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Theresa May sparked a furious backlash today after naming welfare slasher Esther McVey as Work and Pensions Secretary.

Labour MP Dan Carden said her promotion would “put fear in the hearts of the vulnerable and disabled” and left the Prime Minister’s pledge to fight injustice “in tatters”.

As welfare minister under David Cameron, Ms McVey brought in the hated Bedroom Tax and oversaw cuts to disability benefits.

She also said it was “right” more visited foodbanks as the country had “to live within its means”.

(Image: PA)

Ms McVey lost her Wirral West seat in the 2015 election but returned last year after taking over George Osborne’s Tatton constituency.

Labour’s Mr Carden said: “Esther McVey was kicked out of Merseyside at the 2015 General Election precisely because of her callous attitude towards the vulnerable.

“Her appointment is an utter betrayal of those disabled people she treated with such disdain the last time she was in that department.”

Wirral South MP Alison McGovern said: “Like many in Merseyside, I am gobsmacked that anyone would think Esther McVey ought to be appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.”

Other changes included Boris Johnson’s brother Jo getting dumped from Universities Minister to a lowly transport job.

(Image: Getty)

And Mark Garnier, cleared of wrongdoing after asking his secretary to buy sex toys, lost his job as an international trade minister.

Mrs May tonight insisted her reshuffle made the government look “more like the country it serves” with a “new generation” of ministers.

She added a host of women and MPs from ethnic minorities as well as many who were only elected in 2015.

But it emerged that Cabinet ministers are now five times more likely to be privately educated than the public.

And the Sutton Trust foundation said the proportion of ministers who had gone to state comprehensive schools has declined from 26% in 2016 to 24% now.

Separately, Mrs May’s appointment of Brexit-backing Suella Fernandes as a minister in the Department for Exiting the EU triggered accusations she had caved in to Brexiteers.

New party chairman Brandon Lewis today refused to deny the Tories are “a mess” but insisted the reshuffle would be a “breath of fresh air”.

But Tory MPs privately raged it had been ‘embarrassing’.

Minister who made poor children colder, hungrier

Ros Wynne-Jones

COMMENT

IT is hard to think of a worse appointment than Esther McVey as Work and Pensions Secretary.

Toby Young would make a better Minister for Women and Equalities.

Reforms she helped bring into being have led to destitution, suicides and deaths, as well as making the lives of poor children colder and hungrier. The rise of homeless people on our streets and the tidal flow of people into foodbanks stems from those years she spent as a Work and Pensions Minister.

How should anyone who needs the welfare state at this moment not feel both terrified and betrayed?