Food Banks

I feel so sad for the people who need to rely on food banks to feed their families. Here in France they have a different system and instead of having the large 'bins' in the supermarkets every few months volunteers are at the entrance to supermarkets and offer you a carrier bag (small) and a list of modest but needed items. We always take one and put several items in and we try and choose things which are not the cheapest on the list - many people who give themselves have little, so while I can still afford to put in small treats for children etc I do so. It must be awful to only get the cheapest of everything as grateful as you are for being given food.
I can not see any hope for the need of these lifelines to be no longer required in the near future.

Agreed, Welshwife.
Anyone who knows of any companies doing that should inform on them, as those companies are the ones who are responsible for our dire wages, not the people who are being paid low wages.
Why is it always the worker who is blamed, rather than the employer?

I understood that minimum wage or whatever it is called was a legal requirement now - so any employers NOT paying that are breaking the law. I know that some bad employers are charging migrants workers for things so that they earn virtually nothing but a lot of that is not legal either and the police etc are trying to stamp out the slave culture in some areas.
The EU do a lot for workers rights - one of the things which is likely to be downgraded when UK leaves - under the heading of 'getting rid of red tape'.

Asking if someone is your little echo is a pretty nasty thing to post lemon

Lemongrove, where do you get your news from?
People are dying in the streets here.
Rich students burn £50 notes in front of beggars.
I suppose you will laugh at that idea as well.

Lemongrove, I thought you wanted people to stick to the point, rather than write about other posters.
In which case, saying that you think trisher has lost the plot is really not on, is it?

Theresa May is in Canada at the moment. Foodbank use has risen to pre recession numbers in Toronto. I really don't want us to copy Canada, and have close links with them.
Pensioner use has risen by 27%.

It isn't nonsense to think that if Foodbanks have increased in the last few years to such a great extent they will eventually reach saturation point where there will not be enough food to go round and people will starve. Still if you think it's nonsense that's fine isn't it. Never happen. When I grew up no-one would have imagined people would ever again need charity to eat.

Is durhamjen your little echo trisher ?
People starving in the streets here? Once posters start typing nonsense I can't be bothered reading more of their posts.

Of course she hasn't, trisher. That would show her that Rees-Mogg and Day6 are wrong.

You praised Day 6 lemongrove who had compared our use of food banks to that of India, as you did so I assumed you were in favour of us being like India. It isn't silly just the ultimate outcome of the policies you seem to espouse.

What a very silly post trisher I think you are losing the plot.

So we aspire to be a country like India? Personally I would prefer not to see people starving in the street. Still I suppose if you like that sort of thing.
Did you read the link? No don't be silly that's about someone who really works in a Foodbank. It's much better to theorise about them

Day6 your sensible and measured and informed posts on foodbanks are the best I have ever read.
Sadly the posters who are none of those things on here are the ones wearing the blinkers.

Newcastle West End foodbank is the biggest one in the country, isn't it? It wasn't there before May 2010. That was the one in I, Daniel Blake, wasn't it?

Trisher isn't a jobcentre near you closed down because the landlord hadn't paid the rent?

You mean you didn't find it "uplifting" to see the generosity of the British public mostly? But maybe that's the problem Foodbanks in the abstract as perceived by JRM-uplifting. Foodbanks in reality-reduce people to tears.

Anyone who has seen the food bank scene in "I, Daniel Blake" (fictional, but considered to be very realistic) will know how harrowing and unforgettable is the sight of an impoverished, starving, mother visiting a food bank for the first time.

Most of the cinema was in tears during this scene. Nobody would visit a food bank if they weren't in great need.

Unavaiable for comment at this time as he realises he's gone too far?
However, he'll say it again when he needs to!

I'd be surprised if there were any in his part of the country when Labour was in power.

The last line said it all dj when the Foodbank people tried to talk to him he wasn't available for comment. In other words he doesn't want to know.

Interesting article here, trisher, about foodbanks in the North East. Apparently the reason Labour didn't tell anyone about them is because there weren't any until the Tories came to power.

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/jacob-rees-mogg-claims-labour-13621441

Day6 I have some respect for real Conservatives who openly admit that they believe in a small state economy where the government does not interfere in the economy and the richest prosper and the poorest survive as best they can. It may be a point of view I disagree with but at least it is based in reality. The people I struggle with are those who seem to think that this government has not steadily eroded the standard of living of the poorest in our society by cutting benefits, allowing zero hours contracts to masquerade as real jobs and effectively cutting the pay of millions by imposing a pay cap. At the same time they have allowed the rich to evade taxes and amass wealth.
As for what will make it work. Proper wages for proper jobs for a start. There are companies making millions keeping people on zero hours contract because it increases their profits. People with proper jobs will pay tax.
It is possible to close tax loopholes. It is possible to legislate for fair rents. It is possible to invest in public works (It was actually done in the 1920 and 30s). It is possible to build a society where the weakest and poorest are cared for. But it takes the will to do so. As for how it will be paid for. Read the Labour Manifesto. www.labour.org.uk/page/-/Images/manifesto-2017/Labour%20Manifesto%202017.pdf
Even if I itemised everything you wouldn't accept the figures.
As I said before if we are comparing the UK to India we have sunk very low.

Many many workers have money 'thrown' at them by the state because greedy employers don't pay them enough to live on

Exactly, and migrant EU workers keep that system going, accepting appalling pay and conditions in order to work. They are used and abused in order to make massive profits for their employers. The knock on effect is that indigenous, skilled and unskilled workers have to take or leave low wages. The system of benefit top ups plays right into the hands of greedy employers.

The EU is a capitalist's dream and I am surprised any socialist can support the way in which it has kept wages low. Many Unions express the same sentiment. The abuse is scandalous but it's no wonder so many billionaires want us to remain in it.

This is why I question Cobynomics. Getting people into work and ensuring they are paid a proper living wage is vital, but how is the money raised?

The tax breaks given to the lowest paid workers a couple of years ago, by our present government, were a step in the right direction, as was the raising of the minimum wage.

We have food banks now, and India does too, and the USA and many European countries so despite much progress and successive left and right wing governments since I was a hungry child in the 50s and 60s, poverty hasn't been eradicated.

I want to know how you do that, because Corbyn WILL have to find funds. His source?

People on high pay squirrel it away, often in tax havens, and don't support the system.

Yes, so how do you stop that happening? The tax havens are legitimate, unfortunately. If you banish the high earners or make them pay their dues (which they should) they take off for somewhere else. I completely agree that there should be no loopholes but London is a magnet for the uber wealthy. Do we close the doors, confiscate their Lamborghinis and Bentleys? How do we get them to pay up?

Come the revolution, how do you stop the rich buying up London and investing their wealth elsewhere? Would a Labour government be keen to deter them, given all the knock-on financial implications? Genuine question.

Many many workers have money 'thrown' at them by the state because greedy employers don't pay them enough to live on and so do many pensioners because their pensions are inadequate - of course, many well off pensioners also have money 'thrown at them' such as WFA but that's another story.....

£10 per hour minimum pay will go towards that.
People on minimum or low pay spend their money into the system. People on high pay squirrel it away, often in tax havens, and don't support the system.
Surely that is well known by now.

trisher - Oh and Day6 the reason the welfare state doesn't work very well is because we have a government who don't want it to.

The leftist blinkers you wear cloud your judgement. People who have very little in life are supported by the state.

Like people who work, they have to cut their cloth according to their funds. They have to budget and manage the money they are given in benefits. Many who work have little or no disposable income and lead very restricted lives and go without many of life's luxuries too. How would Corbyn solve that problem?

Those same low earners may be taxed on their earnings. Workers pay taxes so we can support the welfare state and ensure those with little are funded. You know this.Workers struggle too.

What will Corbyn do to make it work then Trisher. Do tell.

As stated, there are many reasons why people need food banks, too many to list here, but if they are in receipt of benefits but cannot afford to buy food, perhaps more analysis needs to be done as to WHY they cannot buy food with their benefits.

Will Corbyn be visiting food banks saying to those needing food..."Oh here. You'd better have another hundred quid from state funds. You're poor" should he become PM?

Do you really think he'll be throwing money at benefit recipients - because any economist will tell you, that will be fun to watch! How will he and a militant Labour government solve the problem - in one fell swoop, given you claim the present Conservative government 'don't want the benefits system to work"?

Occasionally, you do have to ask why people cannot manage the money they are given. I know many people hit rock bottom, have circumstances which bring them down and they can lose everything, but every claimant at a food bank has to have a reason to qualify for a voucher to get food...and they are assessed by social workers, doctors, health visitors.

One would hope most claimants are in temporary need. If that is not the case then we need to discover why their lives have stagnated and why they cannot buy food. I'd say that sort of research is vital.

I imagine you and Comrade Corbyn want to throw money at the problem. Fine, but you'll have to throw some the way of millions of workers and those on pensions too, in the interests of fairness of course.