Why is Lee Anderson boosting Laurence Fox’s Reclaim?

Tory MP Lee Anderson has been having quite a week. It began with his declaration in the Commons that there was no ‘massive use for food banks in this country’ and that the problem was ‘generation after generation who cannot cook properly’ and who ‘cannot budget’. This earned him a few front pages and a ministerial disavowal on Sky News, plus a scathing response from food writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe.

Then, on Friday, Anderson popped up on Lozza’s Lock-in, a podcast co-hosted by Laurence Fox, the actor turned scourge of wokery who founded and leads the right-wing Reclaim party. Monroe’s criticisms were put to Anderson who responded with his assessment of the Guardian writer. I won’t quote it here because Monroe has already contended in a reply on Twitter that: ‘This is a very clear cut case of outright libel… You’d be wise to take it down and fully retract and apologise before you make this any worse for yourselves.’