Watching the government jostle to survive this week, I couldn’t help but think how “spin” – that frantic, Thick of It-type politics most associated with the Blair years – seems almost mild in today’s climate. In an era in which politicians can now offer “facts” that openly contradict reality, a “spin” barely seems to cover it.

This was surely on Amber Rudd’s mind when taking over at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in November. There are few more toxic domestic briefs in government, not least because of universal credit. Her predecessor, Esther McVey, tried the direct route, simultaneously misleading parliament while accusing critics of peddling “fake news”.

Having seemingly forgotten the ignominy of the Windrush scandal, Rudd has opted for another act, positioning herself as the sensible pair of hands here to iron out the DWP kinks. Last week’s announcements over benefit changes marked her first major push, declaring a range of tweaks to long-criticised policies. The message was clear: forget the rest, this was a new “compassionate” approach to benefits. The facade did not last long. On the eve of the Brexit vote, the DWP snuck out a change to pension credits that could see couples on universal credit lose as much as £7,000 a year.

Listen to Rudd and none of this is really happening. There is no widespread benefits crisis, she recently said, simply an issue affecting “one or two particular individuals”. It is hard to say which “one or two” people Rudd is referring to. Perhaps the dad with kidney failure on universal credit found living in a caravan in a layby last week. Or the son “with a heart of gold” who, it was reported this month, took his own life after becoming frantic at being pushed off his disability benefits.

‘The BBC recently reported children are now arriving at a school so hungry they are searching the bins for food.’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Rudd is not stupid. She will be more than aware of the countless reports showing the widespread nature of benefit failings: be it the National Audit Office “savaging” universal credit, the Trussell Trust finding benefit sanctions a key cause of food bank need, or the MPs’ inquiry into disability benefits being “deluged” by tales of despair. Indeed, on Wednesday night, as all eyes were on Brexit, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) released figures showing that Tory changes to the disability benefits system have gone so wrong that the government has now overspent by £4bn, all while pushing thousands of sick and disabled people into crisis.

Almost a decade on from the start of austerity, denial and deflection can only get you so far. Instead, Rudd must rely on containment, pitching the fatality of Britain’s disintegrating social fabric as little more than a scratch.

There is perhaps no greater skewer to this narrative than the fact some MPs have called for the introduction of a minister for hunger. The title may seem more suited to a work of dystopian fiction, but we are in stark reality here. Forget “one or two cases”, the UK now has among the worst levels of food insecurity in Europe, with millions of people struggling to eat regularly and healthily, including one in five children. The BBC recently reported children are now arriving at a school so hungry they are searching the bins for food. If they’re lucky, they dig out discarded apple cores.

That one of the richest nations on Earth has reached the point where it is even considering the creation of an office of state to deal with the mass hunger of its populace is shameful. But such calls, however well meaning, miss the point of what is happening. Poverty is complex – but over a century, we have developed proven methods of easing it: from social housing and sickness support to child benefits and pensions. The social security system was created to be a safety net, designed to protect each of us – to ensure that, in times of need, families can keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. Under austerity, the Conservatives have bastardised this principle, cutting benefits for housing, disability and to those in low-paid work, all while rents are rocketing, wages are squeezed, and prices are rising.

When Rudd spins, this is the picture she is trying to hide. It is a desperate attempt to cling on to a failing ideology, at a time when the country has simultaneously never required great leaders more, and yet been so lacking in them. The politicians entrusted to protect each of us in times of need are impoverishing millions and then turning their backs. It is one of the great scandals of our times not simply that poverty has taken such a hold that the UK now needs officials to protect people from hunger, but that the ones we have are so abjectly failing in their basic duties. In the DWP chair, Rudd is already Britain’s minister for hunger. She just won’t admit it.

• Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist