{"id":2424,"date":"2014-12-09T14:29:03","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T14:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=2424"},"modified":"2014-12-10T17:11:38","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T17:11:38","slug":"lady-porridge-stirs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=2424","title":{"rendered":"‘Lady Porridge’ stirs it up"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the latest Tory-led attack on society\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most vulnerable, life peer Baroness Anne Jenkin claimed that poor people go hungry because they \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how to cook.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nAt the launch of a cross-party report into the causes of exploding rates of food poverty in Britain, Baroness Jenkin said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have lost a lot of our cookery skills. Poor people do not know how to cook.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI had a large bowl of porridge today, which cost 4p,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bA large bowl of sugary cereals will cost you 25p.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nBaroness Jenkins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 remarks come just one day after the Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s refreshment committee, on which the peer sits, ditched a plan to cut costs to its champagne service. According to the Morning Star<\/a>, Lords have spent a jaw-dropping \u00c2\u0141265,770 on 17,000 bottles of champagne since 2010.<\/p>\n

 
\nMost shockingly of all, Baroness Jenkin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s assessment of the poor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s culinary skills came during the launch of a report, Feeding Britain<\/a>, that found a very different set of reasons why rates of food poverty in Britain have sky-rocketed in recent years.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is an absolute outrage that, yet again, Tory politicians are attempting to deflect blame for rising poverty from their own austerity cuts onto their victims,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bHad Baroness Jenkin actually bothered to read the report, produced by a committee she herself was part of, she would know that growing food poverty is rooted in minimum wage, insecure, often zero hours jobs, unemployment, obscene rents and energy costs and vicious welfare cuts.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nIndeed, the report noted that, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe poor are penalised for their poverty,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and emphasised how living costs have far outstripped wages in Britain, while delays to benefits payments and \u00e2\u20ac\u015bheavy-handed\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Job Seekers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Allowance sanctions have combined to create a toxic mix that fuels the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s poverty crisis.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn an attempt at damage control, Baroness Jenkin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s said she \u00e2\u20ac\u015bmade a mistake\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 but disgracefully held on to her main point saying it was still \u00e2\u20ac\u015bvalid\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to say that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bas a society we have lost our ability to cook.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nNever mind that for those who are struggling the most, the cost of food itself is only one in a number of anxieties in the fight for survival.<\/p>\n

 
\nExorbitant energy costs, which have increased by over 150 per cent in the past decade, means that the act of heating food alone can often be out of reach for the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s poorest.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnd in the ever-growing chasm created by sharply climbing living costs, low-wage jobs and a failing social safety net destroyed by austerity, is Food Bank Britain, a trend that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blossomed virtually overnight.<\/p>\n

 
\nAs UNITElive reported last month<\/a> and the Feeding Britain report also noted, emergency food aid provided by food banks has increased astronomically in only the past few years.<\/p>\n

 
\nTrussell Trust, which presides over Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest network of food banks, now runs a total of 420 food banks, up from only a handful a decade ago. In 2009-10, just as the Coalition government came on the scene, Trussell Trust food banks totalled only 50.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut despite the growing evidence that poverty in Britain is beyond the control of those who suffer from it, and lies firmly in the hands of the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most powerful, the Tories insist on blaming the poor.<\/p>\n

 
\nTurner warned that Baroness Jenkins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 comments should not be dismissed as a mere faux pas, citing another similar Tory attack<\/a> from then education secretary Michael Gove, who said the poor have only themselves to blame because they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how to budget properly.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bBaroness Jenkin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarks have shown just how out of touch wealthy, patronising, elitist toffs represented within the Tory Party are with the lived experiences of millions struggling to get by,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Turner said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is only the latest of the countless incidents in which the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098nasty party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 has demonstrated its utter contempt for society\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most vulnerable.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNo matter how much the Tories try to back-track, these aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just off-handed remarks\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re reflective of a deeply ingrained political philosophy,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the latest Tory-led attack on society\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most vulnerable, life peer Baroness Anne Jenkin claimed that poor people go hungry because they \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how to cook.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165   At the launch of a cross-party report into the causes of exploding rates of food poverty in Britain, Baroness Jenkin said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have lost a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[76,164,44],"wps_subtitle":"Outrage as another Tory toff slams poor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2424"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2440,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424\/revisions\/2440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}