Calling all Tories. Why do you Tory?

[metalblue]

We already know that, people rely on this form of charity out of necessity.

Being able to eat however shouldn’t be dependent on the charity of others.

Or perhaps, according to your world view, it should.

Yes we do, anyone who uses a food bank does so out of necessity at that point in their life. But that wasn’t your original question was it?

Your original question was if the fact food banks exited was because the government were cunts or not. But it showed a complete lack of understanding of why they actually exist and your follow up posts have shown a complete lack of willingness to even understand why.

 

[Chris in London]

Well, the government would probably argue it is doing enough and has created opportunities for these people to go into, Covid apart.

I think there is some truth in what you say, they will know they can do more, but the amount that go to food banks isn’t necessarily a downward trend of people entering poverty, I think it’s more complex.

This government probably would argue that doing nothing is “enough”, in the same way that they argue that we regained the sovereignty we never lost by leaving the EU, but that’s a separate issue.

We seem to agree that

(A) the government acknowledges that citizens that get referred to foodbanks are in positions of real need, and
(B) the government does not help them.

That is the problem in itself. The choice not to help them flows from the desire to cut welfare provision to the absolute maximum. My point is that in this instance they have gone beyond the absolute maximum and they are now failing to comply with the most basic duties of the state.

Suppose that instead of issue vouchers for food banks, the government issued emergency funds, or even food coupons, to people in the same position. The same number of people with the same problems would have their needs met. But it would be the government that was meeting those needs.

Food banks represent an abdication of that responsibility. They symbolise a government that refuses to feed its own people, even when it acknowledges their need for help, and passes the buck to the charity sector. That in my view is the most shameful act any government of any political hue has committed since before 1945.

The number of people who go to food banks again isn’t the issue. There is a separate argument to be had about the reasons for poverty and this current government’s contribution to it. That said, people find themselves in situations of need for all sorts of reasons, and they are not always the results of government policy. The debate about foodbanks is about the government’s response to people in situations of need, not the reasons why they are in those situations in the first place. Food banks are not however a government response to poverty. Food banks are the charity sector’s response to poverty where the government has chosen not to respond at all.

This is why I say that Food banks are a symptom of a deeper problem. The government has a fundamental duty to ensure ALL of its citizens have their basic human needs met if they are not able to meet them from their own resources. This government is not complying with that duty. It is turning people away and asking them to go to the charitable sector itself. It’s as if the government abolished the police and told people to form neighbourhood watch groups, or if it laid off all our firefighters and told local neighbourhoods to mount fire warden patrols. It is a basic duty that are not complying with.

That’s why the simple existence of food banks is such a source of national shame. It’s not the numbers that need to use them, though there is a separate discussion to be had about that. It’s the fact that the agencies that run the food banks are picking up a burden that the government has dropped - and dropped deliberately for ideological reasons.

To put the same point another way, it’s not that they can do more - it’s that they aren’t doing anything.

 

[Chris in London]

Yes we do, anyone who uses a food bank does so out of necessity at that point in their life. But that wasn’t your original question was it?

Your original question was if the fact food banks exited was because the government were cunts or not. But it showed a complete lack of understanding of why they actually exist and your follow up posts have shown a complete lack of willingness to even understand why.

Lol.

The reason food bank numbers have gone from less than 100 in 2010 to over 2000 in 2020 is because their numbers expanded to meet a need.

There have always been people with all sorts of reasons for having that need. What has changed is that in the last 10 years the government has stopped meeting that need. Instead, those people who once would have been entitled to emergency funding, crisis payments, hardship loans and similar forms of emergency social security are now sent to the charitable sector.

That state of affairs either exists because we as a nation can no longer afford to feed all our people, including specifically those unable at any given point in time to feed themselves, or we can afford it as a nation but the government of the day chooses not to spend public funds in that way.

To put the same point rather differently, it’s either because the 5th largest economy in the world can’t afford it, or because the government that you voted for is a bunch of cunts.

Speaking for myself, I’m pretty sure we could afford it, if the government chose to spend public funds that way.

Shall I go over it again in case you still didn’t get it? The individual causes of individual families needing to go to foodbanks is not the issue. The issue is, given that those families are in recognised positions of genuine need, should the state assist them, or should that duty be left to the charitable sector?

My view, not least in the light of the post-war social compact, is that it is unacceptable for the state to fail to feed its own people.

You either regard the fact that the government is failing to meet that basic obligation - which it has passed it on to the charitable sector - as disgraceful or you do not.

You seem to be among the latter category.

 

[Ban-jani]

No its not complex at all .... we have a system in place that keeps people in poverty no matter how well they do or how hard they work ...... its designed to do exactly that.

You’re describing socialism mate.

There’s millions of people who are working class that were able to leave poverty.

Whilst we definitely weren’t ever in poverty, my family are very much working class, my mum worked part time in an old people’s home and my dad was a builder when I was a child. I left school on minimum wage with basic GCSEs, no higher education.

My first house when I was born was a terraced 2 bed house worth under probably under £140k today.

My dad, mum and myself are all now in the top 10% of earners because of working hard. My salary is 6 times higher than it was 10 years ago.

I can honestly tell you, with certain knowledge, nearly all my friends have similar stories.

Capitalism definitely works, this system works generally, we just need to make sure those that do fall behind have a parachute.

Socialism would have kept us in that first house.

 

[Mike Cledford]

Bullshit.

Does that refer to the shining of the said boots?

Offhand l cannot think of a situation where an individual would need his own night goggles. My own boots were made for tabbing (cue Nancy Sinatra) and never let me down. There were always clever arses who thought they should have American kit they had sent off for.

 

[metalblue]

There was a need , and it was desperate. I can remember families living in the Post war prefabs in the 70's and 80's ... buildings which were not designed or manufactured to last 30 /40 years. I can also remember the squalor of the terraced housing in some areas of Manchester.

The people who lived in them were not heard because their voices were ignored.

Some prefabs still exist near me mate. You are right about the state of some housing and that weren’t right and still isn’t

 

[pirate]

You could buy council houses well before Thatcher came on the scene. All she
did was encourage and ease processes, people think it all emanated from her,
it didn't, in fact the sale of council houses was first offered as manifesto commitment by the Labour Party in 1959. My dad bought his in 1970, and sold it before she even became PM.

again her making the process easier and cheaper would have been fine had she allowed the councils to replace the housing stock by building more houses as most coucils wanted to do. she deliberately blocked them from doing this. thats the bit that led to the current crisis

 

[Rascal]

Ain't this the truth.
And it's because Labour is now stuffed with middle class types, who sneer
at working class types, who refuse to conform with how they think society
should be run. Calling folk 'Working class traitors' is not the way to win friends and influence people, yet they do this all the time. Just listen to the post
election rants of the likes of Coogan and Co. This is the reason the party has lost it's traditional voters,
the people at the top just do not understand the electorate, and time and time again, they fail to gain power.
So 'Why do you Tory' is an easy question to answer, and it gets answered by the
ordinary working man and woman at each and every election, but they still persist with the same failed methods.

That is a myth, Labour is not stuffed full of middle class types at all, it attracts support from across all classes. This myth was propagated by Vote Leave and Leave EU when it's propaganda described those who supported,campaigned and attended rallies that where ProEU were described as Waitrose middle class liberals. There was a concerted effort to paint all the left as being ProEU as it suited the agenda off those groupd who needed working class votes to achieve their aim.

FactCheck: is Labour the party of the working class? – Channel 4 News

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

Lol.

The reason food bank numbers have gone from less than 100 in 2010 to over 2000 in 2020 is because their numbers expanded to meet a need.

There have always been people with all sorts of reasons for having that need. What has changed is that in the last 10 years the government has stopped meeting that need. Instead, those people who once would have been entitled to emergency funding, crisis payments, hardship loans and similar forms of emergency social security are now sent to the charitable sector.

That state of affairs either exists because we as a nation can no longer afford to feed all our people, including specifically those unable at any given point in time to feed themselves, or we can afford it as a nation but the government of the day chooses not to spend public funds in that way.

To put the same point rather differently, it’s either because the 5th largest economy in the world can’t afford it, or because the government that you voted for is a bunch of cunts.

Speaking for myself, I’m pretty sure we could afford it, if the government chose to spend public funds that way.

Shall I go over it again in case you still didn’t get it? The individual causes of individual families needing to go to foodbanks is not the issue. The issue is, given that those families are in recognised positions of genuine need, should the state assist them, or should that duty be left to the charitable sector?

My view, not least in the light of the post-war social compact, is that it is unacceptable for the state to fail to feed its own people.

You either regard the fact that the government is failing to meet that basic obligation - which it has passed it on to the charitable sector - as disgraceful or you do not.

You seem to be among the latter category.

No government has looked after all of these people. The generations gone by just went without and got on with it best they could.

 

[Rascal]

Some prefabs still exist near me mate. You are right about the state of some housing and that weren’t right and still isn’t

I live in one.

 

[metalblue]

Well I most certainly hope you're not the distant offspring of those particular
plutocrats who bankrolled that shower of shite over at Old Rope back in the day.

no mate, I’m not thank fuck. Could you imagine the shame?

 

[stonerblue]

Lol.

The reason food bank numbers have gone from less than 100 in 2010 to over 2000 in 2020 is because their numbers expanded to meet a need.

There have always been people with all sorts of reasons for having that need. What has changed is that in the last 10 years the government has stopped meeting that need. Instead, those people who once would have been entitled to emergency funding, crisis payments, hardship loans and similar forms of emergency social security are now sent to the charitable sector.

That state of affairs either exists because we as a nation can no longer afford to feed all our people, including specifically those unable at any given point in time to feed themselves, or we can afford it as a nation but the government of the day chooses not to spend public funds in that way.

To put the same point rather differently, it’s either because the 5th largest economy in the world can’t afford it, or because the government that you voted for is a bunch of cunts.

Speaking for myself, I’m pretty sure we could afford it, if the government chose to spend public funds that way.

Shall I go over it again in case you still didn’t get it? The individual causes of individual families needing to go to foodbanks is not the issue. The issue is, given that those families are in recognised positions of genuine need, should the state assist them, or should that duty be left to the charitable sector?

My view, not least in the light of the post-war social compact, is that it is unacceptable for the state to fail to feed its own people.

You either regard the fact that the government is failing to meet that basic obligation - which it has passed it on to the charitable sector - as disgraceful or you do not.

You seem to be among the latter category.

Good post.

 

[stonerblue]

I live in one.

I was driving round Hillock estate in Whitefield the other day. It's massive and the housing is awful. Thrown up mini high rises, maisonettes and yes, unbeleivably, pre-fabs that were probably deisgned to last 10 years max.
I grew up in a house like that and the damp has never left me.

 

[stonerblue]

Does that refer to the shining of the said boots?

Offhand l cannot think of a situation where an individual would need his own night goggles. My own boots were made for tabbing (cue Nancy Sinatra) and never let me down. There were always clever arses who thought they should have American kit they had sent off for.

Friend of mine drove his tank into battle in Desert Storm with half his kit missing. The ''gas mask' with a big hole in it was probably responsible for the myriad medical problems he has today.

 

[metalblue]

Lol.

The reason food bank numbers have gone from less than 100 in 2010 to over 2000 in 2020 is because their numbers expanded to meet a need.

There have always been people with all sorts of reasons for having that need. What has changed is that in the last 10 years the government has stopped meeting that need. Instead, those people who once would have been entitled to emergency funding, crisis payments, hardship loans and similar forms of emergency social security are now sent to the charitable sector.

That state of affairs either exists because we as a nation can no longer afford to feed all our people, including specifically those unable at any given point in time to feed themselves, or we can afford it as a nation but the government of the day chooses not to spend public funds in that way.

To put the same point rather differently, it’s either because the 5th largest economy in the world can’t afford it, or because the government that you voted for is a bunch of cunts.

Speaking for myself, I’m pretty sure we could afford it, if the government chose to spend public funds that way.

Shall I go over it again in case you still didn’t get it? The individual causes of individual families needing to go to foodbanks is not the issue. The issue is, given that those families are in recognised positions of genuine need, should the state assist them, or should that duty be left to the charitable sector?

My view, not least in the light of the post-war social compact, is that it is unacceptable for the state to fail to feed its own people.

You either regard the fact that the government is failing to meet that basic obligation - which it has passed it on to the charitable sector - as disgraceful or you do not.

You seem to be among the latter category.

You’re very quick to judge people

Ok that’s a more coherent post.

Your second paragraph regarding emergency payments and the such. I agree with, indeed in my first response to your post I said it was there responsibility and that accounted for 40% of why people use food banks. I do believe the system is at fault here. And the fact that since 2010 benefits office has signposted people to food banks only strengthens my view on this.

That leaves 60% of people in crisis who rely on the help of a food bank at one time or another for other reasons - your point asks me to consider who should fund these I find it hard to disagree with you here that the government could do more. But that’s not to say food banks should not necessarily exist as they are able to provide emergency provisions to people in crisis much more effectively than waiting for a payment from government if that makes sense.

 

[Rascal]

This government probably would argue that doing nothing is “enough”, in the same way that they argue that we regained the sovereignty we never lost by leaving the EU, but that’s a separate issue.

We seem to agree that

(A) the government acknowledges that citizens that get referred to foodbanks are in positions of real need, and
(B) the government does not help them.

That is the problem in itself. The choice not to help them flows from the desire to cut welfare provision to the absolute maximum. My point is that in this instance they have gone beyond the absolute maximum and they are now failing to comply with the most basic duties of the state.

Suppose that instead of issue vouchers for food banks, the government issued emergency funds, or even food coupons, to people in the same position. The same number of people with the same problems would have their needs met. But it would be the government that was meeting those needs.

Food banks represent an abdication of that responsibility. They symbolise a government that refuses to feed its own people, even when it acknowledges their need for help, and passes the buck to the charity sector. That in my view is the most shameful act any government of any political hue has committed since before 1945.

The number of people who go to food banks again isn’t the issue. There is a separate argument to be had about the reasons for poverty and this current government’s contribution to it. That said, people find themselves in situations of need for all sorts of reasons, and they are not always the results of government policy. The debate about foodbanks is about the government’s response to people in situations of need, not the reasons why they are in those situations in the first place. Food banks are not however a government response to poverty. Food banks are the charity sector’s response to poverty where the government has chosen not to respond at all.

This is why I say that Food banks are a symptom of a deeper problem. The government has a fundamental duty to ensure ALL of its citizens have their basic human needs met if they are not able to meet them from their own resources. This government is not complying with that duty. It is turning people away and asking them to go to the charitable sector itself. It’s as if the government abolished the police and told people to form neighbourhood watch groups, or if it laid off all our firefighters and told local neighbourhoods to mount fire warden patrols. It is a basic duty that are not complying with.

That’s why the simple existence of food banks is such a source of national shame. It’s not the numbers that need to use them, though there is a separate discussion to be had about that. It’s the fact that the agencies that run the food banks are picking up a burden that the government has dropped - and dropped deliberately for ideological reasons.

To put the same point another way, it’s not that they can do more - it’s that they aren’t doing anything.

That is a good post again.

The Tories however probably since Thatcher have thought that the free market will provide for everything, it is flawed thinking, because capitalism is flawed.

There s no profit in feeding the poor, we saw that just recently with the school meals fiasco. Once the free market gets its hands on providing services that are essential, they fail, because there is no profit in them without doing what that food supply company did with school meals.

The government then are hamstrung, they are free marketeers, but the free market doesn't provide what was promised in the post WW2 social consensus. So that consensus has to be discredited. The RW pro-capitalist think tanks and Tufton streets propaganda machines have turned out all these myths that abound today around 50 mile wide TVs, lazy fuckers, dole scroungers etc etc because it then covers the failure of capitalism to provide what is needed and provides an excuse. It demonises large swathes of the population because the failure of capitalism cannot be countenanced. After all the last thing the Capitalist class want is the gravy train going off the rails.

This is why the likes of Mogg celebrate food banks as a success, it has excused the Capitalist class from their responsibility to the nation. If the Government do not have to fulfil the obligations of the post WW2 social consensus then their is slack available for tax cuts and tax cuts benefit those with wealth the most.

There is no reason at all that in the UK there is anyone hungry or homeless, the only problem is for that to happen would mean those tax cuts that the wealthiest received would have to be reversed. Now as the Capitalist class own the media and most of the media favours the RW then no Tory government can countenance raising taxes to reintroduce the post WW2 social consensus because they would lose the support of the media and as the only true reason the Tories actually exist is to wield power on behalf of the capitalist class then its not going to happen and if Labour stood on a platform to reintroduce the post WW2 social consensus they would be immediately dismissed as Marxists.

As long as people see terms like Socialist and Marxist as a pejorative then foodbanks will continue, not only will they continue they will became a routine part of everyday life for many millions of people because if the Capitalist class /ruling Tories ever decide to do anything about t then they are admitting that capitalism is flawed and as they worship at at the altar of capitalism that is not going to happen to either.

Just look at this thread and there is no real anger that foodbanks exist, there is a meek acceptance that they are there, that is how successful the Capitalist class has been at normalising them. It is exactly the same with homelessness and fuel poverty, it is always the fault of those who are demonised but never the fault of the demoniser's.

It fucking appals ne that our country is like this, it is one of, if the not the most unequal country on the planet but say anything against it and you are branded a Leftist/ Marxist/Socialist, usually by idiots who have zero clue what it actually means and just act as useful idiotic stooges for the capitalist class who carry on with their systematic rape and pillaging of the nations wealth.

The latest weapon the capitalist class are using to hide the failures of capitalism is the culture war nonsense. They know if they can sow division amongst the working class then they can control the working class and make it much easier to hide the failures of capitalism. All this woke, SJW, do-gooder rubbish is all a concerted effort to control the narrative and hide the failures.

Will the people of the UK ever get angry , no probably not, they will just go on as Pannick says because our forefathers made do with nothing. The country just regresses backwards and the working classes lose loads of things they fought over for generations, that they died for protecting, they would probably still die for tomorrow to protect, but all anyone is really doing is protecting those with wealth and making sure those with wealth get more wealth.

 

[Chris in London]

No government has looked after all of these people. The generations gone by just went without and got on with it best they could.

As a nation, we have not left those who cannot provide for themselves to be looked after by charity since the Victorian days.

Now, that exactly what we are doing.

Are you saying you’re alright with that?

 

[Chris in London]

You’re very quick to judge people

As a generality, that’s not true.

However, for people who think the government shouldn’t feed the most needy in our society because a charity will do it, I make an exception.

 

[Chris in London]

That is a good post again.

The Tories however probably since Thatcher have thought that the free market will provide for everything, it is flawed thinking, because capitalism is flawed.

There s no profit in feeding the poor, we saw that just recently with the school meals fiasco. Once the free market gets its hands on providing services that are essential, they fail, because there is no profit in them without doing what that food supply company did with school meals.

The government then are hamstrung, they are free marketeers, but the free market doesn't provide what was promised in the post WW2 social consensus. So that consensus has to be discredited. The RW pro-capitalist think tanks and Tufton streets propaganda machines have turned out all these myths that abound today around 50 mile wide TVs, lazy fuckers, dole scroungers etc etc because it then covers the failure of capitalism to provide what is needed and provides an excuse. It demonises large swathes of the population because the failure of capitalism cannot be countenanced. After all the last thing the Capitalist class want is the gravy train going off the rails.

This is why the likes of Mogg celebrate food banks as a success, it has excused the Capitalist class from their responsibility to the nation. If the Government do not have to fulfil the obligations of the post WW2 social consensus then their is slack available for tax cuts and tax cuts benefit those with wealth the most.

There is no reason at all that in the UK there is anyone hungry or homeless, the only problem is for that to happen would mean those tax cuts that the wealthiest received would have to be reversed. Now as the Capitalist class own the media and most of the media favours the RW then no Tory government can countenance raising taxes to reintroduce the post WW2 social consensus because they would lose the support of the media and as the only true reason the Tories actually exist is to wield power on behalf of the capitalist class then its not going to happen and if Labour stood on a platform to reintroduce the post WW2 social consensus they would be immediately dismissed as Marxists.

As long as people see terms like Socialist and Marxist as a pejorative then foodbanks will continue, not only will they continue they will became a routine part of everyday life for many millions of people because if the Capitalist class /ruling Tories ever decide to do anything about t then they are admitting that capitalism is flawed and as they worship at at the altar of capitalism that is not going to happen to either.

Just look at this thread and there is no real anger that foodbanks exist, there is a meek acceptance that they are there, that is how successful the Capitalist class has been at normalising them. It is exactly the same with homelessness and fuel poverty, it is always the fault of those who are demonised but never the fault of the demoniser's.

It fucking appals ne that our country is like this, it is one of, if the not the most unequal country on the planet but say anything against it and you are branded a Leftist/ Marxist/Socialist, usually by idiots who have zero clue what it actually means and just act as useful idiotic stooges for the capitalist class who carry on with their systematic rape and pillaging of the nations wealth.

The latest weapon the capitalist class are using to hide the failures of capitalism is the culture war nonsense. They know if they can sow division amongst the working class then they can control the working class and make it much easier to hide the failures of capitalism. All this woke, SJW, do-gooder rubbish is all a concerted effort to control the narrative and hide the failures.

Will the people of the UK ever get angry , no probably not, they will just go on as Pannick says because our forefathers made do with nothing. The country just regresses backwards and the working classes lose loads of things they fought over for generations, that they died for protecting, they would probably still die for tomorrow to protect, but all anyone is really doing is protecting those with wealth and making sure those with wealth get more wealth.

If I were to ask you what in your view was wrong with Thatcher’s government, you’d still be writing your post in reply at Christmas. Yet for all the divisive things that administration did, they never ever failed to provide for the most needy. They shaved what they provided to the bone and beyond, but that fundamental obligation that the government will not let its people starve, was one they always kept. Just as every other Tory and Labour government since the war has done.

But what this current bunch of cunts has done is abandon that basic responsibility.
So Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Harold MacMillan, Alec Douglas Home, John Major, Clem Attlee, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown all ensured that the nation never deserted its people.

David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson all have done.

And yet there are those on here who cannot bring themselves to condemn them for it.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

As a nation, we have not left those who cannot provide for themselves to be looked after by charity since the Victorian days.

Now, that exactly what we are doing.

Are you saying you’re alright with that?

no, the difference is they weren't looked after at all before then.