Warm Banks

[Bodicoteblue]

In some, not all Tory minds food banks and warm banks are a positive, they are not statist and everyone knows statism leads to Socialism. In those Tory minds that see them as positive they hark back to the days of altruism and benevolence. They allow those on the right to look charitable which for those on the Christian right affirms their faith and makes them look good in the eyes of God. They can assuage their guilt by donating a few tins of Lidl beans to a food bank and they truly believe they are helping the poor and keeping them away from the dread hand of the "nanny state"

Warm banks operate under a similar principle.

I personally think that the need for both in the 6th richest country on the planet is abhorrent. People are scared to put the heating on, I have health problems and I need to keep warm, but rarely put my heating on, I went shopping yesterday and found myself buying the cheapest brands, rummaging through the going out of date section yet still managed to spend £70 on my weekly shop that used to be about £50.

When you a Cabinet stacked with Millionaires and the richest PM to ever take office, how can they possibly understand what it is like to count pennies for a bottle of milk, they never have to decide whether to eat of heat. To them we are the undeserving poor and they would rather deflect the current crisis by blaming immigrants on dinghies, Unions and anybody else apart from themselves.

Yep, thank god for the poor as they give a lot of tories the chance to exercise their Christian virtues.
It was truly inspiring to hear how Reet-Smug finds food banks ‘uplifting’ - I presume he means spiritually uplifting, so the poor and hungry are a source of satisfaction and well-being for the bastard. Nice.
In the meantime the government have helped no end by keeping thousands of sick and injured people warm in queues of ambulances outside A&E depts. -well, that’s after leaving them on a pavement or kitchen floor for 12 hours.
I hope they are suitably grateful as we all should be.

 

[metalblue]

So the EPG that’s going to cost the government (aka us taxpayers) £20bn-£40+bn majority of the domestic support being targeted to the most in need is really them nasty tories just being tories? More austerity? Any the other cliché’s anyone wants to throw in here?

At least be honest about it if you want a serious discussion.

 

[Vic]

I'm personally fed up with hearing people's job status when there's a report on people going to food banks or having to eat cat food.

This country has turned into what our rich media moguls wanted.

Eat the cat.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

So the EPG that’s going to cost the government (aka us taxpayers) £20bn-£40+bn majority of the domestic support being targeted to the most in need is really them nasty tories just being tories? More austerity? Any the other cliché’s anyone wants to throw in here?

At least be honest about it if you want a serious discussion.

Are you honest with yourself?

 

[Vic]

Have I got this right? Foodbanks are just a chance for Christians to show Christian virtues, so it would be better to let people go hungry? Good job we never had all those religious foundation hospitals and schools before the state cottoned on.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Have I got this right? Foodbanks are just a chance for Christians to show Christian virtues, so it would be better to let people go hungry? Good job we never had all those religious foundation hospitals and schools before the state cottoned on.

The Tory view is that the State has no obligation to subsidise those whose poor life choices have led them into poverty. If the poor refuse to pull themselves up by their own boot straps, then charities and the kindness of strangers is their last resort.

Hence the lauding of Christian virtues.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

Have I got this right? Foodbanks are just a chance for Christians to show Christian virtues, so it would be better to let people go hungry? Good job we never had all those religious foundation hospitals and schools before the state cottoned on.

Bit of a strawman that. They fulfil a function and cater for a need but they aren't the real solution to the problem are they?

 

[metalblue]

Are you honest with yourself?

I believe so but none so blind and all that.

Are the government allocating as much money as they can at this? Yes, we saw what happened when they tried to write blank cheques (another Tory PM with an ingrained hatred for the poor/old/etc eh?). Could the government allocate this money better? Probably but it would risk slowing down getting funds to those who need it most. So let’s assume the government are doing largely “all they can” here.

More widely we have seen a marginal drop off in living standards over the last decade. The causes for this are plenty; working tax credits for one are allowing companies to increase profits but not pay, leaving the government to redistribute money to those workers - add on the significant raises in tax thresholds for the lowest paid resulting in actual take home pay increasing albeit not keeping pace with inflation - again we have company profits being underwritten by tax payers. Is this policy beneficial for government? Possibly in the shorter term if they can prove revenue from corporation tax is greater than the cost of those measures however at some point as real take home pay doesn’t increase (and in fact marginally decreases for most) then this policy runs out of momentum. Had these policies not been followed, and wages grown, the economic shocks we are now experiencing would have quite possibly been softer - it’s almost certain the government would have more weapons to use now if they weren’t already picking up a significant portion of the living wage from businesses. As a side note the use of foodbanks would have undoubtedly been curtailed to a degree as well but it’s hard to understand to what degree given there isn’t a single cause that leaves people needing them.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

I believe so but none so blind and all that.

Are the government allocating as much money as they can at this? Yes, we saw what happened when they tried to write blank cheques (another Tory PM with an ingrained hatred for the poor/old/etc eh?). Could the government allocate this money better? Probably but it would risk slowing down getting funds to those who need it most. So let’s assume the government are doing largely “all they can” here.

More widely we have seen a marginal drop off in living standards over the last decade. The causes for this are plenty; working tax credits for one are allowing companies to increase profits but not pay, leaving the government to redistribute money to those workers - add on the significant raises in tax thresholds for the lowest paid resulting in actual take home pay increasing albeit not keeping pace with inflation - again we have company profits being underwritten by tax payers. Is this policy beneficial for government? Possibly in the shorter term if they can prove revenue from corporation tax is greater than the cost of those measures however at some point as real take home pay doesn’t increase (and in fact marginally decreases for most) then this policy runs out of momentum. Had these policies not been followed, and wages grown, the economic shocks we are now experiencing would have quite possibly been softer - it’s almost certain the government would have more weapons to use now if they weren’t already picking up a significant portion of the living wage from businesses. As a side note the use of foodbanks would have undoubtedly been curtailed to a degree as well but it’s hard to understand to what degree given there isn’t a single cause that leaves people needing them.

So you will vote against the Tories and their plan to impose austerity mk 2?

 

[metalblue]

So you will vote against the Tories and their plan to impose austerity mk 2?

It depends what that means in practice. Do we need to reduce the national structural debt? Yes. Do we need to do it through spending less? Not exclusively and I think it will be hard to spend less, we will spend it differently though and I fully expect my taxes to go up. Some hard compromises are going to need to be made, such as reducing our overseas aid budget to increase defence spending for example - these things are never easy to reconcile but we are going to need to at least in the short term.

If the Tories said we were going to up defence spending and not increase taxes but pay less in benefits to fund it (even if they implied it by their policies as no one is going to come out and say that) then I’d vote against it.