The Trussell Trust no doubt started off with good intentions when it began its food bank operations 12 years ago but it has now become a highly politicised campaigning organisation that seems no more than a Labour Party front….not helped of course by the fact that its Chair, Chris Mould, is in fact a Labour Party member….and one who receives a very good income from the Trust….we looked at the Trussell Trust a while back…..The Foodbank Is Born…..
And as we said then…no coincidence about the Trust’s timing and who it aligns with…
Just a coincidence that it made its claims just in time for PMQ’s…Ed Miliband even quoting them in one of his questions….it says the figures were released to coincide with World Food Day.
And it can be no coincidence that the Trust today has launched its latest publicity campaign on the day that the pay figures were released…no doubt timed to ‘rain on the parade’.
No coincidence that the Socialist Daily Mirror was primed and ready with the latest ‘poverty’ propaganda about food banks….
A moving picture you will no doubt acknowledge…and no doubt the Editor of the Mirror thought so…so much so that the Mirror purloined the picture from a personal website….the girl is in fact an American girl from a well to do family…not starving, not British and not on the breadline….and crying because a worm she’d ‘adopted’, named Flower, made its escape from her.
The Mirror could have used this one….
.
The BBC, in its look at what the papers say, seems entirely uninterested in the fraud perpetuated on its readers by the Mirror’s editor [even when a Tory MP on Fogarty’s show mentioned it…no interest]:
Poverty ‘scandal’, benefits ‘outrage’
The BBC does of course publish a story about the Mail newspaper having to pay damages for publishing a photo of Paul Weller’s family……
Paul Weller children win damages from the Mail Online
The tears of a child say so much more than the facts….certainly for the Guardian who acknowledges the fraud but thinks that’s just fine…..
Perhaps it doesn’t matter if the Daily Mirror’s weeping child is a lie
The Mirror’s front page picture illustrating a food banks story in Britain is of a child in San Francisco. But all photographs have a problem with authenticity
The BBC has been blasting away all day on foodbanks and whether we are still suffering from the ‘cost of living crisis’ ….using the much trumpeted rise in foodbank use as evidence that the poor are suffering ever rising poverty as a callous tory led government fills the pockets of the bankers and its millonaire mates with gold.
Trouble is there is something missing from the picture, a very important piece of the jigsaw without which no genuine sense can be made of what is happening…and a lot of nonsense can be spouted as fact by the likes of the Trussell Trust and repeated with all the authority of the BBC as fact.
The BBC today publishes this:
Food banks see ‘shocking’ rise in number of users
A food bank charity says it has handed out 913,000 food parcels in the last year, up from 347,000 the year before.
Note this, of that 913,000 food parcels:
‘The Trussell Trust said a third were given to repeat visitors’
.….and yet on their website they hide that fact:
So in fact only 600,000 people were given support in 2013-2014.
What’s missing from that? How many foodbanks there are….and how many there were before.
If there were no foodbanks there would be no foodbank use [and no food poverty?]….the more foodbanks there are the more poeple that can use them, all encouraged by the huge publicity that surrounds them making their services far better known….the Trussell Trust being so good at marketing its services and narrative.
Here are some figures:
In 2004, Trussell only ran two food banks.
Before the financial crisis, food banks were “almost unheard of” in the UK.
In 2007–2008, there were 22 food banks in the Trussell Trust Foodbank Network
By early 2011, The Trussell Trust supported 100.
As of May 2012, they had 201.
By August 2012, 252.
The rate of increase has been rising rapidly. In 2011, about one new food bank was being opened per week. In early 2012, about two were being opened each week. By July, The Trussell Trust had reported that the rate of new openings had increased to three per week. In August, the rate of new openings spiked at four per week, with three new food banks being opened in that month for Nottingham alone.
Here the Trussell Trust shows how many parcels it doles out:
When you compare the increase in people using the foodbanks with the increase in the numbers of foodbanks you can see that in absolute terms numbers of people using foodbanks has risen….but the rate of use hasn’t….the numbers per foodbank now are similar to the numbers in 2005-2006….in other words there isn’t a rise in use per foodbank.
If there is one foodbank in London serving 1000 people in one year and then the next year another foodbank is opened in Brimingham and that serves 1000 people also…does that mean that as 2000 people a year are now being fed, instead of 1000, that poverty has increased?
A stupid claim…and yet one the BBC, our prestigious and highly funded and resourced news gatherer, is happy to promulgate.
This rough graph illustrates that relationship…the black line is the number of foodbanks, the red line the number of people using them (‘000s)
The use of foodbanks rises almost exactly in proportion to the number of foodbanks….and does not indicate a rise in food poverty and starvation in ‘breadline Britain’ as the BBC like to call it:
The growing demand for food banks in breadline Britain
Kind of puts things in perspective and makes it ever more apparent that the Trussell Trust is not at all trustworthy as it bangs the drum for its highly political anti welfare-reform campaign.
Just a shame that you won’t find these figures on the BBC and yet the increasing numbers of foodbanks is a crucial consideration when judging how they are being used and what that supposedly tells us about ‘food poverty’ and welfare reforms etc.
In this BBC story you can see the problem:
The Trussell Trust said its network of food banks across Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside, and Greater Manchester fed more than 13,500 people since April. This compares to just 22 people in same period last year.
Is the BBC really suggesting that a year earlier only 22 people were in poverty…and sudenly…due to government welfare cuts…13,500 find themselves poverty stricken?
Poverty has always been with us…just ‘hidden’…because we had few foodbanks and no one campaigning so fervently about them….which begs the question where were all these priests in those years?…
Open letter to the leaders of the three main political parties about UK hunger
Published to coincide with the end of Lent, this letter is signed by over 600 British church leaders in addition to the 57 undersigned
From the BBC’s reporting today you’d never have known that poverty could possibly have existed before 2010….you’d never know that we’d had the worst recession in living memory…in large part caused by Labour’s policies….you’d never know that government policies now are a direct result of having to deal with the financial ruin left by Labour….
The BBC is even now, as I type this up, pumping out the propaganda about a ‘national hunger crisis’:
The Archbishop of Wales has urged the UK government to tackle a national hunger crisis as figures show a big rise in numbers using foodbanks.
The Trussell Trust said it had given emergency food aid to nearly 80,000 people in Wales in the last 12 months, more than double the 2012-13 figure.
The BBC does have the grace to mention this:
A UK government spokesperson questioned whether the Trussell Trust’s figures took account of return visits and defended welfare reforms, saying a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found the proportion of UK residents finding it difficult to afford food had fallen from 9.8% in 2007 to 8.1% in 2012.
Curious then that it prefers the Trussell Trust’s figures and narrative.
What?
You want more?
Goodness me, it’s another hockey stick graph.
In our local paper they give the old food bank agenda some welly, too, but what has been interesting is the number of people using them who are single and suddenly find themselves unemployed. But they have always been vulnerable to hardship because they get such little support from the state – the same situation as under Labour. The difference is foodbank awareness – I’d never heard of them before the coalition started to cut benefits, but they were obviously there as the graph shows.
Questions not asked by the BBC:
What significant benefits cuts had been implemented by the time the number of foodbanks suddenly took off?
How much less per week in benefits is a foodbank customer receiving? Are they spending any of their money on non-essential non-food items?
How many foodbank customers are the single, recently unemployed whose benefits haven’t changed?
If we don’t cut benefits, what other area of government spending should be cut instead?
Why do Labour oppose every cut then complain that government debt is still rising?
Are you affiliated with any political party, Mr Mould?
How many of these so called staving have , Sky ,subscription , mobile phone contracts , cars , regular visits to Mcdonalds or other fast food joints , talking of “joints” money for drugs , foreign hols, & of course over weight . When some “do gooder” is giving out free food , well just join the f***ing queue, its all free , I am going to grab some tomorrow.
You cannot just roll up to a food banks and ask for some free tins of beans, you have to be referred by a professional (such as a GP) or an official agency.
How many people going to food banks will it take before some people realise the government’s economic policies are not working?
And of course Labour’s economic policies were working real well?
Another Labour Government – another economic disaster and we’ll all be down the food banks.
And how far does the GP or “other official agency” investigate what the recipient is saying or do they just take he request at face value?
Presumably, these will be the same GPs who refer people for NHS boob jobs and tummy tucks because they’re “depressed”.
Or lefty social workers or “community workers” (whatever they are…), who obviously are completely unbiased and have NO axe to grind, do they?
What spurious nonsense.
There are many official agencies or professionals that can refer someone to a food bank, this even includes police officers (yes, all police are “lefties” too obviously).
You fail to answer any of the points that are clearly NOT spurious nonsense. How many people do you know over your lifetime that have been given doctors’ notes to get off work that in fact did not really need it? I would say everyone knows at least one person; I know several…translate that to trying to clear out a crowded surgery by just giving half the whinging parasites the food bank voucher they cam in to ask for…
I do not know anyone who has been given a sick note despite not needing it.
Next.
yes you do…
No I do not.
Don’t presume to speak for me.
LOL, pomposity itself: lying online is so easy for you.
You are a know-it-all.
If you refuse to believe me then fine. I do not need to convince you, and I can’t be bothered quite frankly.
Whingeing parasites? Like this young woman?
http://londonfoodbank.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/rebeccas-story-young-londoners-lives-are-being-ruined-and-relationships-corrupted/
Englishman (not his real name) those two posts just about finished of any credibility you had
I was prepared to hear your point of view ,despite your knee jerk dismissal of any that don’t share your dogmatic view and your link to a trotskyite hate fest web site
I hope I’m always open to having my mind changed (not least over food banks of which I’m highly sceptical)
But you’ve convinced me only that you are completely divorced from the everyday reality
That web site by the way is an interesting window into the mind of a BBC apologist I recommend that readers should check it out for themselves
http://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/austerity-socioeconomic-entropy-and-being-conservative-with-the-truth/.
Funny how knee jerk dismissal of any that don’t share your dogmatic view is the MO of so many Biased BBC regulars, but it’s tolerated when it confirms the prevailing bias and bigotry of this site…
Don’t approve? Then don’t do it Scott
You could make a start by not characterising an view you don’t like as bigotry.
You could make a start by not characterising an view you don’t like as bigotry.
No, I don’t like the views of you and others because they’re bigoted. Spot the difference?
No Scott I dont
In fact your answer smacks of ,well Bigotry
big·ot·ry
[big-uh-tree] Show IPA
noun, plural big·ot·ries.
1.
stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.
The link I posted (that destroys my credibility in your eyes) was in reply to a comment describing people who rely on food banks as “whinging parasites”, and is intended to demonstrate the fact that most are most certainly NOT “parasites”, or whingers, but people who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. The use of the term “whinging parasite” displays a real ignorance of the realities behind the increased need for food banks in this country, and if you refuse to take a contrary viewpoint on board then that’s up to you.
I must say, for a website set up to protest the biases and lack of objectivity of the BBC I find it ironic so many regular commenters here are also biased and lack objectivity themselves. If you do not like the idea of needy people getting help, fine, but please don’t make sweeping generalisations about people you do not know and whose circumstances you do not share in.
Then Englishman ( not your real name) ,you should have found a more credible and objective example.
One that didn’t over egg the pudding
Then Stewart (online anonymity is fun isn’t it) if the genuine circumstances of someone dependent on food banks isn’t enough then tough.
The idea of posting that was to illustrate the fact that most people who use food banks are not “parasites” or “whingers”, but if real world testimony won’t convince then that is your problem not mine.
Englishman ( I wouldn’t know I dont seek it) When have some let me know
Well then Stewart if verbal testimony is good enough to be given as evidence in a court of law it’s good enough to be accepted in a food bank, and it’s good enough for me.
If it’s not good enough for you then tough. The world does not revolve around you, your opinions or what you may think of others.
Perhaps that’s why you post on a website called “Biased BBC”…
you think she’s a whinging parasite? Wow…
You got the wrong end of the stick. The woman in that link is NOT a parasite, and is intended to be an example of the many people who use foodbanks who are not the “whinging parasites” that some people believe them to be.
The present government have accumulated more debt in the last four years than the previous one did in thirteen years.
Until the global economic crash of 2008 there was consistent growth, and then, again in 2010 in the run-up to the election.
Then a certain Mr Osborne became chancellor, and we had more negative growth…
Actually that’s not true: the 2010 debt is all down to Brown so we haven’t crossed that ‘the present government have accumulated more debt’ hype yet; we will but it certainly won’t be Osborne’s fault.
You seem to have a woeful understanding of how economies work: you do know that much of that ‘consistent growth’ was on the never-never’ don’t you? And again in 2010 in the run-up to the election…you do know what Brown did – and why -don’t you?
“Then a certain Mr Osborne became chancellor, and we had more negative growth…”
That’s another lie peddled by the Left. UK GDP HAS grown since 2010. Check it out before you mouth off.
You might also question why debt DOUBLED 2002-09 IN A SO-CALLED BOOM, which as Span Ows points out, was mostly illusory.
Mad Brown’s tax take doubled too, but he p’d it up the wall on ‘welfare’ (not on schools/hospitals – he financed those by exorbitantly costly off-BS PFI) whilst importing low-cost labour which had its low wages topped up by welfare payments whilst simultaneously keeping British unemployed on welfare. If you want a lesson on how to ruin an economy you need look no further than Brown’s model.
You can’t really believe that the change of government in 2010 could really have halted the runaway train which Brown deliberately set in motion.
Labour in power country ends up in economic crisis. This is as much to do with their catastrophic and inept spending plans and borrowing as any “world crisis”, but the exculpatory myth that is was all due to world conditions of banks is all the left have to cling to the hide their incompetence. Your so called 13 years of growth was a house built on sand.
When the Coalition came in they had a major rescue to carry out. Their policies are working. And the left hate it.
Sorry matey your bunch cocked it up.
Remember – “Sorry there’s no money left”.
Instead of just feeding the food bank lie why not give us some real check able facts about who is alleged to use them and why ! then we can see what further help they may need or not [more likely ] instead of baseless waffle straight from the Churches [funny I thought the BBC /left complained they were all pedos and delusional fools ??] franchises PR department !
Click to access household-food-security-uk-140219.pdf
Interesting report, thanks.
Yes I can just see the BBC News headline:- ” GP refuses to refer starving child to Foodbank”.
They are not going to risk it.
If anything increased food bank usage suggests that the Government’s economic plans are working. Of course we have to base that on figures that like the Mirror’s choice of photograph are designed to misled for political reasons.
So, following the logic of the Trussell accusation:
No food banks before 2002, therefore poverty started under Labour. Labour are, therefore, clearly the cause of poverty.
Maybe they had to use that photo because they couldn’t find any hungry, unhappy children in the UK? And note the use of a blonde, blue-eyed child – do they think people would be less sympathetic if it was of an unshaven man of swarthy complexion? Classic liberal racism.
And of course, the Mirror does have form for using faked photos: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sorry-we-were-hoaxed-539838
Just so you know its not just you ,me and 88 (below) that remember . From comment on guardian article
http://www.theguardian.com/media/photography-blog/2014/apr/17/mirror-weeping-child-picture-lie-lazy-journalism
‘Eisenhorn
17 April 2014 9:21am
Recommend
21
“the Mirror has a fine tradition of commissioning and publishing strong news pictures
Of course it does. I remember one particularly striking set of photos taken in the back of some army lorries.”
The BBC however seem to have a case of amnesia with regard to the Mirrors history of deception
But given that they themselves aren’t adverse to using faked pictures to construct a story it hardly surprising.
Not to mention their Editor doing a runner with the Pension Fund…….
Oh, and the crook Gordon Brown doing a runner with everybodys pension funds, ****.
Excellent stuff, the Trussel Trust.
The Big Society in action
Open a lot more
Lets get the national debt down.
The claims of all charities should be treated with great suspicion as they are out to maximise donations. Many charities have also become politicised and, as such, the BBC ought to treat their claims with even greater scepticism. But of course the BBC gives the claims of those charities it regards as fellow travelers, the status of Moses’s tablets of stone, even though they probably know them to be gross exaggerations or even outright lies. But if it suits the liberal left agenda, then anything goes at the Ministry of Truth.
Yesterday I was reading the vox pop comments on BBC news about the economic news and predictably they were heavily biased towards those who thought the good news was a pack of lies and that things were awful for ordinary folks. So I thought I would even things up a little and make some exaggerated claims of my own in the opposite direction. But although my offering initially appeared it was rapidly censored ( moderated) by the BBC. I would recommend that anyone who thinks the BBC to be an organ of the leftist establishment, should, whenever there is a chance, post comment contradictory to the BBC line . Feel free to exaggerate as much as you like. After all they do don’t just exaggerate, they lie on an industrial scale. Of course your views will probably be censored, but a few may slip through. It will also make you feel a tiny bit better, just like dear old Winston Smith did when he started his diary in defiance of the Ministry of Truth. Of course, unlike the Ministry of Truth, the BBC can’t punish you for expressing contrary opinions, at least not yet. Oh, I was forgetting you can’t say what you think about immigration can you! Some may regard that as the thin end of a very sinister wedge.
Very true, if you want to raise an off message comment on a BBC radio phone in program you have to pretend to the researcher who answers the phone that you are going to make a different point then change it on air. They do not like this and you will find any further calls from the phone number you used to ring the ‘phone in’ number provided will just ring out and then go dead.
I wonder how many people have been refused a referral by a busy “caring professional”. Have any?
Good point. Can’t imagine assessing such need (beyond abuse or malnutrition – not too evident in most examples shared) is really the responsibility or best use of a GP. If it has been dumped on them to ‘police’ that’s a whole new story needing tackling. But it seems their (sensible) solution is to sign the chitty and get the ‘patient’ out PDQ so someone who is unwell can be seen.
A kilo of sugar and two jars of jam per week, are they trying to kill the poor?
I think the BBC needs to investigate this!
The publishing of photographs of children in a newspaper is a perfect example of the wealthy being able to have the very best ‘justice’ money can buy.
The case law is ‘Murray Vs Big Picture’ and went all the way losing to the house of Lords where it finally won.
The Murray in the title is non other than JK Rowlings married name, and she took the photographer and the picture agency to court.
It would have been a major change to the law to ban the taking of photographs in a public place and impossible to police, in fact it would have effectively banned photography.
So these unelected and unappointed greedy weasels decided that although the taking of the photograph of a minor was not illegal, publishing them was.
The Mail must have known this when it published these images and that it couldn’t win the case.
We have a peculiar legal system which the rest of the civilised world eschews. Under Roman law Judges are not allowed to make law and change government policy, and each case is judged on its merits, and not by who has paid to buy the best justice.
But think of the children. No really, think.
Why does anyone want to know what JK Rowling’s kids look like? What is the purpose of such a photo? What are the possible consequences of publishing the image of someone who is a kidnap victim in the waiting?
Oh it’s just all harmless fun isn’t it? Baiting the rich because, well, why exactly? Rowling at least got rich off her own back and you could too couldn’t you?
Oh, and how would you behave differently in the same situation?
But if we hadn’t taken in over 10% of our population in the last 15 years, we would not have food shortages, NHS shortages, School Place shortages, etc, etc.
I blame these foodbanks for the obesity epidemic.
I had to laugh when Peter Allen discussed this on Five Live Drive, last night, with a ‘Professor of Journalism’.
In fairness to Allen he did in fact go for his guest who had pathetically tried to defend the Mirror…but it was his assertion that he had always trusted the Mirror that stood out.
That’s the Mirror, Peter, that published faked photos of ‘Iraqi Prisoners’ being mistreated.
That’s the Mirror, Peter, who’s Editor, Peers Morgan, managed to avoid going to prison over the City Slickers affair – his reporters took the rap (even though Morgan purchased a large quantity of shares that were being ‘tipped’ by his reporters the following day).
That’s the Mirror, Peter, that was up to its neck in phone hacking but has somehow got away with it – while news International (who turned its back on Labour and paid the price) didn’t.
That’s the Mirror, Peter, who’s Editor listened to private phone calls of Paul McCartney tearfully pleading with his wife as their marriage collapsed.
Peter Allen…you need to get out more.
And .. that’s the Mirror that was owned by the great pension robber and former Labour MP for Buckingham, Cap’n Bob Maxwell !
Yes, indeed: report that kids in Birmingham are starving to death because of the Tori Cutz and the BBC eats it up, report that their schools are being Islamised and suddenly the same folks decide that nothing less than signed affidavits from four witness, CCTV footage and DNA evidence is proof anything’s going on.
The Guardian (and hence the BBC; see latest Guido) appears to have several staff who see merit in hitching their wagon to The Mirror’s latest credibility cliff plummet.
Looking at the comments even from the CiF crowd… brave.
‘Perhaps it doesn’t matter if the Daily Mirror’s weeping child is a lie’….
Just like the forgery of US president George Bush’s service record in 2004, alleging that he shirked his duties when he was in the Texas Air National Guard in the 1960s and 1970s.
The infamous Dan Rather of CBS offered a sleazy new standard for journalists: Using phoney evidence is okay if “the major thrust” of the story might be true.
‘if’, ‘might’……..’Bye Dan, Mary Mapes + 3 other producers.
Left wing ‘journalists’, don’t you just love ’em?
Good point – plus the Bush forgery was exposed by bloggers within hours –
Rather resigned as a consequence – I can’t imagine the beeb doing either.
Reminds me of the Tories’ consistent misuse or even fabrication of statistics…
http://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/austerity-socioeconomic-entropy-and-being-conservative-with-the-truth/
Yup, evident ‘truth’ from an anonymous Leftoid inbreed – are you related perchance?
Check it, it’s all based on reputable sources.
What is a “leftoid” anyway? Is it the opposite of “retard”?
No – a synonym.
My folks, being public spirited chaps tried to set up a food bank in co-op with the local Tesco. The council fought them at every step. From using Tesco bags, premises, staffing (all volunteers), charitable status you name it, they fought it.
The state wants complete control over who gets help and when.
These misguided hand wringing lefties donating food to the food banks are doing us all a favour. That way the rest of us don’t have to finance the “poor” through our taxes.
The government must be lapping it up.
Dave Spart says ..
“The rise in food banks is to blame for Britain’s obesity epidemic because .. er.. well because healthy food is expensive … like carrots and parsnips at 50p/kilo at Lidl while a fish supper is around a fiver…. er that can’t be right?”
“If there were no foodbanks, there would be no foodbank use”.
That argument is like saying “if there were no doctors there would be no illness…”
No that is like saying there would be ‘no use of doctors’. Illness can exist with or without doctors, the use of doctors is reliant on there being doctors.
Foodbanks are actually a brilliant marketing idea (for Supermarkets). it is no secret that one very large grocer contributed up to 25% of all Labour funding, and managed to bag himself a Ministerial position in that same Government. The point is that this ‘generosity’ to the Foodbanks could be attributed to the amount of ‘waste’ generated by food retailers who have to ‘offload’ a mountain of ‘sell-by’ date foodstuffs (instead of offering it to consumers at ‘giveaway prices’ would be just as popular). It is cheaper to give it away (sell by dates) and still maintain highest prices at the checkout. I cannot help thinking that food over production and waste is largely a fault of ridiculous EU food policies and politically inspired Supermarkets. Of course there will always be a market for ‘free food’ but let us not forget the same Labour riggers want to close down Garden Allotments, increase GM foods (longer shelf life= more profit, ridicule ‘home grown’ food and make everything ‘dangerous’ by sticking ‘sell by’ dates on everything. I question foodbanks as ‘charities’ when the same retailers could sell off goods (if they were allowed to do so at the end of a day) to the needy instead of lottery food prizes sponsored by Labour in their ‘foodbanks’ which of course they would claim ‘success’, but it does nothing to curb the problem they helped create…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/We-throw-away-HALF-food-Supermarket-deals-confusing-sell-dates-mean-families-waste-480-year-groceries-eat.html
Journalistic integrity?
Not at the Daily Mail…
http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/oops-mail-on-sunday-hack-fcks-up-his-story-attacking-food-banks/
http://mikesivier.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/food-bank-blow-is-new-low-for-the-mail-on-sunday/
What’s worse? Using a stock photo of a crying child to illustrate the human misery caused by the Government’s policies, or making up a story about the increasingly frayed safety net thousands of people rely on just to score political points?
Englishman….Desperate stuff from you….first reference….
Mail reporter was not required to prove his identity at all….which was his point….and stated in article, but ignored by your critic.
And your second reference is actually blown out of the water by a Cardiff University study which said…just a couple of examples:
One case study Foodbank described problems with a distributor who ‘gave out vouchers a bit willy-nilly’.
One distributor who works at an advice centre articulated this point, describing how ‘we can’t validate what the client is saying, if somebody comes in and says I haven’t got any food then we take it at face value’
‘…‘it’s easier to give a voucher away rather than manage the person’
A number of volunteers talked about not ever wanting to have to decide who did or did not get food parcels, feeling ‘poorly equipped’to make the decision or not wanting ‘the responsibility’.
In addition to the challenge of client dependency, is one of overcoming the issue of ‘cheating’ or ‘abuse’ of the system. ……misuse is inevitable, as one interviewee articulated:‘But I think we would sit here and say actually there is, there are some people who are playing it because it’s there to be had. And for the best controls in the world you’re always going to have that.’
Pretty clear….a ‘ specious attempt to expose abuses of food banks ‘ by the Mail….or just the truth?
If you read the second article I linked to you would see those questions are addressed.
Quote: “What the report didn’t say was that the details given by reporter Ross Slater would have been fed back into the referral system. The local Job Centre Plus offices would have been informed that this person had visited the CAB seeking help, and that he would require extra advice and support to get him and his family back on their feet. From this point on, he would have been identified as a fraud and refused further service.”
Even the people running the food banks admit they are only a sticking plaster to a wider problem, one primarily caused by benefit delays, withdrawals and low wages.
Perpetuating a lie through emotional blackmail by knowing use of a faked photograph must always be worse than using subterfuge in the pursuit of truth. Mustn’t it?
Yes. Exactly, couldn’t have put it better myself.
Sarcasm doesn’t transmit well over the internet…
And giving false information when asked questions about one’s personal circumstances to acquire food aid and then claim “no questions were asked” isn’t “subterfuge”.
It is something else entirely…
No questions asked ….about his identity….which might be relevant in stopping fraud and abuse.
And ‘something else entirely’? You mean undercover, investigative journalism?
Undercover journalism against a service provided to desperate people?? These are food banks, not arms dealers or prostitution rackets.
And the journalist deliberately stated in his own article that he was asked no questions about his identity or circumstances when he clearly was. The fact that he imparted false information is no fault of the food bank, it is his, and the checks that are run after someone makes a visit to a foodbanks – as stated clearly in the second of the two articles I linked to – will identify him as a fraud and prevent him getting any more food.
This MoS story was a hatchet job to pursue a political point, nothing more. Any system is open to abuse and fraud, and all this story did was show it is as true for food banks as any other system.
Hatchet story….because you don’t like it…..or Investigative journalism exposing the Trussell Trust’s politicising of the foodbanks….and the misleading ‘facts’ being propagated in aid of that?
As for checking…no…..get real…the Trust itself admits they don’t really:
‘we can’t validate what the client is saying, if somebody comes in and says I haven’t got any food then we take it at face value’
Get your foot in the door and it’s likely you won’t be refused:
‘I think it’s enormously important that at that point people can come through the door confident that they’re going to get their food because they’ve got their voucher, so yes I think that’s hugely important. I mean imagine being turned away at that point,that would be devastating, wouldn’t it?’
And they just don’t want to make that judgement….
‘…they didn’t want to have to ‘judge whether somebody’s worthy of a food voucher’.
So I’d have to guess….just turn up and get your food parcel….no questions asked, no judgements made.
Fraud: Obtaining goods or services through deception.
Stupidity: Admitting to your deception in a national “newspaper”.
Gross Stupidity: Alan’s attempts at justifying the original fraud and linking it to BBC “bias”.
Englishman…
as for that emotive line:
‘Undercover journalism against a service provided to desperate people??’
…if people are scamming the foodbanks they are almost literally stealing the food from the mouths of the really needy and ‘desperate’……so finding abuse and stopping it is surely a good thing….or not, apparently, from your claims.
Claiming that the food banks are doing a good deed and therefore shouldn’t be challenged about their operation and motives is bizarre….does the BBC hold back when the government announces welfare reforms? No.
Indeed much of the food bank politicisation is about welfare reforms…..and the Trussell Trust is at the forefront of the campaign against them….so are they wrong to do that when welfare reform is also seen as a ‘good deed’ by the majority?
Or is this a democracy with freedom of speech in which you can raise issues without a leftwing witch hunt to silence those whose views they don’t like?
From that website you favour……
UPDATE: Already the Mail on Sunday is facing a public backlash against its ill-advised piece. A petition on the Change.org website is calling for the reporter who claimed food bank vouchers under false pretences in order to make a political point to be sacked.
Note ‘Change.org’ doesn’t represent the ‘Public’….just a highly politicised segment of the public.
Nice they want to hound a reporter out of his job though.
Note ‘Change.org’ doesn’t represent the ‘Public’….just a highly politicised segment of the public.
Enlighten me – where does Change.org claim to represent ‘the Public’?
And why is it OK for Biased BBC’s commenters to whine and whinge about anything and everything, but as soon as other people do you get on your high horse about it? Admittedly, we know Biased BBC is riven with hypocrisy (whether wilful or just ridiculously stupid), so you can take that question as rhetorical…
‘Admittedly, we know Biased BBC…
This ‘we’ being, presumably, the entire squad of Flokkers, old, new and respawned, who have been stationed on this site to let off crackers every half hour (bar Danny, who may by now have appreciated some ironies go too far) and ‘like’ each other all Easter Sunday long?
I’ll give you guys credit, where quality is a lost cause, you certainly over-compensate in quantity.
who have been stationed on this site
Nobody’s stationed me. Nor, I’m guessing, anybody else. But of course this is another long-tried Biased BBC tactic: anybody who disagrees with the prevailing lunacy on this site is in cahoots with each other, with the BBC, or is one person under multiple identities. All false, all just ways for sad men with a desperate need for superiority to tell themselves that they’re better than everyone else.
I’ll give you guys credit, where quality is a lost cause, you certainly over-compensate in quantity.
So you know the difference between quantity and quality, do you? Funny – in your usual paragraphs-long screeds of worthless inanity in which you try and pretend that you know more than everybody else, you give the absolute opposite impression.
Whilst in no way disagreeing with your sentiments can I suggest that the above post could have been shortened to:
“The usual pish from “Guest Who”. The man with more “cut and paste” repeats than UK Gold.
‘I suggest that the above post could have been shortened’
See Scott, everyone’s a critic:) Too.
Ever get the feeling you rather make folks’ point for them a bit too easily?
‘Nobody’s stationed me’
If you say so Scott.
Of course, spending the day on station need not require another’s instruction.
So I’m guessing in your case the inanity-free dedication today is as often suspected simply masochistic?
As to the rest, especially that irony-bereft long last paragraph following scores in a day… glad it got you 2 more likes in as many minutes.
Who from, who knows? Clearly not sad young women/others with a desperate need for superiority to tell themselves that they’re better than everyone else by camping on a site they profess to dislike all day sniping.
/sarcoff
(Hope that translates for the English (young?) male audience).
Bless. So it’s okay for someone you agree with to post multiple times, but if someone you don’t agree with does, you’ll feel quite free to suggest there’s something wrong with them.
You poor love. Is that really what it takes for you to feel superior?
Uh-oh, you’ve broken out the ‘Bless’ earlier than expected.
And really, I am not feeling the love.
You don’t seem to have twigged that I find teasing trolls rewarding if they react by suddenly getting on their high horse about site posting protocol on a site they are trying to disrupt, if with a few irresistible snarks thrown in as cubicle crowd pleasers that can mess with the stance.
Anyway, time to scoot… dinner calls.
I’m sure you find others to play with to wile away the lonely evening.
More cut and paste pish repeats.
Long sentences (or are they short paragraphs?) do not an intellectual make.
‘Long sentences (or are they short paragraphs?) do not an intellectual make.’
Agreed. Take another ‘like’ from me.
If only for the sentence structure.
That it had zero actual argument, or content of relevance seems to have worried you and the rest not a jot. I simply appreciate the obs… attention.
‘More cut and paste pish repeats.’
Off now to the new main thread where, talking of cut and paste pish repeats, some folk are sharing their latest cokkie cutter blow offs from CECUTT.
I know you guys like it when those get an airing.
Some time ago you told posted that you had ceased paying the Government (as opposed to the BBC) for a TV license.
Does that not suggest that your dedication today (and everyday) to commentating on matters BBC is masochistic – unless of course you are commenting on programmes you have not viewed or listened to.
As I can see fit to intervene on commentary about the site owners or other posters that fails to address matters of BBC accuracy or integrity, I am sure Scott is grateful for you weighing in on his behalf, if doubtful the content has been too helpful to either of your causes, or that of the BBC that you so religiously defend day and night.
“Some time ago you told posted that you had ceased paying the Government (as opposed to the BBC) for a TV license. “
Glad you have been paying attention, if not actually taking notes. If I ‘told posted’ this then I would have joined many others. Possibly some here too.
Not too sure what that ‘paying the Government as opposed to the BBC’ sidebar point is trying to achieve. The semantic distinction and tangible relevance is a strange route to pursue. Paying for propaganda contrary to the interests of me, my family or the country does not make much sense.
“Does that not suggest that your dedication today (and everyday) to commentating on matters BBC is masochistic – unless of course you are commenting on programmes you have not viewed or listened to.”
No, it does not. I miss watching live TV. To do so legally I would need to fund the BBC, who claims to speak for me and acts as a policy shaper within and external ambassador for this country globally, when at home and abroad I find a significant amount of its output (freely viewable on iPlayer as programmes, plus large chunks in written form online or quoted adequately elsewhere – all usually cited with links by others or myself; rare supporting source material from such as yourself. In fact I cannot recall any of you ever taking me to task on such posts, restricting yourselves to spirited off topic rants when I merely intervene with one of your distraction diatribes) inaccurate, unprofessional and lacking in objectivity or integrity. Hence my joining many who have seen fit to protest passively in the only way possible.
But as the BBC continues its downward spiral, plus can and does act like a petulant child with any criticism, often to the point of taking away the ball it’s uniquely funded to provide, I see fit to share and opine on all its activities in places configured to allow this. Rather than accept abuse, I resist it and seek change. It’s the men who do nothing who let the lesser options prevail.
The BBC is not, or should not be a private club, with compulsory membership. It is a public service.
By your logic all the betes noir of the BBC Axis narrative should be immune from criticism because the BBC and its fellow travellers do not ‘subscribe’ to them.
That you would attempt such a counter on the basis attempted is beyond laughable. But has again served my points better than I could hope to do myself.
For this, as always, thank you.
I wish you and your three fellow travellers a productive Monday.
As the sun is again out, I’m off to enjoy it.
All of the above can be distilled to: the BBC complaints system got fed up with my frequent “me me me” letters, and decided its money would not be best used responding to a crazy egotist.
Gusset Who’s monomania is at the core of his anti-BBC feelings. He wants to write email after email, and feel validated when they write back, bowing and scraping, telling him that yes, despite all appearances to the contrary, he’s right about everything.
There are of course multiple reasons why they don’t. Not least because no organisation should be held to ransom by nutters like guest who.
Your obsession but consequent inability to deal with length is noted. And the commitment to this thread again all day at such a time is impressive. Must hurt to be left out the Easter egg hunt in the Blue Peter garden.
However… Gusset Who? Stay Classy, Scott. With stuff like that and ‘crazy egotist’ and ‘nutters’ as part of your online creative CV, it’s possible that it’s not just reluctant admirers may feel you are erring on the raving hypocrite side of noble blog warriordom. Maybe even the BBC could get a bit nervous about the association.
Speaking of which, you are claiming to be well informed about what I may or may not have exchanged directly with the BBC personally on complaints, which is an interesting projection already as we were talking about commenting on this site.
But you have dragged it to a subject currently being discussed on the new open thread by others as this one drifts into obscurity between thee, me and your remoras. So I have taken an interest in the complaints process, yes, and have shared several (maybe one from me but most not), but please explain how it is that you, a non-BBC employee (one presumes, per heated denials), know I write ’email after email’? Or how the BBC feels about them. And respond. Or don’t. And why. Or can’t.
It could be you are making things up, or it might be inferred you appear to have access to information that really is not for you to be made aware of, by people within the BBC who really shouldn’t be letting you know. Or maybe someone just accidently left that ubiquitous audience log lying around open in the loo for you to have a quick scope? Which could be quite serious.
So tell me, what here have I shared that to you falls under your and, apparently, BBC friends’ definition of monomanical expectations of bowing and scraping? Or should it be blithely waved away for multiple (unspecified) reasons because no public sector organisation as unique as the BBC should be expected to account for their words or deeds if found to be inaccurate or lacking in objectivity or integrity by a citizen of the country whose name they bear?
It’s just possible you may be making claims you can’t back up. Again. Given your stated attitude to such behaviour in others, that must at the very least be conflicting.
But your whole argument is based on the idea that the increase in the number of food banks is driving demand, rather in response to it. And I seriously doubt the MoS “Exposé” is intended to protect the neediest people from being cheated out of much needed food by fraudsters.
The main government and media line (with a few exceptions) is that the increase in numbers of food banks is increasing the demand, as stated by Lord Freud thus: “food banks represent a free good, and by definition there is almost infinite demand for a free good”. However this is not the case (as Freud himself admitted earlier this year), and it this government’s policies that are driving up demand, policies such as the bedroom tax, changes to council tax benefits (meaning a drastic reduction in most areas), delays to benefit payments, and an increase in sanctions.
If you are going to say my language is “emotive” when I am merely describing the predicament thousands of people are now in then you’d better have evidence to back it up.
“Note ‘Change.org’ doesn’t represent the ‘Public’….just a highly politicised segment of the public.”
Just like “Biased BBC” only represents a segment (tiny) of the viewing public.
“Nice they want to hound a reporter out of his job though.”
Whereas this site only wants every BBC employee out of a job. Posts calling for the sacking of someone who opposes the view of those posting on this site occur daily.
The public, like the thousands who have given donations to the Trussell Trust in the wake of the MoS story.
But the denizens of “Biased BBC” no doubt believe they aren’t “real” members of the public, just a load of commies, leftoids and Guardianistas.
It’s ironic they talk about “bias” yet object so strongly when their own on-line circlejerk is broken by dissenting opinions isn’t it?
But I’m done with this site; the fatheads here will be glad to see the back of me no doubt…
“I’m done with this site”
Characteristic vanity of the Left.
Your value to this site is in making contributions about BBC bias et al. The notion that anybody (and I cannot emphasize this enough) is the slightest bit interested in whether you stay or go seems not to have occurred to you.
Your done with this site?
Thank God for that.
Don’t bother coming back – under your current “name” or any other one.