All over Twitter is today’s Sunday Mail “story” about a reporter visiting a Trussell Trust Food Bank & conning them into giving him a parcel “WITHOUT ID”. The thrust of the article was supposed to show that of the 913,000 food parcels given out by the Trust last year, some of them may have gone to people “abusing the system”. Worse still, they might go to people who AREN’T EVEN unemployed… Thousands of employed people are experiencing food-poverty. 93% of new Housing Benefit claimants are IN WORK. The right-wing media and government are desperate to cover up the truth of what is happening in Britain, pushing their ‘immigrants & scroungers’ agenda at every turn.
The Trussell Trust will allow just 9, yes 9 parcels per YEAR. Which will feed a family for just 27 days. These are not people “taking advantage” but desperate, extremely poor people who are doing what they can to feed their children and themselves. What the article didn’t point out is that the Trussell Trust are only responsible for up to one THIRD of all Food Bank parcels given out every year. The true figures of how many Britains receive the parcels are not available as the government (not surprisingly) no longer wish to collect data on this.
Desperate people do desperate things. Being poor is not a crime, nor should it be treated as such by the likes of Ross Slater and his colleagues at the Mail. For there by the grace of God go I.
Ross Slater, posing with his food parcel.
Extract from the Thrussell Trust Mission Statement
“Whilst we are a Christian organisation, we serve people of all faith groups and beliefs or none. We are passionate about inclusion and being non-judgemental is central to what we do. We believe that everyone has the right to have food on their plate, dignity, skills, a chance to work and hope for the future”
I have today launched a petition, calling for the 5 reporters to sign up as volunteers for the Thrussell Trust in order to open their eyes as to the real situation Britain is in. Please sign and tweet this petition:
You can volunteer for the Thrussell Trust here: http://www.trusselltrust.org/volunteer
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