The real enemy!

IOM Today has an article on food poverty and the problems of families who utilise the school meals system which is closed during the holiday period.

A couple of contributions to the piece from Chris Thomas and Alf Cannan MHKs caused me to raise an eyebrow especially as when I think of Chris and Alf I think more in terms of ‘self satisfied’ and ‘self-centred’ respectively.

Chris is still grappling with trying to ‘understand’ the problem. I mean there is this gem:

’Food poverty, including for children outside term time, is an issue which is acknowledged and Cabinet Office, Treasury and third sector bodies have been working to better understand its scale, impact and to hone the policy response.’

Lets hope no one dies or gets rickets while Chris in ‘honing’ his response.

Meanwhile Alf whose main raison d'etre is his own political fortunes and getting to sit in Howards seat eventually has an equally disingenuous offering Alf says:

’Government is fully aware of the cost of living challenges facing families and is continuing to develop policies that support the low paid and families on low incomes.

‘In the past two budgets we have significantly raised personal allowances, increased Child Benefit and provided more support through benefits such as Employed Person’s Allowance, income support and disability allowances.
’Notwithstanding these efforts, I and others recognise that we need to work harder to both evidence need and deliver support, particularly where it involves children.’

I immediately think this is Civil Service speak did he write it himself or did that nice Sheila Lowe his Treasury CEO write it - probably the latter.

There are a few other febrile offerings from ‘poiltcos’ but it was the utterances of the pond life commenting beneath the article that caught my eye and the lack of empathy in some of them.

Personally I regard myself as reasonably comfortable I have a occupational and old age pension. However I don’t smoke (possibly drink to much), don’t go on foreign holidays or have a iphone or Sky TV and yet some people think that folk using food banks do have access to all these ‘luxuries’.

‘LET’S GET REAL’ there are a lot of people on this Island suffering due to food and fuel poverty and it ill behoves some to try and scapegoat them by pedding myths.

The reality of this Island is that the buggers who are taking us all for a ride and having a bloody good time are ‘the mates’ of Chris and Alf down at the Chamber of Commerce. They not only have Sky, iphones, the Lexus and the 4X4 plus the foreign holiday but a fair amount of time is taken up creatively dodging taxation. Don’t even get me started on the expenses culture!

Bernard Moffatt