‘If a tide of severe hardship is coming in, the government’s job and aim must be to ensure that all its people are kept safe and dry’

• OF course, says our prime minister, the government can’t solve everybody’s problems and we are supposed to think: “Ah well, they’re doing their best under very difficult circumstances.”

Many of us will in any case weather the storm of high inflation and rocketing prices though we may have to cut down on holidays and treats. And better days will no doubt come.

But we now know – thanks to campaigners like Marcus Rashford – that for a section of our fellow humans on these islands even the good times are bad.

Parents working hard in low-paid jobs struggle to feed their children and sometimes have to miss meals to make that possible.

And, horror of horrors, we now hear that food banks are running short of donations, presumably because those slightly better off are no longer able to afford their generosity.

The scars of a childhood in poverty with all the stresses that involves for parents are enduring. It is a fact that poverty is a major cause of poor mental health among its victims.

How can a humane society – ranked the sixth richest in the world ­– really contemplate condemning its people to that fate?

If a tide of severe hardship is coming in, the government’s job and aim must be to ensure that all its people are kept safe and dry, not just accept that some will be overwhelmed. That fate for some will be a life sentence.

And, while we’re about it, can’t we make sure that the defences are put in place so there are at least some good times for all our children? Whatever happened to “Make Poverty History”?

E WILLIAMS, WC1