The above photo is an example of how many food banks there are in the UK.
In last week’s blog, I suggested, somewhat sarcastically, that Rishi Sunak may have sorted out the cost of living crisis. How else could you explain a quiet week at our food bank last week and an even quieter one this week? Quite easily, actually because people having been receiving their cost of living payments from the government and they have something to live on this week. This was explained to me, oh so matter of factly, because it has happened so many times in the past. It’s a blip caused and helped by one of Sunak’s sticking plaster solutions. This is not to say that no one came to visit us today and some of the stories I got to hear were heartbreakingly sad.
The main topic of conversation this week was of course the coronation of King Charles III. All our callers were waving Union Flags, Champagne corks were popping and at the end everyone got together to sing ‘God Save The Queen’. “It costs £100 million? said one caller. “Why, that’s nothing when you think how many minimum wage hotel workers will benefit, not to mention purveyors of royal tat. Cheap at half the price.” Of course, none of this is true. The subject wasn’t mentioned at all, although I certainly thought about state extravagance in paying for this wholly unnecessary coronation when I was seeing people who had no food to eat.
I can’t get my head round it. £100 million is an astonishing amount of money unless you’re Rishi Sunak who, together with his wife, has a modest nest egg of £750 million, just for that rainy day, you understand. If we can find £100 million down the back of chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s settee, then surely we could find a similar amount to alleviate food poverty?
I’m resigned to the fact that enough people in Britain aren’t in the least bit bothered by the cost of the coronation. I wonder if the same people are the least bit bothered about some of the poor people that come to see us every week? Today, I saw more people who were in full time work whose money had simply run out because it didn’t go far enough. A combination of greedy landlords, Universal Credit cock ups and incorrect wages led people to come to us today. One person I saw looked genuinely shocked and almost broken to be there at all. They had never been unemployed, had always worked, had always done the right thing. And yet here they were, figuratively and almost literally on their knees.
But then, no one, surely, deserves to go hungry, no matter who they are. Many of the people we see are the forgotten ones, ravaged by drugs, alcohol and mental illness with nothing to look forward to. They are beyond hope. This is their life and no matter what they do, it will never change, whatever they do. Beyond us lies nothing and no one. There will be no career, no designer clothes, no holidays, no nights out; just more of the same. And there are millions like them.
The low numbers tell me something else, the inherent honesty of people, especially those at the bottom. Because they had received their cost of living payments and their benefits, there was no need to come and see us. This might seem minor stuff – “People don’t go to food bank because they have food! – but trust me there are plenty of people who, for one reason or another, still believe the reason people who use food banks is because they can’t manage on perfectly adequate sums of money or that they are on the make. Yes, I know that only a fool would say that, but there are plenty of fools out there, as Rishi Sunak is happy to acknowledge.
As I keep saying, having food banks is a societal choice which is made necessary by a government that doesn’t care about people going hungry. In other words, it’s our fault because we vote for them. Since in 2010 there were hardly any food banks at all, this is a fact. David Cameron and his Tory government in which some Lib Dems took jobs, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and now Rishi Sunak made this happen and encouraged me to volunteer to work for a food bank.
Enjoy the coronation this weekend if that’s your bag. It isn’t mine for any number of reasons and the jarring class discrepancies between the haves and the have nots grow ever wider. You shouldn’t need to see it to believe how bad things are getting, but I did. Actually, it’s far worse than that.
