Priti Patel hasn't learned the lesson of 'no such thing as society'

Can Priti Patel really stand in Barrow-in-Furness, which has some of the most deprived wards in the country, and say that the government isn’t responsible for poverty? The Home Secretary’s comments to the BBC’s North West Tonight have unsurprisingly gone viral because of the juxtaposition between the charity she was visiting and the stridency with which she said them.

It’s worth noting that she wasn’t, as some have claimed, standing in a food bank. In the interests of accuracy, Patel was actually visiting The Well, which is a local charity helping people with with addiction (I live in the town, and it’s a fantastic organisation, like so many of the charities and community groups who tend to be staffed by Barrovians with their own stories of poverty and struggle. It’s that kind of bighearted place). But either way, she was asked to respond to the fact that in some parts of Barrow, four out of 10 children are born in poverty.