UK Politics: Iain Duncan Smith introduces death penalty for poor people

[Werthead]

This week, the Tories decided it would be a really good idea to jeer and laugh at the news that half a million people in the UK are being forced to use food banks and the Red Cross is distributing food aid in Britain for the first time since WWII, and forced their LibDem stooges to help defeat a Labour motion suggesting this was shameful.

Now, the coalition government has been living in cloud cuckoo land for the past three and a half years, but this was an entirely different level of spitfulness, willful ignorance and crass stupidity. Fortunately, there were dissenters with several Conservative MPs (looking rather annoyed with their colleagues) also speaking up on behalf of the food bank system and that there should be more support for it. Unfortunately, the government disagreed and refused to take an EU subsidy to help pay for food banks because, erm, of reasons, or something.

So we have the ruling party of this country openly laughing at the plight of poor people (many of them put there and kept there by the policies and failures of this government), refusing to help them and actively refusing outside aid to help them. Quite breathtaking behaviour.

Meanwhile, fantasy author Graham Joyce has set up a petition calling for the firing of Michael Gove on the grounds he's an incompetent lunatic who shouldn't be left in charge of opening a can of beans.

[A wilding]

Unfortunately, the government disagreed and refused to take an EU subsidy to help pay for food banks because, erm, of reasons, or something.

That's because their official position (or at least last time I noticed one on this subject) is that more people are using food banks simply because there are more food banks than there used to be, and the idle shiftless poor find it easier to use them than to bother to go to wherever it is that common people usually go to get food. So logically there is no need for food banks, especially as they generate bad PR.

[john]

IDS and all the ministers from his department left well before the end of the debate (if you could call it that). Even Bercow had a dig. I share the bemusement that I've noticed in most of the blogs and news stories reporting it. How is this not considered an election result changing issue?

[Alex.]

Because a lot of people in this country also find poor people disgusting and laugh at them. I.e. when everyone thought that Little Britain Vicky Pollard sketch was hilarious, when it in fact was not. Laughing and sneering at the poor is awful Tory behaviour, but loads of people do it.

[Werthead]

How is this not considered an election result changing issue?

If you repeat a lie enough times and loudly enough, people will believe it.

Basically, although it is well-documented that the country's economic problems are down to a combination of the 2008 worldwide financial crisis and our own overreliance on credit, the coalition has made an enormous number of people believe it's all the fault of poor people, somehow. The government simply says, "People need to go back to work," without doing anything to provide more jobs or address issues such as that there are five times as many unemployed people as vacancies, and more than a dozen times as many underemployed people than vacancies, or that the recovery is being built, once again, on credit like after the early 1990s recession, except this time lots of people are now only working part-time hours so are even less able to afford to pay back their debts. Even more striking is the fact that the poverty line has risen well above that of the earnings of the least-well-paid in society, meaning that something like two million people in the UK actually are working but are still in poverty and still need foodbanks and other help. However, because 'they are working', the government takes no further interest in them.

The government basically just needs to ignore everything that's actually going on, keep saying that those on foodbanks are there because of poor lifestyle choices and keep lying, and people will believe them. Because, overwhelmingly, poor people themselves don't vote, the Tories know they don't lose anything this way.

It also doesn't help that Labour have been completely and totally ineffective in opposition on these issues. They only raised the foodbank issue because 120,000 people signed a petition on The Mirror website, they didn't do it of their own volition. They've also been cautious in castigating the Tories on such issues, partially because many of them do stem from Labour's own time in government (though why that excuses the Tories making them a hundred times worse, I don't know) and also because Labour need to win the centre to win the election, and unfortunately too many people in the UK are buying the government's BS. Labour coming down too hard on the Tories might be seen as them turning further left-wing and away from electability. That's why Labour's choice of energy prices as a battleground was so astute, as even rich people resent paying double what they did less than a decade ago for gas and electricity.

[Essan]

How many people using food banks genuinely have no money at all?

How many have money but would rather spend it on mobile phones and cigarettes?

And now many use them because it's free food, so why not?

;)

And I wouldn't believe everything you read in newspapers - 99 times out of 100 they only tell you facts they want you to hear, and not the rest.

[MinDonner]

Oh no, not mobile phones!! What decadent luxury is this? What's wrong with a rotary-dial one or a payphone, eh?

What the fuck, dude?

;)

[paddington]

Thats the demonization of the poor. I am sure there probably some that abuse the system, and I am equally sure that it won't be the majority.

[Alex.]

The awful Tory behaviour I was talking about above.

Edited for politeness because it's Christmas. A once a year occurrence.

[A wilding]

@Essan: Clearly you need to do some research on how food banks work.

One place to start might be Justin Welby and the C of E report on them.

;)

[Darth Visenya]

Yeah, I've really got to side with Labour on this issue, it's disgraceful.

[Daeric]

Heaven forbid that people have access to a device that allows them not to be tied to the house and actually go out and help others/seek work/run errands and still be able to be contacted by other people easily. No what they must do is get a chair, sit next to the phone and stare at it all day waiting for the off chance that it rings and answer it promptly because forcing someone to leave a message is the height of rudeness!

[Essan]

Side with Labour? They created the problem and had no interest in it all until this debate was forced by a petition commissioned by a tabloid newspaper!

Don't for one minute think they are any different!

But I agree with what some have said.suggested: the more food banks you have the more people will use them. People take what they want and what they are given, whether they need it or not.

As for mobile phones: why do people need to phone each other all day when they could instead buy food to eat? I spend ~£5 a year on my phone. Sorry, but folk have very mixed up priorities! But then, how many of us are actually poor? ;)

[paddington]

A couple of tins of food and stuff is hardly taking, considering what the banks/tax avoiding companys take, or the corrupt politicans.

Edit:- want to complain about something, maybe see what British companies are head officed in Luxemburg or lichenstain or other corporation tax dodging sweet spots

[Darth Visenya]

Yes, side with Labour, they may well be incompetent,wasteful idiots but I'm in full agreement with them on this issue and find the disdain the Tories show for the poor cringe worthy.

[Lummel]

It is outrageous! The poor don't need food banks, I have noticed that there are many nutritious weeds growing between kerb stones and at road verges. These could easily be gathered and chewed by poor people to provide them with the calories they need and certainly more vitamins then they would get from their habitual diets of fish n' chips, or chips. Why if councils were to stop wasteful spending on weed spraying and grass cutting there would be the double benefit of cash saving for local authorities and more for the poor to eat. I demand that the government intervene now to insist on the necessary changes so that my council tax isn't increased for the next financial year.

[john]

But the Tories were laughing at people fighting over discounted vegetables in a major supermarket. It wasn't even about using the food banks. I bet that's because the poor like fighting too, right Essan? :P

I appreciate that Labour wouldn't want any of the blame to come their way but surely bringing up simple facts such as currently there's more food aid than any time since the war would make voters support the opposition, regardless that the Food Banks were introduced on their watch.

[Zoë Sumra]

How many people using food banks genuinely have no money at all?

How many have money but would rather spend it on mobile phones and cigarettes?

And now many use them because it's free food, so why not?

;)

And I wouldn't believe everything you read in newspapers - 99 times out of 100 they only tell you facts they want you to hear, and not the rest.

We have found another person who, like that welfare minister, does not know what a food bank is.

It is not possible to turn up to a foodbank and get free food just because you can't be bothered to pay for it. You may only get food from a foodbank if a person in a position of authority - doctor, social worker, teacher, police officer - has determined you have no other way of feeding yourself.

This peerless ignorance is what keeps the Tories in charge.

[Werthead]

How many people using food banks genuinely have no money at all?

Probably most. You can't just turn up and use one, you have to be referred by a social worker, a doctor or a teacher.

How many have money but would rather spend it on mobile phones and cigarettes?

Some probably would. Most would not.

And now many use them because it's free food, so why not?

Because you have to be referred by a professional to use them. Like I said, you can't just turn up and go "Free food!" because in that case it'd be a free-for-all.

And I wouldn't believe everything you read in newspapers - 99 times out of 100 they only tell you facts they want you to hear, and not the rest.

That was from the television news and the blog of someone who was attending the actual debate and saw everything with their own eyes. It's also a story that's been widely covered by all spectrums of the media. Plus there's a food bank around the corner from where I live, so I can see what's happening personally.

Side with Labour? They created the problem

Not entirely. Food banks first appeared on their watch (in 2005) but they have exponentially increased in number since the coalition government came to power in 2010. Labour may have 'created the problem' but the Tories have made it vastly worse than it was before.

Don't for one minute think they are any different!

I'm not a huge fan of Labour at all. However, what was a small problem under Labour has become a borderline crisis under the Tories. There is no evidence that the same sort of thing would have happened under Labour.

I spend ~£5 a year on my phone

Are you in the UK? If so, how? You can't spend £5 a year on a mobile, all of the networks shut numbers down after six months if at least £10 has not been put on them in that time. If you have a landline, you'll be spending more than that per month on line rental. Even if you just use the Internet and Skype, you're still spending more than that on your subscription every month.

But then, how many of us are actually poor?

Relative to the average wage of the UK? Me, for starters, thought that is still pretty well-off by the standards of, say, a Somali refugee.

I agree with what I think IDS thinks: that it would be better we never had them in the first place. All it means is that whereas before someone with £5 left would have to choose between cigarettes and food, now they can have both. But maybe they should be made to choose?

Less than 20% of the population of Britain smokes. Whilst that figure rises amongst the less well-off, it's still the case that the majority of people living in poverty do not smoke, so the choice does not exist and is in fact a completely facile point to keep bringing up.

People in that position are not choosing between spending £5 on food or smoking, they are choosing between putting £5 towards food or towards electricity or gas. For the less well-off in society, the choice often is eating or shivering.

The more food banks there are, the more people will use food banks

More to the point, the more people need to use food banks, the more they will use them. Supply follows demand.

In this case, food banks are the result of failures by both the Labour and Coalition governments in tackling the problem. But it's a problem that was fairly constrained under Labour, but is now huge under the Coalition, and they certainly should be held to account for it.

[Lummel]

...I appreciate that Labour wouldn't want any of the blame to come their way but surely bringing up simple facts such as currently there's more food aid than any time since the war would make voters support the opposition, regardless that the Food Banks were introduced on their watch.

The problem is that the next government will have to do some mix of continuing austerity and raising taxes. Getting away from food banks would require some mix of raising wages, raising benefits and lowing the cost of living. None of which look particularly viable in the current politics so I don't see an easy narrative here. It certainly feeds into Labour's line on the cost of living, but I guess that politically they want to make that as broad an issue as possible rather than highlight the people who are using food banks :dunno: