I’m not going into the specific details for all sorts of reasons, but today, not for the first time, I was embarrassed to be British. Not because the British people are bad people. On the contrary, most of us are very good people. But it’s the government again, the one run by the shrinking man, the billionaire tech bro, the former head boy at Westminster and the one with no working class friends, Rishi Sunak. Today, in my role as a food bank volunteer, I met a Ukrainian refugee. No one should need a food bank, whoever they are, but how about a woman and her children who have been forced to leave Kyiv, leaving behind their family, friends and all their worldly possessions this felt a step too far. Mum had to come and see us today because she had no money and no food.
Her English wasn’t the best and given my Ukrainian is non existent, I found the kind of things she needed by way of food and other items courtesy of Mr Google on my portable phone. I discovered, too, that the accommodation she and her four children were living in was far from ideal. I appreciate we have a desperate housing crisis in the UK, caused in large part by the Conservative government of over 13 grim long years but I was under the impression we were Ukraine’s biggest supporters. “The UK’s support for Ukraine’s defence will never waver,” said Sunak, failing to add, “Apart from supporting refugees who come to Britain for safety. Sod them.”
She was lonely, too, and asked whether I could help her get in touch with other Ukrainians living in Bristol at the moment, reputed to be around 800 people. I had no idea but as luck would have it, a volunteer from the Citizens Advice Board was working in our food bank today and she was amazing. Where Sunak wavers, volunteers step in to help. Welcome to Britain. If you were thinking about eating, why not visit one of our man food banks? It’s what makes Britain great.
One surprising thing today was the number of no shows. No less than six people didn’t turn up and we had no idea why. Had their circumstances changed so they didn’t need to see us anymore? Did they not really need us in the first place? Had they just given up in life? I guess we will never know. But we did have two people who turned up without a referral, something which the paid staff have to deal with. We don’t usually send them away with nothing but we don’t give them a full order, either. The referral system may be bureaucratic and sometimes inconvenient, but it’s there for a reason. If we had people just turning up on spec, it would be all but impossible to organise the place and it could be open to abuse. The people who turn up without a referral, say from social services or whoever, are told they must get one before we will help them again.
As we were seeing people today, I thought back to Sunak’s words from earlier this week when he was asked about the massive pressures being placed upon homeowners and borrowers. He said:”I want people to be reassured that we’ve got to hold our nerve, stick to the plan and we will get through this.” Doubtless, the near billionaire Sunak would say the same thing to people who can’t even afford to eat. Sunak doesn’t have a mortgage. He could afford to buy the entire village he lives in if he wanted to and he’d still be worth half a billion quid or more. When he says “we’ve got to hold our nerve” he shouldn’t have included himself.
All this anger is no good for me and I will need to give my head a big wobble before next week. I’m normally just there to help people and then go home again. I did help people today, along with my brilliant fellow volunteers, but I’ve spent the rest of the day seething. There should not be a need for food banks in our rich country. But there is a need and it’s growing. It’s just getting harder to not get even more angry about the real reason food poverty is so serious: it’s because of government policies. And I really hate this government.
