ON January 8 1800 the very first soup kitchen for the poor opened in London.

More than 200 years later there are now hundreds of food banks in Britain.

What this says about today’s society couldn’t be any clearer.

Churches and charities have been left to pick up the pieces caused by callous Governmental policies.

The biggest increase in demand for soup kitchens and food banks is right here in the North-East.

The Trussell Trust, a Christian charity founded in 1997, fed nearly 130,000 people last year.

On top of the 200 centres currently operating a dozen new food banks are opening each month.

There are centres in Middlesbrough and Billingham with another due to open in Redcar before Christmas.

StoreHouse, a partnership of charities established in 2006 to support families, couples and individuals, is expanding its food banks all across the UK.

David Cameron’s vision of the Big Society is one big con as Government cuts and restrictions in welfare payments mean more and more families are having to rely on food donations.

The sheer humiliation to go capin- hand for food in modern-day Britain may be the Tories’ idea of how to keep the underclass in their place.

In the 1980s, we thought Margaret Thatcher was wicked when she suggested unemployed families make soup by boiling chicken bones and students live off porridge and water.

She was a saint in comparison to what this bunch of politicans are serving up.

Stephen Dixon, Redcar.