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Strictly Cheese Sandwiches

(360 Posts)
LadyHonoriaDedlock Wed 17-May-23 20:16:14

Ann Widdecombe, sometime Conservative MP, Brexit MEP and star of Strictly Come Dancing, says that if you can't afford the ingredients for a cheese sandwich, don't eat cheese sandwiches.

Sometimes, when I've been on my uppers, cheese sandwiches are what I have eaten.

Is there anywhere lower these people can go? Are we in an age of political limbo dancing?

Casdon Wed 17-May-23 20:18:55

It sounds like a Marie Antoinette comment, and we know what happened to her.

Dinahmo Wed 17-May-23 20:33:07

She is appalling. I don't understand why she gets so much air time unless it's because she is so appalling.

My DH is in a convalescence home at the moment so I'm eating quite a few cheese sandwiches. Admittedly I'm using a type of pre- sliced brioche which I keep in the freezer and Branson pickle too. Very good. The bread's a bit expensive.

Ilovecheese Wed 17-May-23 20:42:36

She has been a real Gransnet favourite though

Casdon Wed 17-May-23 20:44:21

I was hoping to see you on this thread Ilovecheese, you couldn’t have a better name for it!

Fleurpepper Wed 17-May-23 21:07:01

She is such an appalling horrible nasty * bat. What she said was just disgusting.

Grannynannywanny Wed 17-May-23 21:11:51

Disgusting comments from an odious woman who shouldn’t be given air time to spout her bile.

Fleurpepper Wed 17-May-23 21:14:48

and how would she know what it is like to look after a family ?!?

growstuff Thu 18-May-23 00:06:47

You lot don't know how lucky you are! I had to put up with margarine sandwiches. grin

Namsnanny Thu 18-May-23 00:29:47

Casdon

It sounds like a Marie Antoinette comment, and we know what happened to her.

Most historians accept the remarks attributed to her were actually said many years before by others.
She was set up.

grannyactivist Thu 18-May-23 02:57:32

Living in poverty and eating mainly bread and sugar left me with malnutrition when I was a young child; yet here we are, six decades later and we still have children in this country whose parents cannot afford to feed them properly. In the world of Ann Widdecombe I guess bread and sugar is an acceptable meal for poor people who can’t afford cheese.

Allsorts Thu 18-May-23 04:49:34

Sorry, did I miss something? Is Anne Widdecombe recommending sugar sandwiches?
I was far harder up when we took out our first mortgage at 14%, but we both had two jobs. If we couldn't afford anything we just had to go without, our parents couldn’t help us. We had no help what so ever from the government, no food banks, because back then there wasn’t any, you didn’t work you didn’t eat.
I’m not saying it’s not hard now, but things were harder in the past, my folks used to tell me out the depression. These times will pass and things get better.

nanna8 Thu 18-May-23 05:31:16

When we were very poor in the postwar 1950s we would sometimes have mashed potato with cheese through it because that was all there was. I quite liked it. Cheese used to be a cheap food then. My Dad always had a job so goodness knows what the really, really poor jobless people ate.

Edith54 Thu 18-May-23 05:34:38

Cheese features heavily with these politicians. Truss, Boris, now Widdecombe.

Whitewavemark2 Thu 18-May-23 05:51:41

I am always amused when a thread like this comes up there is a competition as to how poverty stricken everyone was.

It wasn’t right then and it isn’t right now.

Poverty isn’t a competition it is a state of affairs that destroys life chances and families.

nanna8 Thu 18-May-23 05:54:41

I wouldn't see it as a competition at all- strange comment. We were all poor then. Maybe you don't remember?

ronib Thu 18-May-23 06:24:30

Ann Widecombe went on to say that we had to get inflation down and we don’t have a right to cheap food. So I think AW needs to volunteer at a food bank and see more of life.

MaizieD Thu 18-May-23 07:28:52

Seven years ago she was telling everyone that we would have cheaper food if we left the EU.

Now we have left where is the cheaper food?

MaizieD Thu 18-May-23 07:35:22

nanna8

I wouldn't see it as a competition at all- strange comment. We were all poor then. Maybe you don't remember?

We were all poor then

So that makes it OK that people are in desperate poverty now?

ronib Thu 18-May-23 07:38:26

MaizieD and what can we say about getting inflation down which is the government’s mantra of the moment?

growstuff Thu 18-May-23 07:38:37

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k

MaizieD Thu 18-May-23 07:50:08

ronib

MaizieD and what can we say about getting inflation down which is the government’s mantra of the moment?

Inflation coming down won't make anything any cheaper. You do realise that, don't you?
It will just mean prices are either not rising, or are rising more slowly.

As it happens, the Bank of England is making inflation worse by raising interest rates...

MaizieD Thu 18-May-23 07:56:30

growstuff

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k

Just what I was thinking.

Thanks. 😆

Chocolatelovinggran Thu 18-May-23 08:01:06

Does Ms Widdecombe have any helpful ideas as to what people might eat instead?

M0nica Thu 18-May-23 08:07:42

Well, I am thankful to admit that I did not grow up in poverty, although I do have ancestors that did!

But, when I was about 5 we moved from London to Carlisle, and lived in a small area of semi-detached and detached houses(nothing grand) close to an area of small Victorian terraces and for the first time in my short life I saw a lot of fat women in the local bakery and grocers.

I must have asked some questions, because I was told it was because they were poor and all they could afford to eat was bread spread with margarine, with sugar on it. This would have been in 1949.

Poverty is always relative. In 1949, just after the war, food was still rationed, taxation was still high, no one was well off. I cannot remember wanting for anything, but then our expectations were low, so one didn't actually want anything that much.

ON the other hand the NHS had just started and for many of those poorer families, free medical care was like manna from heaven.