Cameron’s office calls police to stop bishops’ letter on hunger

This video from Britain says about itself:

Jan 11, 2013: UK’s poorest citizens seek hand-outs from food banks

For this struggling mother, it’s a hand-to-mouth existence, with the pressure of two hungry mouths to feed. Gemma receives her small shop-assistant wage and her state benefits every Tuesday.

SOUNDBITE: Gemma Hindmarsh, single mother (speaking English):

“Sometimes I will wake up on a Sunday and I will literally have five pound in my purse. And I will think right, what can I do with five pound?”

Not much when you’re living on the breadline. One in five mothers in Britain, just like Gemma, regularly skip meals just to feed their children.

SOUNDBITE: Gemma Hindmarsh, single mother (speaking English):

“You want to make nutritional meals for the kids, you hear it all the time on the TV, how they should be eating their five-a-day, fresh meat. But sometimes, you just literally can’t do it. And you have to buy them the 77p basic cottage pie, because that’s literally all you can afford.”

For this single mother, managing a tiny budget is turning into a puzzle that’s harder and harder to solve.

SOUNDBITE: Tim Nicholls, Child Poverty Action Group member (speaking English):

“We are seeing a lot more families telling us that they have to make this difficult choice between things like eating and heating, putting food on the table or paying the bills. A part of this is driven by problems in benefit administration, sanctions being applied often inappropriately, that leave people having to go to food banks.”

PTC:

Food banks such as this one, run by the Trussel Trust. The charity started working with abandoned children in Bulgaria, but they switched over to the UK when they discovered what they call “hidden hunger in Britain”. Three food banks open every week in the UK now, and in unexpected areas like Kensington and Chelsea, warehouses like these distribute store-cupboard staples and tinned food to families that are in need of emergency provisions. In fact, over 200,000 people had to turn to food banks last year in order to get fed. That’s double the amount on the year before. So if this sad dynamic persists, food banks like this are going to have to get a whole lot bigger in order to feed Britain’s struggling families.

Charities say that some parents are so desperate to feed their children that they consider stealing. It’s become such a reality that police have been known to take hungry shoplifters to food banks instead of arresting them.

SOUNDBITE: Molly Hodson, PR manager, Trussell Trust (speaking English):

“A lot of people that come to food banks have stories which are really heartbreaking, and we’ve had people come to food banks who have been forced to choose between eating and feeding their children, and that’s something we see very regularly.”

Just like Gemma’s, over half of Britain’s impoverished children have parents that are in work. And the issue of putting food on the table eats up their lives.

SOUNDBITE: Gemma Hindmarsh, struggling mother (speaking English):

“I come to a Monday, literally sitting there on Monday evening, waiting to check the balance, waiting to check the money is still there. It kind of controls you a little bit, it kind of takes over your life, because when you’re going week to week to week you’re thinking ‘right, I’m going to get this money on Tuesday, and I’ll do a list. Right, this has got to be paid out, right, that leaves me this much for shopping’. It takes over your thinking for most of the week.

And with the cost of basic necessities including food rising all the time, Gemma lives on a diet of daily struggle and worry about the future.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

PM’s office ‘phoned police on bishop’

Wednesday 23rd April 2014

DAVID CAMERON was left red faced following reports yesterday that his constituency office called the police on a bishop and priest attempting to present him with an open letter on food poverty.

Bishop of Oxford John Pritchard and Reverend Keith Hebden approached the Prime Minister’s Witney office last Wednesday to deliver the letter signed by 42 Anglican bishops and more than 600 clerics on behalf of the End Hunger Fast campaign.

But even though the office had been expecting their visit the pair were prevented from entering and forced to hand over the letter to police, Mr Hebden told the Independent.

The incident occurred on the same day foodbank charity Trussell Trust revealed that almost one million people in Britain were given emergency supplies in the last year.

A Witney constituency office spokewoman told the Star that Mr Cameron had not personally called the police and that they had not received advance notice about the handing in of the petition.

“We cannot comment on security arrangements around PM’s constituency office,” she added.

MILLIONAIRES wined and dined by PM David Cameron account for half the cash donated to the Tories this year, Labour revealed yesterday: here.

FOODBANKS have become the target of vicious attacks, it emerged yesterday after a West Sussex charity worker discovered razor blades inside donations: here.

The Coalition’s British values: Invading sovereign Muslim nations, cutting disabled benefts and bailing out banks: here.