SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
TO THE UK’s deep shame, 4.3 million children are now living in poverty. This is a record figure — and an increase of 100,000 children in just the last 12 months. Inequality is hard-baked into the British economy and is becoming ever more entrenched.
According to the latest figures from the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), in an average class of around 30 children, nine will be living in poverty — and more than two-thirds of those children will be in families with at least one working parent. The government presents work as a “route out of poverty” — and the Labour “opposition” agrees, as recent statements by frontbenchers have shown.
But it is clear that in a nation of increasingly insecure and low-paid jobs, work represents drudgery and struggle — and, for millions of working people and their children, it means continuing in poverty.
We cannot refuse to abolish the unjustifiable two-child benefit cap that pushes children into poverty while finding billions of pounds for defence spending — the membership and the public expect better from Labour, writes JON TRICKETT MP
Letter to PM outlines best way to reduce hardship



