Cost of living could cost actual lives

WE were the first newspaper to tell of single mum Jack Monroe struggling on £10 a week to feed herself and baby Jonny after losing her job.

In the past decade, she has inspirationally pulled herself out of poverty – and helped thousands of others through her cookbooks and breadline advice.

We told Jack’s tale and countless others in the hope of improving conditions for the poorest in society. Today the UK is on the brink of an acute cost of living crisis. Millions are living in fear of plunging into poverty and ruinous debt – yet the Government does nothing.

It is a disgrace that vulnerable families in the fifth largest economy in the world face shouldering the heaviest burden.

Hunger

Jack has been contacted by worried families and pensioners including one elderly man who has eaten smears of toothpaste to stave off hunger pangs. She fears the poorest will starve.

In April, energy bills are set to rocket by 50%, a 1.25% national insurance hike will clobber us and council tax and interest rate rises are on the cards.

Jack rightly points out that inflation at 5.4%, a 30-year high, is felt far worse by people who have the least. She has catalogued the price of basic items, rising by up to 344% in the past year alone for the cheapest bag of rice.

Millions of British people are scared of what the future holds.

When Boris Johnson took the keys to Number 10 he pledged to answer the plea of the “forgotten people”. Those words now ring as hollow as everything uttered by our Prime Minister.

He has to urgently deliver a plan to help the most vulnerable, or this cost of living crisis is sure to cost actual lives.