March 4, 2014
“I sat down to watch Panorama on BBC 1 as it delved into the world of foodbanks and poverty……
Despite the efforts of ministers and MPs to argue away the rapid increase in foodbanks, which have gone from 50 to 400+ in the last five years, as being a result of increased awareness of their existence and referral rates from professional bodies, it doesn’t take away from the growing body of evidence that a largest proportion of those visiting foodbanks are there because of problems with benefits in the form of delays and sanctions……..
Poverty Wage Isn’t Working
When former Junior Health Minister, Edwina Currie was interviewed on the programme and described foodbanks as unnecessary, denying that food poverty even exists, it left a sickening feeling in my mouth at the scale of ignorance……….
When Cardinal Vincent Nichols claimed last month that the basic safety net of welfare has been torn apart leaving some in hunger and destitution, David Cameron felt the need to go on the attack dismissing the Cardinal’s views and describing his government’s reforms as right and moral.
It is a great shame that the government has responded so negatively towards what has been said by the church leaders, especially as not all of its actions are as heartless as perceptions may appear.
And yet when no government department agrees to give an interview to Panorama or Iain Duncan Smith refuses to meet with those in charge of the Trussell Trust foodbanks or when there is a lack of willingness to admit that the system isn’t working as well as it could then is it any surprise that the government is too easily portrayed as hard-hearted?”
Comment: “And yet when no government department agrees to give an interview to Panorama or Iain Duncan Smith refuses to meet with those in charge of the Trussell Trust foodbanks or when there is a lack of willingness to admit that the system isn’t working as well as it could then”
You forgot to mention Tory MPs laughing in the House of Commons at tales of genuine hardship, which was utterly shameful, and Mr Duncan Smith either walking out on, or not taking part in, commons debates, which I think is a dereliction of his duty as a minister. If he lacks the courage to defend his policies, whatever they are, then perhaps they are indefensible?”
Thanks to NLAT for some links.
ukgovernmentwatch 
Lord Freud, Tory welfare minister, claimed last week that “Its very hard to know why people go to food banks”.
As Walter Bagehot (1826 – 1877) remarked: “Poverty is an anomaly to Rich People; its is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not simply Ring the Bell”.
This is a well-worn strategy: ‘Denialism’. It takes many forms, but for it to succeed, those who deploy it need to corrupt the language, the very meaning of words, to make it sound eminently reasonable.
We seem to have lost track of the true meaning of language; State Benefits such as Housing benefit are effectively landlord benefits. Tax credits and similar benefits represent employment subsidies. These are paid to the rich, then are wrongly attributed to the poor who are castigated both by politicians and our once independent ‘fourth estate’, the press, as being somehow responsible for the economic melt-down.
The cost of QE which inflates asset values, and the cost of rescuing and maintaining our bankers salaries & bonuses represent state aid to the rich which is conveniently ignored by our political masters in their calculations.
The very phrase ‘The Housing Market’ is a distortion of language. It is in fact merely a market for buying and selling houses which has little relevance to actual housing, since government policies now ensure that only those who already own a house can afford to buy another one unless subsidised by another state benefit to the rich, the ‘help to buy’ scheme.
Perhaps the most insane instance is the implicit dogma that rising house prices are “good”, and pursuing policies which directly accelerate price bubbles, whilst ignoring the inevitable corollary – rising housing costs in the form of unaffordable rents and diminishing residual income for other living costs particularly food, to the detriment of the ‘real’ human economy. UK housing costs, as a proportion of net income are amongst the highest in Europe, and rising.
For the rest of us ‘non-rich’ people, this amounts to a squeeze on the one budget item that is ‘discretionary’ after paying our rent & heating: our food.
For some real facts about food poverty, please see:
http://thehealthbank.co.uk/food-poverty-in-britain/
Alice.