Tory MP blames food bank use on people not knowing how to cook or budge

Ailidh

Yesterday I'd been going to add here my personally thought-out though hardly new theory that there is an undeclared government policy of keeping "the poor" in their place by pushing carb heavy, sugar rich foods at them at bargain prices. It hit me about twenty years ago, walking round a well-known supermarket that used to claim there were more reasons to shop there that there were no special offers on fresh fruit or meat or veg but plenty bogofs on pies and buns.

If you're on a budget, of course you're going to buy what seems best value but a constant diet of low quality food is guaranteed to keep people unhealthy both mentally and physically.

Then I didn't post yesterday, because I thought I was being daft.

Number One on the BBC news app this morning - "Ministers delay ban on multi-buy junk food deals".
Maybe I'm not daft.

... it's not as daft as it might sound.

I don't think there's an actual 'undeclared' policy as such, but look at it this way.

To a libertarian government that embraces a free-market economy and 'small-state', the poor are a drain. They cost money that could be better used to give tax cuts to the more wealthy. But, something has to be done about them - they can't just be left to die on the streets (so to speak) en massse because even in our fractured, every-man-for-himself, individualistic society, people would be pretty appalled. Even though, to some extent, this is actually happening... ie, the homeless living, and sometimes dying, in their little one-man tents. Nearly every city-centre has them, and we've gradually become inured to the sight, there's a creeping acceptance of it.

I think the government's 'plan' is to do as little as is absolutely necessary. Junk food is obviously a staple of poor people's diet - it keeps them alive. So no ban on junk-food deals make sense.

We saw that food bank being opened - with the mayor beaming as if he was at the grand opening of some new local enterprise, instead of an outlet where the desperate and hungry turn to for a subsistence level of food. Does anyone remember that gentleman from Hartlepool on TV who said that he voted for the Tories because "they gave them more food banks"?

The whole thing is absurd. This is not Conservatism, this is an Executive running the country for its own benefit and that of those it represents. It gets away with it because the media and this current mob of Tories has successfully convinced people that the poor are the authors of their own misfortune (they can neither cook nor budget), or they are simply "scroungers" who've chosen benefits as a way of life. So we're are encouraged not to care. Then, of course, there's the "illegal" immigrants - all, apparently, living in 4 / 5 star hotels with a jacuzzi. Or they jump off their dinghies and are put straight into council accommodation - and if that's not available, they are housed in 5 bedroom houses purloined from the private rented sector. Of course, I exaggerate, but not by much.

Divide and rule. This is how it works. We fight each other. And all the time the very wealthy elite are sucking more and more money out of the economy, whilst the poor - who have nothing, no savings, no investments, put their paltry funds straight back into it in order to survive.

So I don't think there is a 'plan' as such, more a policy of just leaving things as they are. The poor are not important to the wealthy - as long as there are sufficient numbers of minions to do the menial jobs that are needed to keep society functioning, and there are, then it matters little or nothing to them if they simply just wither away, or die.

This is all a bit garbled, but you get my drift... I haven't had my morning coffee yet and my brain doesn't work properly until I get that first 'rush'.

BTW, I'm not anti-Conservative, this is not a rant against the traditional Conservative voter, even though I'm a bit left-of-centre. I have friends who are Conservative voters - the difference between them and this government, is chalk and cheese...

Dinahmo, thank you for bringing compassion and empathy to the discussion.
Volver, his view of the world is slewed, to put it mildly. Wherever his life journey started, he is now on an MP's salary, and to declare that he is not rich is disgraceful. Very very, few of us ( can't speak for everyone!) will ever have had that income.

Yesterday I'd been going to add here my personally thought-out though hardly new theory that there is an undeclared government policy of keeping "the poor" in their place by pushing carb heavy, sugar rich foods at them at bargain prices. It hit me about twenty years ago, walking round a well-known supermarket that used to claim there were more reasons to shop there that there were no special offers on fresh fruit or meat or veg but plenty bogofs on pies and buns.

If you're on a budget, of course you're going to buy what seems best value but a constant diet of low quality food is guaranteed to keep people unhealthy both mentally and physically.

Then I didn't post yesterday, because I thought I was being daft.

Number One on the BBC news app this morning - "Ministers delay ban on multi-buy junk food deals".
Maybe I'm not daft.

Anniel

DiamondLily, thank you for the link. I will not bother to post on this thread, but have read every post until I saw yours. I feel that because I am a Conservative the vast majority hate me which is clear. It matters not that many of us who are most elderly grew up in poverty and at times in adulthood money was short. People keep on about rich Conservative MPs with all their expenses. I would remind you that many Labour MPs are not poor! My parents were very poor but the whole family scraped together money to buy my uniform and I went to the Liverpool College For Girls on the scholarship in 1945. It was only education that allowed me to reach reasonable economic circumstances. I have always worked for public services and I not only knew poverty but worked with poor people. The nastiness on this thread is palpable. I wish we could have more reasonable conversations. There are some good points made but anyone who thinks the Conservative MP was making a reasonable argument is dismissed as an a**e in the OP. I had a quick look at the mumsnet thread and people were asking reasonable questions. We all lead different lives and I think live and let live is sometimes missing here. No matter. Once Labour get in to power I am sure it will be much better.

I don't hate Conservative supporters - my DH was a lifelong Tory voter, until Boris Johnson became leader.

I was a lifelong Labour voter, until Corbyn became leader.

We've had some lively conversations over the years lol ??

While Corbyn led Labour, I voted independent, and my husband does the same now when he votes.

Sometimes, it's not about the party itself, it's about the actual government.

My local Tory MP is a pretty helpful bloke. He's been in situ for years. I've got no problems with him, on a local level. From the emails I have exchanged with him, he's as appalled as I am with the behaviour of Johnson and co.

This particular MP, in respect of food banks, was talking nonsense.

He is completely out of touch with what is happening out there. ?

But, the fish rots from the head down, and with someone like Johnson at the helm, I'm not surprised at how some Tory MPs behave.

Where is this idea that cooking and budgeting is just for ‘housewives’ coming from? That’s the second time it’s been said in this thread.

Boys and men also cook, and many girls and women support themselves and their children. The days when girls were taught housecraft so they could get a man to keep them are long gone.

I'm somewhere in between on this.
I can't see the point of the kind of cooking my boy did; £8 worth of ingredients.

Perhaps they could ask them to bring in anything that is going spare at home and do a "cobble this into a meal" type teaching.

It might be more interesting, too.

I found it so frustrating that my boys recipe was 2 spoons of flour sort of stuff.

Thankfully, my school knew how to educate girls to be something other than thrifty housewives.

Yes, good for me. I grew up in a household, where my mother couldn't cook and abandoned the family when I was in my teens anyway. My father was alcoholic. Thankfully, I had an academic education and was able to move on. I could also read cook books and, later, websites.

I don't agree, so maybe we should leave it there. It's what elementary schools and secondary mods used to teach. I am extremely glad that I didn't waste precious time in school learning stuff I could learn elsewhere.

I can do all the practical tasks you mentioned and I didn't learn about any of them at school. I learnt on a "need to know" basis because I can read books/instructions and search the internet. Meanwhile, I learnt content and skills at school which I could never have picked up casually.
Well good for you. But not all children can, and not all are growing up in households where they are taught to do so.

And before you decide what I am thinking, I am not directing that at ‘the poor’. I remember my son’s friend (from a solidly middle class family) being amazed that I was making chips out of potatoes. He asked if I knew you could buy them in Sainsburys?. When he’d tried them, he asked me to give his mum the recipe.

I am not saying that ‘the poor’ need to be educated differently from anyone else. I don’t think that ‘the poor’ can’t cook. I don’t blame schools or the poor for food poverty. I do, however, think that a utilitarian approach to education is less likely to succeed than a holistic one, and that belief does not in any way align me with the new face of Conservatism, which is something I find abhorrent.

I repeat that I blame the government 100% for the situation we are in, and repeat that I think it is shameful.

growstuff

OakDryad I think it was actually Aldi, but you're right. The people were eating very small portions and there was pasta to accompany the meals, but no veg or salad.

Yes, Aldi. My mistake. Thanks growstuff. It was nearly all heavy and meat-based - not balanced at all. We didn't see the itemised shopping list to see if it included the oil and butter which were on the table with the other raw ingredients or the spices which were used. Tiny portions, prices from six months ago, cooking on a large scale, cost of fuel not factored in. Mr I've worked down't pit all my life (no you haven't) isn't being truthful or realistic.

OakDryad I think it was actually Aldi, but you're right. The people were eating very small portions and there was pasta to accompany the meals, but no veg or salad.

Just watched a Sky report from Blackpool. More people are dying there than are being born. One man who has "always had enough to get by" said he had a slice of bread and either half a tin of beans or, I think it was, Hoola hoops in the evening. He did have something for breakfast but nothing during the day.

This has not happened overnight; this has been a decade-plus of Tory misrule. It is a deliberate manipulation of society.

Ah ha! I now see where the 30p meal claim comes from.

In November 2021, a pro chef went to Asda and spent £50.24 on food. He and a team of people cooked in the kitchens of Academy Transformation Trust Further Education (ATTFE) and produced a tray of:

chilli con carne
sweet potato curry
beef casserole
spag bol
sausage casserole

In the background were a couple of boxes of cereal and milk.

Anderson claims that the £50 produced 170 meals which I suspect is because the people sampling the food were eating out of small polystyrene cups. £50 divided by 170 is 30p.

I don't need to spell out what's not factored into the sums.

Here's the video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt8fEcV-zXA

growstuff

He's the new face of the Conservative Party, which is why so many traditional Conservative voters are turning against them.

There is now a world of difference between 'traditional' Conservatives / Conservative voters.

Johnson and his cabal are a completely different kettle of fish... as many former Conservative voters will testify.

He's the new face of the Conservative Party, which is why so many traditional Conservative voters are turning against them.

At the moment a property rented out by a private landlord has to have an E rating. It's proposed that by 2025 all must be a C Piskey.

You're right that improving energy efficiency may result in higher rents and our EPC adviser has said that there'll be older properties where it simply isn't possible to get above a D, which may well result in fewer properties owned by private landlords.
As he says, many private homes are not at the levels that may be expected from private rentals.

He worked down the pit for 10 years. He's in his 50s, so that's not all his life. He's been investigated by the Conservative Party for anti-semiticism, apart from making the comment about knockers and staging an interview with a constituent.

Maybe Katie Hopkins could give him some advice about being sued by Jack Monroe.

I've just been watching that! This is part of what he said:

She’s talking money off some of the most vulnerable people in society… Its her that’s rich, I’m not rich. I was dragged up in Huthwait. As you know I worked down the pit all my life. Didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together. I am where I am because the Conservative Party gave me that chance.

He was suspended by Labour in 2018, because of the Traveller thing with boulders.

I think she's going to sue him.

If he's not working down't pit, that is...

And now he's started attacking Jack Monroe with Martin Daubney on a YouTube channel associated with Laurence Fox's Reclaim Party. He's a self-publicist, who is positioning himself as anti-woke in a manufactured culture war.

I'll see if I can link to the video, although I found it quite painful to watch.

Anniel

DiamondLily, thank you for the link. I will not bother to post on this thread, but have read every post until I saw yours. I feel that because I am a Conservative the vast majority hate me which is clear. It matters not that many of us who are most elderly grew up in poverty and at times in adulthood money was short. People keep on about rich Conservative MPs with all their expenses. I would remind you that many Labour MPs are not poor! My parents were very poor but the whole family scraped together money to buy my uniform and I went to the Liverpool College For Girls on the scholarship in 1945. It was only education that allowed me to reach reasonable economic circumstances. I have always worked for public services and I not only knew poverty but worked with poor people. The nastiness on this thread is palpable. I wish we could have more reasonable conversations. There are some good points made but anyone who thinks the Conservative MP was making a reasonable argument is dismissed as an a**e in the OP. I had a quick look at the mumsnet thread and people were asking reasonable questions. We all lead different lives and I think live and let live is sometimes missing here. No matter. Once Labour get in to power I am sure it will be much better.

There is a frequent poster on GransNet who has been very clear that she has always been a Conservative voter, but that she can no longer support them because of how they are behaving and what they are doing to the country.

When people like Anderson are in Parliament, there is no "reasonable conversation" to be had, not any longer. People are very upset that a man on his income, who can claim the expenses he does, make claims about people using foodbanks that are unfounded and insulting. It wouldn't matter if he was Conservative, Labour or Monster Raving Looney, he shows a complete misunderstanding of how society is operating today.

so much nowadays for you need a mobile phone, I get texts from the doctors, for instance, telling me that I'm getting a call from the doctor or to make an appointment for a blood test, and during lockdown, I had physio via a mobile,a bit like zoom but NHS zoom, I'm regularly doing a health-related course on teams on my phone, without internet access I'd not be able to access any of that.
Look at the price of postage these days, being able to email stuff saves on that, and being able to do banking online means you don't need to pay for transport to a branch. If you are in temporary accommodation or indeed nowadays much accommodation, there is no landline. I have a landline with my broadband but actually pay less monthly for my mobile and data, as having mobile data means that life is easier, I can go to places I don't know and look up buses and maps, I don't need to buy a map or find the bus station. I can do simple work-related tasks when I'm waiting for a bus on my mobile
I've worked and volunteered with people who are jobless, on benefits, and asylum seekers. Some of those unfortunate people hardly had more than a kettle and a ring and microwave, to cook on let alone fridge space or a freezer. or a big pan, or a wooden spoon or whisk or even a sharp knife. Or space to store even small bulk buys of food even if they were able to do it. Basic cheap filling things need lots of ingredients to make them tasty, and it can take time to build up a stock of such items, and basics like flour or cornflour to make sauces. I love lentils, often make a lentil soup because I enjoy it but you need other things to put in to it for flavour and balanced nutrition. Plus buying in small packets is a dear way of getting them, not everyone has access to an Asian shop to get large cheap bags full. Veg soup can be easy but it can be nicer if you are able to blend it, so where do you get your blender. Where I live I do visit Aldi but I'm only able to do that because I have a car and pop in when I have to go the ten or twelve miles for something else workwise. One person on a bus would cost nearly £9, In some places, the costs of buses are such that it may be well cheaper to take a taxi if you also have children that have to be paid for on the bus, and it may mean you can bring back shopping that you couldn't possibly carry. If you have no transport you are limited to what you can carry. I'm lucky that I can get to Aldi, when I was in a village with no car and with local small shop and with few buses and the ones there were didn't actually go anywhere that useful, that was hard getting the shopping.
I'd agree that cooking is not taught as it used to be, but although I can make all the different types of pastry nowadays I'm afraid I buy it ready-made most of the time, well puff pastry anyway. Even shortcrust it can be more convenient to just defrost a small packet of pastry. But honestly, if you are short on time and money and you can get a cheap pie you are going o go for that
So many do not know what poverty is like.

The Conservative MP hasn't made a reasonable argument.

Anniel

DiamondLily, thank you for the link. I will not bother to post on this thread, but have read every post until I saw yours. I feel that because I am a Conservative the vast majority hate me which is clear. It matters not that many of us who are most elderly grew up in poverty and at times in adulthood money was short. People keep on about rich Conservative MPs with all their expenses. I would remind you that many Labour MPs are not poor! My parents were very poor but the whole family scraped together money to buy my uniform and I went to the Liverpool College For Girls on the scholarship in 1945. It was only education that allowed me to reach reasonable economic circumstances. I have always worked for public services and I not only knew poverty but worked with poor people. The nastiness on this thread is palpable. I wish we could have more reasonable conversations. There are some good points made but anyone who thinks the Conservative MP was making a reasonable argument is dismissed as an a**e in the OP. I had a quick look at the mumsnet thread and people were asking reasonable questions. We all lead different lives and I think live and let live is sometimes missing here. No matter. Once Labour get in to power I am sure it will be much better.

I don't agree that there's been "nastiness".

Landlords haven't received tax relief on the whole amount of mortgage interest since 2020 - that won't affect those without a mortgage and they still receive tax relief on maintenance costs.