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The UK does not have a long history of food banks for whatever reason. This chart shows the number of people using the biggest foodbank organization increased b

The UK does not have a long history of food banks for whatever reason. This chart shows the number of people using the biggest foodbank organization increased by a bit less than 100x between 2008/09 and 2021/22. From what I can tell the Trussell Trust represents something like 40-50% of the food banks in the UK. https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users...

porknubbins 4y ago
Having read Orwell’s Down and Out In London and Paris this doesn’t surprise me. The book made being poor in Paris sound kind of fun- lots of drinking and camraderie. While being poor in England was lonely and shameful, and what little charity there was was provided by churches. I don’t know why the countries are this way (maybe Anglo culture is more moralistic and judgemental) but this stuck with me.
- badpun 4y ago
  Puritanist background of Church of England surely have played a major role.
  - tibbydudeza 4y ago
    Which also carried across the seas to the US - poverty is regarded as your own doing and heaven help you if you ask for some suppport from the state but a GoFundme is acceptable.
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
In 2010 the Coalition government came to power and started harshly cutting back welfare programs. This is thought to be the cause of the massive increase in foodbank usage. For all the bad that the financial crisis did, removing the social safety net was worse.
r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
Largely because we had a functioning welfare state from the post war period until roughly 2010 when the coalition government came in, although it was getting threadbare already. This welfare system had, to some degree at least, cross party support for a variety of reasons bith moral and economic. The coalition government pursued a deliberate policy of emiseration of benefit recipients largely for electoral reasons, using the financial crisis of 2008 as an excuse, including cutting child benefit for third children and penalising people for having spare bedrooms. Combined with stagnant wage growth and increaaing rents this pushed large numbers of people into absolute, not enough to eat, poverty, including many workers. Foodbanks, which had previously been almost unknown and largely used by people with no recourse to public funds sprang up in an attempt to to fill this gap. As well as the Trussel trust and other food banks that take referrals and are counted in those statistics there are countless small ones run out of chruches, mosques and community centres that don't appear in these figures as they operate on a less formal basis providing food to all comers.
- stuaxo 4y ago
  They even had branding for this rollback of the state in favour of third parties stepping in (which materialized as food banks) - "the big society". Of course, implying a smaller state.
- dendrite9 4y ago
  Thanks for the explanation.

porknubbins 4y ago

Having read Orwell’s Down and Out In London and Paris this doesn’t surprise me. The book made being poor in Paris sound kind of fun- lots of drinking and camraderie. While being poor in England was lonely and shameful, and what little charity there was was provided by churches. I don’t know why the countries are this way (maybe Anglo culture is more moralistic and judgemental) but this stuck with me.

badpun 4y ago
Puritanist background of Church of England surely have played a major role.
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  Which also carried across the seas to the US - poverty is regarded as your own doing and heaven help you if you ask for some suppport from the state but a GoFundme is acceptable.

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago

In 2010 the Coalition government came to power and started harshly cutting back welfare programs. This is thought to be the cause of the massive increase in foodbank usage. For all the bad that the financial crisis did, removing the social safety net was worse.

r_hoods_ghost 4y ago

Largely because we had a functioning welfare state from the post war period until roughly 2010 when the coalition government came in, although it was getting threadbare already. This welfare system had, to some degree at least, cross party support for a variety of reasons bith moral and economic. The coalition government pursued a deliberate policy of emiseration of benefit recipients largely for electoral reasons, using the financial crisis of 2008 as an excuse, including cutting child benefit for third children and penalising people for having spare bedrooms. Combined with stagnant wage growth and increaaing rents this pushed large numbers of people into absolute, not enough to eat, poverty, including many workers. Foodbanks, which had previously been almost unknown and largely used by people with no recourse to public funds sprang up in an attempt to to fill this gap. As well as the Trussel trust and other food banks that take referrals and are counted in those statistics there are countless small ones run out of chruches, mosques and community centres that don't appear in these figures as they operate on a less formal basis providing food to all comers.

stuaxo 4y ago
They even had branding for this rollback of the state in favour of third parties stepping in (which materialized as food banks) - "the big society". Of course, implying a smaller state.
dendrite9 4y ago
Thanks for the explanation.