The leader of the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales says he has been inundated with messages of support after branding the government’s austerity programme a disgrace for leaving so many people in destitution.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to mark his imminent appointment as a cardinal by Pope Francis, Archbishop Vincent Nichols expanded upon his comments to the Telegraph when he criticised the government’s welfare reforms as “punitive”.

“The voices that I hear express anger and despair … Something is going seriously wrong when, in a country as affluent as ours, people are left in that destitute situation and depend solely on the handouts of the charity of food banks,” Nichols said.

In his Telegraph interview, published on Saturday, Nichols accused ministers of tearing apart the safety net that protects people from hunger and destitution. He said since he made those comments he had been “inundated with accounts from people … saying there are indeed many cases where people are left without benefits, without any support, for sometimes weeks on end”.

This article which profiles the damage such programmes can have makes me feel highly justified. Not all people on benefits are cheats. I would like to see a programme based on the hard working lives of low paid rural workers suffering “in work poverty” – like the farmers Jessica and I met in County Durham who get by on £3-5K a year and sometimes choose to feed their stock rather than themselves. It tells us

Police are investigating death threats made against five members of the public who starred in Channel 4’s latest documentary Benefits Street.

The first episode of the Birmingham-based show, which focuses on the poor residents of James Turner Street in Winson Green, aired on Monday night.

Shortly after the broadcast began, aggressive and abusive messages were posted on social media by viewers enraged at the ‘benefits spongers’ presented on the programme.

“An estimated 2.5 million retirees are losing out on benefits such as council tax credits, pension credits, winter fuel payments and free bus passes because they are unaware that they are eligible for them.

A fifth of all pensioners are failing to claim any benefits at all beyond their basic state pension. These people are missing out on an average of £872 a year, according to research by pensions company Just Retirement.

Meanwhile a third of pensioners are claiming some of the money, but are still missing out on an average of £676 a year, the company said. In total, between two and three million retired people are not claiming money that is rightfully theirs.”