Food Banks

[dave50]

Apparently even more people are using them now. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2605661/Almost-ONE-million-Britons-seek-food-bank-help-following-162-percent-jump-number-people-seeking-emergency-food-help.html
When something is free, demand will always outstrip supply. Are we saying that if these food banks disappeared, these people would starve to death?

[ummmm]

Jeza...you may not have got child benefit in it's current form but the main breadwinner would have had the benefit through his/her tax code.

All the did was change the system from the tax code and gave the money to the main carer instead.

[Jeza]

If that is correct umm then why did my Mum collect family allowance in book form from the post office every week in the 60's

[Jeza]

Just googled umm. child family allowance was paid for the first child in 1977.

[ummmm]

So how did your mum collect it in book form?

[anneasquith]

once again.................not everyone who receives benefits are scroungers and lazy good for nothing. I know of people who would qualify for assistance from food banks , but are too ashamed to use them in case anyone would see them , no one knows what the future holds, ?

[ummmm]

Exactly, Anne.

And if life goes tits up after you've had children, children you could well afford at the time, you're viewed a feckless.

Some peoples attitudes are quite shocking.

[Jeza]

Because she had 3 children umm.

[Mojo-Jo-Jo]

I get so cross with you people sometimes. It's easy to be judgemental when life is nice isn't it?
I was made redundant in the same month I found out that I was seriously ill. I lost everything. Why?
Because the system I had been paying into religiously for over 20 years did not fork out a penny for 7 months.
I had no other form of income. I could have literally starved to death for all anyone cared and during this I was being treated in hospital for a life threatening illness.
My saviour was an online friend who to this day I have never met and never been able to pay back, much to my shame.
They wired me actual money. I would have given up without their help, I am certain of that, so before you castigate the claimants, have a god look at the system and count your lucky bloody stars that it wasn't you!

[Mamyalynne]

True friends and Family (if you have them) are a godsend when times are like that Mojo agreed - feel no shame. That person helped you because they cared and thank goodness someone did. x

[Svejk]

mojo, I normally agree with your common-sense posts.
but its you who is being judgemental and making assumptions about other people's lives. You don't have to be leading a 'nice life' to be fed up of people abusing the benefit system and making life harder for genuine claimants.

[New Judge]

It’s no use you getting cross with “us people” who have the temerity to decline to accept that people would have died on the streets but for food banks, Mojo-Jo-Jo. Did you get no redundancy payment? Statutory redundancy pay is one week's pay for every year worked. Did you have no savings to tide you over, having worked for twenty years?

Anyway, all by the by. I’ll knock your case off my 660,000 that are now using food banks who were not doing so a year or so ago. Any ideas about the rapid decline in fortunes of the other 659,999 who have taken up free food recently (other than the fact that it was not available previously but is now)? They cannot all have been made redundant with no severance pay, surely.

I think I’m all done with these two questions now as no reasonable explanation for this conundrum seems forthcoming.

[TWR]

What a disgrace, that this dump has come to this, we can send millions abroad but can not feed our people, did someone call this Great Britain? For who? thanks to the EU Ruling we will be getting the sht of the world! why, FREEBIES MABEY.

[New Judge]

Britain acquired the name "Great Britain" in the 1100's, TWR. It was formerly known simply as "Britain" but acquired its prefix to distinguish it from "Lesser Britain" which is the part of France we know as Brittany.

It has nothing to do with how great it once was.

[slaney]

DEFRA did a study last year into the rise of emergency food aid in the UK - but the government has delayed publication...
http://www.theguardian.com/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2013/nov/12/food-banks-government-suppressed-defra-report-on-food-aid

People may not be starving, but there is certainly a rise in malnutrition. In a letter to the BMJ last December David C Taylor-Robinson, (MRC Population Health Scientist) and others said...
"The number of malnutrition related admissions to hospital in England have doubled since 2008/9 .
Furthermore the Institute for Fiscal Studies has reported a decrease in calories purchased and substitution to unhealthier foods, especially in families with young children. Against a backdrop of rising food prices figures from the Trussell Trust show an exponential rise in the number of people being issued food bank vouchers by frontline care professionals.

This has all the signs of public health emergency that is in danger of going unrecognized, until it is too late to take preventative action. Whilst the government has delayed the publication of research it commissioned into the rise in emergency food aid in the UK we can only speculate that the cause is related to the rising cost of living and increasingly austere welfare reforms"

The rise in cases of malnutrition provides some objective evidence that there is food poverty.

[Svejk]

^I got as far as 'my guess' and 'I suspect' in that 'report'.
is that the best you can find?

[slaney]

Svejk -it's not a 'report' - just a Guardian piece about the delay in publication of the report.
You don't need to read the Guardian link, just the quote from the BMJ letter below where it says the cases of malnutrition have doubled since 2009 - that's the important bit.

[slaney]

*cases of malnutrition related admissions*

[ummmm]

There has been a huge hike in food costs, especially meat and fish.

[Arksided]

are they a comedy duo... if not they should be.

[redvanman]

No people would not starve to death they would have to get a job