Skip to main content

Conservative Environment Minister says "The poor must learn to go without" as numbers using Foodbanks doubles.



Huge rise in food bank use as demand linked to 'welfare reform'




Rupert Charles Ponsonby,


   
In this the 21st Century of our civilisation, it is staggering to hear an echo of an 18th Century remark, purportedly spoken, (but never actually corroborated as a quote) by Queen Marie Antoinette, upon hearing that people were suffering as a result of bread shortages. “Let them eat cake” she is alleged to have said in response to learning that the peasants had no bread, a phrase which has been used for almost the last 250 years, to reflect an individuals obliviousness as to the condition of the people.
Now, in 2013, we have Conservative Environment Minister Lord De Mauley uttering another comment which should go into the history books. “The poor must learn to go without” says Rupert Charles Ponsonby, 7th Baron de Mauley, currently Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Rupert Charles Ponsonby was educated at Eton College, is married to the younger daughter of Lord Fanshawe of Richmond and is a hereditary peer. His financial interests in the Parliamentary Register of Interests include shareholdings in Nexus Management plc (computer services), Farmland and other property in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, including residential properties and an interest in a commercially operated lake in West Oxfordshire.
His knowledge of “the poor” can at best be described as sketchy and second hand and yet his utterances will be seized upon by some as true wisdom. He goes on to advise that the poor should “resist the temptation to spend more money on the latest electronic gadgets, clothes and food that they will not eat” in efforts to recapture the spirit of “make, do and mend”. Comments coming from an individual wallowing in privilege with a lifestyle of comfort and excess, vividly demonstrate the extent to which the government of this country is dominated by class and rich members of “the club” totally out of touch and understanding of the world outside their own limited circles of advantage.
How Rupert Charles Ponsonby, or any of his government colleagues can reconcile their collectively warped views with today’s reports of increased usage of foodbank charities, remains to be seen.



The food bank in Poplar, Tower Hamlets, is held in a Salvation Army centre and used by hundreds of people every month



At the end of May this year, I commented on the fact that by then, more than half a million people had become reliant to some extent or other, on the provision of charity food distributed though Foodbanks around the country. Today, we learn, that all around the country, not only in the north but also in the “affluent” south of England and in the west, Foodbanks are being inundated with requests for emergency meals far in excess of the already record number of people being referred to the charities in May. It seems that the school holidays have doubled the number of referrals in many areas, with families who's children ordinarily receive free school lunches among those struggling the most. The situation is exacerbated, because of rising food prices, which despite Government figures are more than 4 per cent higher than last year, and the impact of the ConDem Coalition,s welfare changes that were launched in April are now beginning to have an affect.
A spokesman from Iain Duncan Smith's DWP said that: “..... there is no evidence that welfare reforms are linked to increased use of food banks.”
However, the Trussell Trust points out that the number of people going to their food banks for this reason, due to problems with benefits has risen from 20% eight years ago, to 52% today. On the question of foodbanks, it is to our collective shame that we have allowed a situation to come about, where more and more people, perhaps topping 1million by the end of this year, are reliant on charities to feed their families, and yet Rupert Charles Ponsonby, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, says “The poor must learn to go without”.
The ConDem Coalition have little shame for, or appreciation of, the effects of their actions and policies on the lives of ordinary people. The crowning insult to add to those of Iain Duncan smith, George Osborne and the rest, are the words of Rupert Charles Ponsonby, “The poor must learn to go without”.
Shame on you Ponsonby and shame to all those who agree with you.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Northern Ireland and Brexit. The return of "The Troubles"

Northern Ireland: police attacked in another night of disturbances | Northern Ireland | The Guardian When the "Brexit" debate was still filling our newspapers and our television screens, readers may remember why I had changed my mind since voting to leave at the referendum vote. Apart from the economic arguments, which had become crystal clear after peeling away all the lies and misrepresentations trotted out by Bozo Boris and his "Get Brexit Done" conspirators, there was always the problem of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Would it be possible to have a border between the European Union and the United Kingdom where people, goods and services could pass freely between the two nations without customs restrictions, tariffs, duties and all the other formalities? Would it be possible to have one part of the United Kingdom treated differently from other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly when Scotland for example had voted overwhe

The Parliamentary Labour Party conspirators are hatching another coup.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corbyn-labour-leadership-rebel-mps-a7202641.html Labour MPs plan for Corbyn victory  and plot how to confront an emboldened leader Even for the "Independent", the number and use of unnamed anonymous "sources" in this article is quite astonishing. However, amongst all the usual speculative delusion, there is one factor which causes concern to anyone who believes in the Labour Party, its principles and in he democratic process of the Labour movement. It is abundantly clear that elements within the Parliamentary Labour Party, are even now, planning another coup in the event that Jeremy Corbyn should emerge as winner in the current ballot. The failed coup of earlier this year, has now descended into a sham leadership election, because the conspirators still fail to accept the democratic decision of the Labour party membership and cling to

New Agenda on Sunday is out Sunday, Apr. 28, 2019

https://paper.li/f-1346065353#/ Good morning everyone. Last weeks scare regarding Megan and Harry being sent to live "somewhere in Africa" seems to have been dispelled, at least for the time being. It now seems that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will take up residence in California.  Unless  they are actually  doing  some proper work in "The Golden State", I hope that they are taken off the civil list so that we do not have to fund their life choice. The nauseating Daily Mail is at it again. A headline this week, which I will not even bother to reproduce here, screams out in disgusting and repulsive bias without any acknowledgement to the factual basis of their "story". Spewing out their usual smears and embellished distortions about Hamas, the IRA, Hezbollah and the rest, the Mail condemns itself with ample justification, for the closure of a "newspaper," which again abuses 10 fold, the privilege of "freedom of t