw the tide turning against this idea that poverty was a moral weakness. Who could have predicted that it would come back into style?’