Foodbanks – ‘Public health emergency’ – Archbishop Speaks Out

By John Ball

‘Public health emergency’ declared as one in six GPs was asked to refer a patient to food banks in the last year

Rising food poverty in the UK – driven by a combination of rising prices, stagnant wages, and reforms to welfare – has been described as an emerging “public health emergency” by academics and evidence from GP surgeries is matched by hospital diagnoses of malnutrition, which have nearly doubled in the past five years.

In a survey of 522 GPs, the magazine Pulse found that 16 per cent had been asked to refer a patient to food bank in the past 12 months. Many GP practices now hold vouchers for their local food bank while others are linked with local social support services to whom they refer patients who say they cannot afford to eat.

Dr Simon Abrams, a GP in Everton, said that his practice had supplied letters for patients to take to food banks in the most urgent cases. He said benefit delays, often stemming from difficulties in satisfying fit-for-work assessment, were making life “extremely difficult for people” in the area, and that colleagues from other practices had reported a similar growth in patients struggling to pay for food.  http://www.independent.co.uk

The above and more is confirmed by a report commisioned by a number of UK churches.

Truth and lies about poverty, benefits and welfare

A new churches’ report (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/files/truth_and_lies_report_final.pdf), published by by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church through their Joint Public Issues Team, shows how evidence and statistics have been misused, misrepresented and manipulated to create untruths that stigmatise poor people, welfare recipients and those in receipt of benefits.

The lies we tell ourselves: ending comfortable myths about poverty begins with a case study, ‘Troubled Families and Troubled Statistics’, showing how facts and evidence were bent to meet the needs of policymakers. The reputations of society’s most disadvantaged families became collateral damage in the rush to defend a new policy. “Perhaps we are not surprised by this but we should be appalled,” the report says.

The selective untruths exposed in the report are:
1. ‘They’ are lazy and don’t want to work.
2. ‘They’ are addicted to drink and drugs.
3. ‘They’ are not really poor – they just don’t manage their money properly.
4. ‘They’ are on the fiddle.
5. ‘They’ have an easy life.
6. ‘They’ caused the deficit.     http://www.ekklesia.co.uk

Recently the Catholic church has also spoken out.

The leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has labelled the government’s social reform a “disgrace” for leaving people in “destitution”.

Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said the “safety net” for the poorest families had been “torn apart”.

The government responded by saying welfare reforms will “transform the lives” of the poorest families.

The Conservative Christian Fellowship said the archbishop should explain where extra money would come from. BBC

2 Corinthians 11:13-15 – For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

Whilst the soon to be Cardinal is to be commended for his comments the allegedly Christian Conservative Fellowship appears to be blind to  Christian Values ,the teachings of the Holy Bible and the troughing of MP’s.

Acts 20:35 – I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Deuteronomy 15:11 – For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

According to DWP Employment Minister Eshter Mcvey

‘We always make the rules very clear – it’s only right that there is a penalty if people fail to play by them.’

Of course hipocrisy is nothing new to the political actors of Westmister many of whom espouse the virtues of “ending the culture of entitlement”.  Except their own.  “where extra money would come from.” ?

Here we see the very politically correct former DWP minister for the disabled Maria Miller claiming £90,000 grand for a mortage on a second home where her parents live.  Free accomodation provided paid for by state benefits.

Miller a former PR exec is also up to her neck in the Leveson affair being one of the Privy Council gang of four  Clegg,  Hunt, Miller, McNally acting contrary to the 1689 Bill of Rights which guaranteed freedom of speech, a free press, and that no excessive bail or “cruel and unusual” punishments shall be incurred.

In 2009, Tony McNulty, the Labour Home Office minister, was severely reprimanded for letting his parents live in his taxpayer funded second home. He resigned shortly after it emerged that he had let his parents live in his taxpayer-funded home.

In Mr McNulty’s case, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards ruled that second homes must be “exclusively” for the use of MPs in fulfilling their parliamentary duties and that housing a politician’s parents was “specifically prohibited” by the rules.     Telegraph

Notably pennypinching PM Cameron claimed for a “bulldog clip”  and Eshter McVey a former TV presenter now DWP Employment minister has also been criticised for her expenses claims.  It was she who said.

We are ending the something-for-nothing culture

‘We always make the rules very clear – it’s only right that there is a penalty if people fail to play by them.’

EXPENSE CLAIMS – dwp-esther-mcvey-mp-see-how-her-income-is-supported/