WHAT has happened to the bread-and-butter politics in Teesside?

Bread-and-butter politics is something that affects everyday people – like enough income to live on, or retaining things like your local swimming pool or community centre.

Food banks, care in the community, youth unemployment, child poverty, cuts to the school budget are other important issues.

These are rarely mentioned by MPs today, local or national.

I recently read a report that Middlesbrough recorded the highest proportion of children aged under 16 living in poverty – a staggering 39 per cent.

These important bread-and-butter issues have been replaced by ample dollops of “jam tomorrow”, a phrase describing a pleasant event sometime in the distant future, which is never likely to materialise.

Stephen Dixon, Redcar.