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Food banks, why are we not ashamed.

indeed someone will always miss out.

when I volunteered for a foodbank, it was clear that a number were spending their benefits on booze and fags, and using the food bank to feed themselves.

There was evidence of others receiving food from the foodbank and selling it on.

no one should be ashamed of foodbanks, they are a modern form of charity. Charities have existed for 100s of yesrs to support people. Yes the tightening of the benefits system is to blame, yes increases in prices of food due to brexit is to blame, yes ppl irresponsible with their income ate to blame.

this is massively complex and to blame just the government is naive
Why did it suddenly get much more complex in 2010, when the government began its punitive cuts to benefits?

It’s not especially complex. The government is largely to blame, in that it could easily increase allowances and end punitive fines so as to completely remove the need for food banks.

Issues around housing, precarious and low paid work, care and so on are somewhat more complex, but there are policy levers the government could pull to address them very effectively, if it chose to. It chooses not to, so it’s to blame.
 
I have heard it said from visitors to the bank I volunteered at. In addition exchanging food for drugs and booze.

I have no stats, just conversations and information picked up at the bank. People who had volunteered for far longer than I, knew the clients, would be able to point out who was doing what.
Its a 'feckless poor' trope designed to deflect from the total culpability of the government. The link I posted shows the stats for the increase over the past 10 years of Tory rule and benefits cuts.
 
He's heard it from visitors? also that has been quoted on twitter by Tory MPs, keep saying it over and over and over.... Goebels logic
 
Also, when have you ever heard of a drug dealer accepting a loaf of mothers pride and a can of beans for a gram? likewise booze. Total crap
 
Also, when have you ever heard of a drug dealer accepting a loaf of mothers pride and a can of beans for a gram? likewise booze. Total crap

ha ha :rolleyes:

you can choose to believe what you like. Of course you all the foodbanks you have volunteered for are squeaky clean and honest.
 
Just funny that your quote only had the difference of 'I've heard from some of my constituents' missing.

And yes, I will believe things not solely on hearsay thanks. Keep on spreading
 
Just funny that your quote only had the difference of 'I've heard form some of my constituents' missing.

And yes I will believe things not solely oin hear say thanks. Keep on spreading

Well that is your choice - and to be honest I DGAF what you think. I live and work in a poor area, high use of foodbanks, county lines exploiting the vulnerable, i used much more active in the local Lab party, on the hustings, listening to what people tell me and other volunteers.

Real society is what is happening on a daily basis, what real people are having to contend with - not stuff reported in the press or stats etc. I'd suggest going to volunteer in a few places of deprivation and see for yourself.

Anyway i've got better things to do....
 
Well that is your choice - and to be honest I DGAF what you think. I live and work in a poor area, high use of foodbanks, county lines exploiting the vulnerable, i used much more active in the local Lab party, on the hustings, listening to what people tell me and other volunteers.

Real society is what is happening on a daily basis, what real people are having to contend with - not stuff reported in the press or stats etc. I'd suggest going to volunteer in a few places of deprivation and see for yourself.

Anyway i've got better things to do....

I think there is truth in what you say. I too only have anecdotal evidence but exploiters of the vulnerable come in many guises. The conditions upon which they thrive are though created by government policy and this government has, for a decade, created a terrible environment for the vulnerable and has, at the same time, protected the wealthy which is why we now have the widest gap between rich and poor in Europe.
 
While it's possible to feed a person on a minimal amount of money it's not everyone that knows how to cook from scratch or to do batch cooking

Though everyone can learn to use the internet.

In todays society it seems many would prefer to spend their time posting on Facebook rather than peeling a carrot.
 
We have a very large number of people bumping along the very bottom, people in work-most benefits recipients are low paid workers living a hand to mouth existence, using food banks, in their ranks will be some, a much lower proportion, with dependancy on alcohol or drugs desperately in need of social care(another target of Tory cuts) or a few quid to feed their habit before their stomach, an even smaller portion will be scammers and 'scroungers'.
Unfortunately it is the latter 2 groups that are guaranteed to be mentioned by some, stigmatising the rest and ignoring the obvious desperation of those crippled by addiction.
 
Also, when have you ever heard of a drug dealer accepting a loaf of mothers pride and a can of beans for a gram? likewise booze. Total crap
No, it's not crap, they do do that. Back in the 90s I temporarily worked for such an organisation (earning not a penny, and paying myself for the fuel I used for bringing the stuff). It is frustrating to hear what the beneficiaries of money, food, soap etc. sometimes do with what they are given. If you are an addict, food is priority 2. They always find ways.

I could say a few more things about some of the beneficiaries, and I can tell you that in many cases, it's they who are to blame, and certainly not the government. In the house next to my girlfriend's, the owner rented a flat to people on welfare, because he had a good heart. The tenants told him they had five dogs, he reluctantly agreed. It turned out that from the onset, they had 18 dogs, and two kids aged under 5. After 6 months, the father left the home for another woman, and the mother disappeared shortly after, never to be seen again. Everything was left there, all in all the owner has spent £££££ to make the flat presentable again.

This is not the Tory's fault. It's the Tories who are currently in charge of managing also this sort of people. Replacing the govt by Labour or whatever you want will not suddenly change them.
 
From what appeared on the radio, none of them were better than any other - "lunches" that consisted of crap.

Let us have a vote. Who here has tried to live on less than £30 per week per person in the last ten years? I am not entirely sure, but possibly during that time, a person on Tesco checkout remarked how healthily I ate. Whatever.

I am the first vote - done that (easily) for four years.
Yes, I have, for 2 years in 2010-2011 when I was injured in a road accident. I succeeded in living cheaply, I didn't succeed in paying all my bills from benefits, which were pitiful at £70ish a week. My rent was £450 a month I think, I had to pay that from savings.
I succeeded because I am intelligent and resourceful, skills that make me useful to employers and therefore much less likely to end up needing benefits, when not injured. The people that need benefits are, guess what, less resourceful. The system needs to be designed around catering for the weakest members of society, not the strongest. It's not about looking after the likes of you and me. I'm a mountaineer, I can spend a few nights living under a rock, in winter, eating instant noodles and cereal bars, and still get up the hills. Just because I can, it doesn't mean that anyone who can't can just bloody freeze to death, useless tossers. Or maybe in your world it does.
 
I think there is truth in what you say. I too only have anecdotal evidence but exploiters of the vulnerable come in many guises. The conditions upon which they thrive are though created by government policy and this government has, for a decade, created a terrible environment for the vulnerable and has, at the same time, protected the wealthy which is why we now have the widest gap between rich and poor in Europe.

Plus there are a whole raft of legal loan-shark entities preying on people forced into debt by state benefits that are so inefficient or venal by design folk with nothing at all are expected to live for weeks before their first payment. Once the poorest are locked into high-interest debt the trajectory can only be downwards. I am lucky as I have always been able to avoid this due to a middle class background and generally being debt averse.

PS For clarity: I was on the dole fairly frequently during the mass unemployment of Thatcher’s 80s. I’ve lived it, but I’ve never hit the bottom as I have always had the ability/knowledge to walk down a high st with a fiver and turn it into £15+ buying vinyl at charity shops, markets or whatever. I never allowed vindictive venal Conservative Party policy to destroy me. I refused to be punished for not being able to find full time work. Just screw them. It is far harder to fight them these days and I have huge sympathy with those who find themselves in far worse positions than I ever had to contend with. Their ongoing punishment of the disabled is about as ugly a far-right trait as it is possible to imagine.
 
I've often wondered whether we should aim for a society where some commodities are supplied by the state FOC, similar to a universal basic income.

Basic foods, maybe a few beers, media access, some clothing, contraception, health care, simple housing, decent education?
 
I've often wondered whether we should aim for a society where some commodities are supplied by the state FOC, similar to a universal basic income.

To my mind some form Universal Basic Income is the only possible answer to a clearly changing world. Our archaic system still based on pre-21st century concepts of ‘full employment’ etc simply isn’t credible. This will never happen again, and logically we should not even want it to.
 
Basic foods, maybe a few beers, media access, some clothing, contraception, health care, simple housing, decent education?
Free stuff for Tories.
At the beginning of the pandemic my millionaire friends, living on trust funds and share portfolios, were given free food, due to medical condition.
They didn't even want half of it.
 
I've often wondered whether we should aim for a society where some commodities are supplied by the state FOC, similar to a universal basic income.

Basic foods, maybe a few beers, media access, some clothing, contraception, health care, simple housing, decent education?
Currently I'm listening to a series of very interesting podcast about life back then in GDR. From what I hear, what you write is more or less what they had, and for decades. Or were supposed to have, as shortages were pretty much what made the countries of the Eastern block. And forget about luxury goods that could have made your life a little easier.
 


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