NEWCASTLE MP Chi Onwurah branded Employment Minister Esther McVey a coward yesterday for blaming front-line staff for gut-wrenching examples of the government’s cruel war on the unemployed.

Labour MPs from across north-east England besieged the Tory with horror stories from a region where unemployment stands at over 9 per cent — the worst in Britain.

Ms Onwurah demanded straight answers from Ms McVey over a string of incidents where constituents had benefits stripped.

In one case a man hanged himself after being found fit to work despite repeated warnings from social workers.

In another, a son faced sanctions for failing to apply for jobs in the week his father had died.

“Is there anyone in this country who does not believe that a son should be given the opportunity to grieve for and bury his father?” said Ms Onwurah in the Westminster Hall debate.

Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald declared that people were no longer being judged by their needs but by a “punitive regime” that saw benefits suspended to meet “arbitrary targets.”

But shameless Ms McVey failed to come clean on reports that jobcentre staff had been ordered to meet goals for sanctions — preferring to blame a few bad apples for some of the cases raised by MPs.

Furious Ms Onwurah accused the minister of mounting a “cowardly defence” by attacking front-line workers instead of taking responsibilty for “the culture that she has created.”

But McVey again ducked the issue, declaring glibly: “Satisfaction by claimants has actually gone up.”