There are some big stories on the front pages today. Here are a few examples:
- ‘Andrew feels he will lose £30m home’ says the Mail, alongside some celebrity tat about Brooklyn, who may be a Beckham.
- ‘Andrew evicted from £30m mansion’, screams The Sun.
- ‘Cops sick messages betrayed Harvey and me,’ says the Mirror, which is all about former topless model Katie Prince and her son.
- ‘Fury at sick Glitter TV show,’ complains an angry People about a proposed show about the prolific paedophile and former pop star Gary Glitter.
And so it goes. The Big Papers talk to themselves about Brexit and the Norn Iron protocol and only the Observer, the best Sunday of them all but only read by 12 people, mentions on its front page (they lead on Norn Iron, too) that food banks are at ‘breaking point’. Call me old fashioned but I have this weird notion that in a civilised society – actually, in an uncivilised society, too – no one should go hungry. To read that if demand rises still further over half of all food banks would have to either cut support or turn people away has, to my mind anyway, a feeling of end of days about it.
Ever since I first set foot in a food bank in 2015 when employed by the loathsome British Red Cross I knew it was a place of last resort, a place people go to when everything else has failed. There are many things people can manage without, if they really have to. TV, going to the pub, turning the heating off and instead wearing thick clothes, that kind of thing, but having to go without eating, well, you can see a problem there.
It is bad enough that food banks need to exist in the first place, let alone become the accepted norm in society, where misguided royals like Prince William and Kate Middleton turn up for photo opportunities (my opinion, okay?). The first time I went in one as part of my job, I felt the embarrassment and humiliation of the person I had taken there, especially since they lived in a poorer part of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s generally affluent constituency. I still remember the kindness of those who volunteered in that food bank who made the experience bearable and I hope I have learned something that somehow I practice today in our food bank. One thing I especially remember was taking that person back to their home and finding that when it came to putting the food away there was literally nothing in the fridge and cupboards. When I read that half of all food banks may have to cut support or turn people away, my heart sank. If someone turns up to the place of last resort and is either handed next to nothing or worse still, nothing at all, then society would be some way below rock bottom.
I know we’re busier than we were even a few months ago but fortunately to date the generosity of the public means that we have managed to meet demand to the extent that we have only run out of a few items. I don’t know how far to the maximum we operate. I dread turning up one day to find that we’re having to ration very basic rations.
It’s pretty clear the Sunday papers don’t care enough to put what seems to me as being a massive story in prime position. Maybe starving people doesn’t sell as many copies of papers as Prince Andrew does, in which case what on Earth is going on, with a national obsession with a dysfunctional, stinking rich family living in a real life TV soap opera and not people with nothing?
The fact that we need food banks at all tells you what’s wrong with our country. And that people are more interested in the grubby life of a spoilt, card-carrying nonce doesn’t suggest things will get better any time soon.
