Community centre opens up for food bank (From Essex County Standard)

There has to something deeply wrong with a rich country like ours needing a food bank for poor people. Does it need one or is this a politically motivated stunt?

Jess Jephcott wrote:
There has to something deeply wrong with a rich country like ours needing a food bank for poor people. Does it need one or is this a politically motivated stunt?

Wake up, Jess. Why do you have to play the miserable old git? I'm sure you are not really like that.
Why not pop along to this community centre (about 50 metres from Highwoods Tesco), speak to Heather Payne, a very nice lady, and ask her to explain to you why this food bank is necessary? You might even meet one or two of the clients who will no doubt tell you why they need these handouts.
There are food banks all over the country because there is a lot of poverty about. If rich people and companies paid their fair share of taxes, benefits could be higher and there would not be so many people in need of handouts.

Jess, Saudi Arabia has fabled riches, the Arab world is full of billionaire sheikhs etc, but Palestine still suffers while the Arabs as a race rant on about oppression. There are millions of poor and starving in the Middle East.
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America has some of the world's richest too, but people starve and live wretched lives.
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Why would you expect the UK to be different? In any society there are always going to be people who fall through the safety net, and their children will also suffer which is not acceptable.
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Come on, it's still (just about) the festive season. Have some heart, some understanding of how others live, some struggling. When you equalise all people everywhere and see that they all have the same abilities, the same opportunities and no bad fortune, no bad health, you can start asking the nation to shut down food banks.
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Until then, shut up and be grateful for what you have attained. Don't be self-righteous. Maybe look in your cupboard for some canned or dried food and take it along to the food bank as a contribution (plus some cash of course if you find you are moved by the plight of those needing help). If you can't understand the adults wanting food, do at least think of the children.

So what you appear to be saying is that the benefits that are given to poor people are insufficient to live on? If that is indeed the case then I fully support the food bank idea. But if it is a case that these poor people have a home to live in, are smokers, are drinkers, have flat screen tellies, X boxes, iPads, etc, then I would have to take a different view. Having said that, my church collects for the food bank at their Harvest Thanksgiving service, to which I contributed. However, I still ask the question as to whether this is politically motivated to somehow discredit the government. After all, wouldn't anybody perceive that the need for a food bank system like this is clear evidence of a failing government and therefore something that Labour would love to promote? Perhaps I am just a cynic!

This doesn't have to be "evidence" of anything, other than the fact that some people will always slip through the net.
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I doubt that people with all the techie assets you list would be bothered to go to the food bank and get what others have donated - just choose what's there and be glad of it. You assume that all people on any kind of benefit are scroungers and live the high (tech) life on the backs of the hard working, hard saving citizen.
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So, you would be happy to see the food bank disappear as it makes the government look ineffectual and you deem it a bit of spiteful propaganda?
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The best government that could be mustered would still not make this country or any other, perfect. There will always be plenty of citizens who are in need for one reason or another.
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Glad you gave to the harvest festival. That's one tiny drop in a huge ocean of need.