I don’t do praise very well, quite probably because I have done little in my life to deserve it. I’ve generally been what I’d call a good person and, more recently, an obsessively honest one because, as one of my old colleagues in the DWP used to say, “I hate liars.” I wasn’t always a good person in what refer to as my personal life. I drifted aimlessly and abruptly from one relationship to another, usually without thought or consideration for the feelings of others. I regret that and I’m sorry I was such a shit to so many people. Mainly, though, I’ve wanted to do good things. My food bank work is one of these good things. But it doesn’t make me special, nor does it require praise from others.
When I turn up for my weekly session at the food bank, it’s because I want to be there. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything special because, frankly, I’m not. Perhaps it would be special if it required a massive effort, somewhere I really didn’t want to be and I was there because others needed me. I don’t feel that way at all. The point is that most of us do good things all the time. But it’s why people have to do good things to help others that bothers me.
As I never tire of saying, charity exists to provide stuff that society in general doesn’t believe should come from taxes. These include former service personnel who are helped by the magnificent Royal British Legion, terminally ill people who require hospice care and people who have no food. Speaking personally, I cannot for the life of me see how it’s right that our society believes collectively that these things and more should not be funded by the state and instead depend on the generosity of the public, but then I long ago gave up trying to work out what others see as priorities. We somehow thought it absolutely fine to spend £120 million of our money on the so-called Festival of Brexit, which included the display of an old oil rig at Weston Super Mare, but we leave veterans to rely on us buying poppies.
Back in the early 2010s, the hardline, austerity heavy Conservative government, in which some Lib Dems had jobs, tried to bring in The Big Society. The then prime minister David Cameron wanted charities and other local actors who knew their communities well to step up and provide services previously run by public authorities. By 2020, there had been a 40% real terms cut in public services. The reality was that charities could not pick all all of the slack left by the state and for many society’s safety net had been taken away. Moreover, The Big Society made the poor poorer, something that was an inevitable consequence of slashing spending on services they needed. Food banks have expanded exponentially as a result. Which is where I come in.
For the above reasons and more, I was always strongly opposed to The Big Society because I understood what it meant. I vowed I’d have nothing to do with it. So what have I been doing for the last eight years or so? Working for charities and now working in a food bank. Maybe I’m more of a hypocrite than anything else?
It is hard to square the circle when it comes to doing the job you would prefer the state to do. If I was to follow through my objections to The Bog Society to their logical conclusion, I would cancel my weekly food bank donation, stop buying poppies every year, never sponsor anyone doing anything for Good Causes and just hope that eventually the government would step up to the plate and do the job I expected it to. But certainly with this government, they literally don’t care about those at the bottom of the pile. In the eyes of Rishi Sunak, they are the deserving poor in that they deserve to be poor. So every week I go to the food bank and do my bit to help stop families going without anything to eat. I’m sure somewhere David Cameron is raising a glass to celebrate the success of his scheme to end people’s reliance on the state and having the services carried out by unpaid volunteers. He must be so proud.
