IN the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher lectured hard-up families to boil chicken bones to make soup, there was outrage.

In the 1980s gruel was cruel.

But looking back Mrs Thatcher was a saint compared to this latest lot of Tory chisellers Their plan to butcher child benefit and tax credits is the cruellest cull of all.

Benefit snatcher Iain Duncan Smith dare not show his face.

The policies he and his department have endorsed read like a modern-day Hammer Horror film - one million benefit sanctions per year, freezing working tax credits and removing a whole range of disability benefits.

The Tories say they are a fair and benevolent lot.

But I say this: Would you trust a party that voted against the mansion tax, yet voted for the introduction of the bedroom tax?

Stephen Dixon, Redcar.