The head of the UK’s largest provider of food banks has launched a scathing attack on the government’s welfare reforms and rhetoric, accusing ministers of lacking "empathy" with the poor and predicting a rise in crime and homelessness next year as a direct result of George Osborne's austerity policies.
In an interview with the Huffington Post UK, Trussell Trust executive chairman Chris Mould said the chancellor should "look behind [his] soundbites, look at the kind of people who lose their jobs, think before you speak about who you’re pointing the finger at. Just try and put yourself in other people’s shoes."
Cabinet ministers, he said, "have an inadequate level of empathy with the people that we deal with". If they had a "deeper understanding" of the causes of poverty, he added, "I believe they would choose to nuance their policy differently".