Have I ever mentioned that I volunteer at a Food Bank? I think I may have done, at least 100 times in the last three years when I have been helping to feed not the world but the good citizens of the mythical town of Melchester. It has been one of the most rewarding periods of my life, helping those who have nothing to at least have something for a short while, but it has also been frustrating. Let me tell you why.
Since I started, I believe the demographic base of our callers, our friends as they become for a brief moment in time, has changed. I say I believe because I do not have actual statistical evidence. But I do believe I have a decent antenna, combined with a healthy level of empathy and while my conclusions are anecdotal, I am convinced I am right.
Previously, our callers included those who were in work, people suddenly faced with unexpected expenses or shortfalls in their income. Shop workers, nurses, postal workers have been among those who I have seen. No more. I have not seen a single ‘in work’ person for as long as I can remember.
Among the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people I have met over the years, I have never yet seen a pensioner. I am aware that many seniors, as we are called these days as we continue to adopt Americanisms, struggle to manage but the vast majority of us have been protected by the triple lock of annual increases. Those struggling are often people who did not for one reason or another set aside sufficient income for their retirement or pensioners who fail to claim their benefit entitlements, specifically Pension Credits. Either way, they don’t come to see us in Downtown Melchester. There are now mainly two groups who do.
I have written before about this but on Budget Day, which I will come to soon, it’s worth talking about it again. We have seen big increases in people I would describe as broken. Broken in a number of ways, by drugs, by alcohol, by unemployment, by mental illness, by homelessness; by all number of factors in society. I would suggest that many, though not all, are part of an underclass, those living on the periphery of society. Britain is not broken – far from it – but a worrying number of people living in Britain are broken.
The second group comprises migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees. There is no getting away from this simple fact. Many of those have come here from war zones, like Afghanistan, abandoned by the world, including us, in the early 2020s, often men who served with British Armed Forces. I see them every week. Some, it is true, are traumatised, but most are keen to work, most are well-qualified professionals. I can see a positive future for them and for our country when they are finally assimilated into society. I am, of course, happy to help anyone who comes through our doors and I remain convinced that the vast majority of our friends – because that is what they are when they come to see us – are genuine. But there is a but. More than ever, we are sticking plaster and not part of a long term solution. One of my concerns is with the Trussell Trust itself, the organisation that runs many food banks in Britain. Are they doing enough to end food poverty?
If providing short term solutions by way of emergency food parcels is enough, then yes. That’s the sticking plaster to which I refer. But the Trust always says its aim is that one day it will no longer need to exist. I am not convinced its actions match its fine words. Both nationally and locally, the kindness of people donating to food banks has gained the most publicity of organisations’ websites. Schools, private companies and churches have been heavily involved in providing much needed provisions for food banks, the latter specifically with reference to the harvest season. Well done to all concerned. But where is the political campaigning?
Food poverty, like pretty well everything else, is a societal issue. The proliferation of food banks can be directly traced to the actions of the 2010 to 2015 Conservative government in which the Liberal Democrats took jobs. The austerity that government imposed, together with its slash and burn of vital public services and the deliberate destruction of Sure Start, plunged millions into poverty. The calculated actions of David Cameron and Nick Clegg and their respective parties should never be forgotten, nor for that matter forgiven. People were broken by them. I do not know how they can live with themselves. I have been hoping that the Trussell Trust and other organisations providing stopgap services might campaign far more aggressively in terms of politics, but they haven’t and they don’t.
It’s the Budget today, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer sets out spending priorities for the country. I am highly supportive of the current Labour government, which I feel is doing a good job to sort out the mess left by 14 years of Conservative misrule, but let’s not pretend they can’t do more. Why isn’t the Trussell Trust shouting from the rooftops just how grim things are for so many people? Why aren’t we investing more generously and with greater urgency in people whose lives are effectively broken? Why aren’t food bank providers hitting the airwaves making the arguments as to how we can end food poverty? Because if they have been, it’s not been good enough.
Nationally, the heads of food banks should be all over ministers like a rash. Locally, they should be badgering local MPs relentlessly. The best we get is the odd MP’s visit and a few smiley photos on the websites. Then, nothing changes. I sometimes feel that food banks can become friends not of the poor but of poverty itself. The Trussell Trust says its work is shaped by so-called Christian values. I am not sure what that even means. I am as atheist as they come and I am there every week, and making regular donations, not to please some God character, but because I care about my fellow human beings. That comes from within, who I am, how I was brought up, my politics, inevitably. I am more than a little concerned that too many people are happy with the way things are. That they are happy to be seen to please God and the dirty work of politics somehow doesn’t matter.
But here’s the thing. God doesn’t cause poverty, he doesn’t help alleviate poverty, because He isn’t there. We, the people, cause poverty, as we cause everything else by way of how we vote. The 14 years of Conservative decline were brought about because of the general elections of 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019. It is not a coincidence that the number of food banks increased from a few dozen in 2010 to several thousand by the time the Tories were voted out in 2024. Food poverty came about by the actions of politicians whose policies we voted for. Fact.
My time at the Melchester Food Bank feels like it is coming to an end. Sticking plaster in itself is not enough for me, the overemphasis on the powers of a supernatural creator offends me. Rather than praying for the people who come to see us, how about taking action to influence the politicians who are directly responsible for our existence? Are food banks in their comfort zone, in their happy place, pleasing God by their kindness and so earning a place in heaven rather than standing up to the actual causes of poverty? You have probably worked out by now how I feel about it.
Today’s Budget will contain measures to improve the lives of the poor, but in the short term at least they won’t be enough. Only politicians can change the world. If the decent people who run food banks can’t see that – and I am not sure that they can – then what’s the point? I am not sure there is one.
Rita Mae Brown said in her 1983 novel Sudden Death that, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results“. I am not sure that we are expecting different results and that seems to be every bit as insane.
