After a lengthy break, I am returning to the Melchester Food Bank this week in order to help feed the world. I needed a break from the food bank, too, because for a brief moment in time I feared I might be running low on compassion. Having. given myself some time and space, while I don’t exactly feel I am at the top of my game just yet, it’s time for normal service to resume.
Helping the Trussell Trust fight the growing levels of food poverty in our country is a big priority in my life. My role is, first and foremost, to let our callers know they are in the presence of friends when they come to see us and to ensure they don’t starve. While I continue to support other charities and good causes, essentially on an as and when basis, I’ve chosen food banks as my main priority. But that does not mean I do not think of others when I am on the front line.
Take the very sad story of Al and Alexandra Moy as described in today’s Sunday Telegraph:
My heart aches for Al and Alexandra who now have to make “lifestyle sacrifices” following the new Labour government’s decision to remove the VAT break for wealthy people who send their children to elite private schools. Struggling along on a mere £345k per annum must be hell for the Moys. That’s basically my weekly bar bill at my local pub or roughly half of what I spend on cheese. Heartbreakingly, they will have to manage in future with just the four holidays a year.
When I arrive at our food bank this week, I shall make a quick collection among our callers. If each of them could spare, say, a tin of economy baked beans or some tinned potatoes, they could do their bit as decent citizens to restore the Moys to the five-holidays-a-year family they are. I mean: poverty is all relative, isn’t it? There’s only the tiniest wee gap between having literally no food to eat and having to sacrifice no less than 20% of your holidays. But for the Moys, things are even worse. Just read this (and weep):
It’s lose lose for the poverty-stricken Moys. Can anyone recommend a gardener to undercut the bastard who increased his costs by all of £15 a year. When you’re down to your last £345k a year, every little helps, right?
In my view, the Moys are idiots. Rich, whingeing, pathetic, out-of-touch idiots. They have allowed themselves to be presented to a formerly serious newspaper as being poverty-stricken, essentially without a pot to piss in. They are the victims of a terrible government policy that means that the very well-off don’t get as much by way of perks courtesy of the taxpayer. They obviously have no idea how the rest of us live, not least those who really don’t have a pot to piss in.
It is mind-boggling that even the howling mad Telegraph should come up with a story that presents the rich as being poor. What were they thinking when the ‘journalist’ concerned came up with it? Was the editor thinking: “What a terrible injustice this is. Very rich people should not be forced to cut back on holidays or gardening costs. Vote Conservative or Reform UK Ltd.”
I don’t think the Telegraph clown car is unique in feeling this way. The rich look after their own. You can see that not just in the newspapers read by the elderly middle and upper classes, but those, like The Sun, whose readers are largely working class. You can see it in every statement made by the political super rich, like Nigel Farage. He would, 100%, agree with the Telegraph. In fact, that paper os so far out there, I wouldn’t be surprised if Farage approved it or even helped write it.
I guess the Moys represent the people who wouldn’t recognise a poor person if they pissed down his leg. Because if they seriously compare those who cannot afford a fifth holiday a year, or fork out £15 extra to pay their gardener every year, with those who have nothing, the words out-of-touch don’t begin to come close describing who and what they are. Perhaps, they will attend my food bank later this week just to see if there is anything we can do to help pay for that fifth holiday. I somehow doubt it, but this world is now so fucking mad I am wondering if it is possible. Being rich is the new poor. According to the Telegraph, anyway.
