Theresa May will cause more poverty than Thatcher, Gordon Brown warns

Former prime minister says Tory policies will reverse progress made in tackling poverty under Labour

The former prime minister Gordon Brown has strongly attacked Theresa May's claim to be the champion of Britain's struggling families, warning that the Conservative government's welfare cuts would leave more people in poverty than under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

In his first major intervention in the election campaign, Brown said May's policies would reverse the progress made in tackling poverty under Labour and leave the country more "economically divided and socially polarised than any other prime minister in living memory".

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