THE former Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell was once labelled the laziest politician ever.

But his successor Andy McDonald is doing a great job in assuming that unfortunate tag for the town.

Mr McDonald’s condescending article about Andy Preston headlined “Answer is not to criminalise” (Echo, June 20) was so badly informed and lazy it’s almost beyond belief.

Anyone with even a small level of local knowledge knows about Mr Preston’s charity work which, for the last decade, has been focused solely on fighting poverty.

Indeed, two of his charities – the Teesside Philanthropic Foundation and CEO Sleepout, both of which are based in Mr McDonald’s constituency – have raised more than £4.5m in the last few years.

And, of course, the Fork in the Road restaurant (again, in Mr McDonald’s town of Middlesbrough) is the only not-for-profit venture of its kind in the Tees Valley, providing job opportunities and training for former offenders, addicts and people at risk of homelessness.

If you’re not aware of all this work, you can easily research it with a very quick Google search.

It’s deeply concerning that Mr McDonald is seemingly unaware of this charity work that appears to have eluded him in his seven years as the town’s MP.

Attempting to lecture Mr Preston – elected Middlesbrough’s independent mayor by beating Labour in May – about homelessness and poverty was a cynical and cheap political pot-shot, but more alarmingly it was uneducated and lazy.

He should take more care and spend more time learning about local charity work before commenting on issues he himself knows so very little about.

He could also learn a thing or two from Mr Preston by actually walking the streets of his town and listening to his constituents.

Martin Walker, Middlesbrough