"People are just being ground down"

Despite Theresa May's ludicrous pronouncement to the contrary, austerity is not over - far from it. As the recent publication Invisible Britain underlines, the impact of cuts continues to be felt around the country by the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

Visiting my home town Newcastle in 2014, John Harris painted a bleak portrait of a city effectively under siege by central government. Four years down the line, the situation is even worse, as Philip Alston discovered last week when he met local residents at a food bank, who reported that they cannot afford to feed or wash themselves or keep themselves warm. Time and again, the universal credit scheme - first introduced in Newcastle, supposedly as a pilot - is cited as the cause of the misery.

Alston's visit was hugely significant. In his capacity as the UN's special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, he is more accustomed to travelling to places like Ghana and China - but a trip to the US resulted in a damning indictment of Donald Trump's approach to welfare and he's likely to reach similar conclusions from his fact-finding mission to the UK. While his ability to effect change is limited, it's to be hoped that the Tories will be shamed into action. I wouldn't hold your breath, though.