Can't Cook, Won't Cook?
In his own inimitable way, Jeremy Clarkson wades into the great 'food bank' debate with an incendiary comment that food bank users "can't be arsed to cook".
Now I imagine that's true, in some cases at least, but I think that Baroness Jenkin was probably closer to the truth with her comment that many food bank users don't really know how to cook and rely instead on pre-packaged, processed foods and ready meals, instead of making, for example, a big pot of soup.
Yet for her comments Baroness Jenkin was pilloried and forced to issue a public apology when, in fact, she was making a perfectly sensible point.
Can’t cook, won’t cook, want everything on a plate: it’s Generation Idle
By Jeremy Clarkson - The Sunday Times
Last week the Tory peer Baroness Jenkin put down her game of Candy Crush, summoned a bank of plebs from beyond her duck house and said that Britain is awash with food banks these days because “poor people don’t know how to cook”.
Naturally this was seen as yet another example of government being completely out of touch with how real “hard-working families” live, and as a result she was forced to burn herself at the stake for being a witch. Which is a shame, because she had a point.
Of course, if you take the big wide world as a whole, it’s extremely foolish to say poor people don’t know how to cook, because obviously they do. If you go to the back streets of Calcutta or Tanzania, or anywhere without a benefits system, you’ll see lots of extremely poor people making the sort of food that causes you to drool. The absolute nicest thing I’ve put in my mouth was a pho — a noodle soup — made in Vietnam, on a pavement fire, by a woman with more warts in her mouth than teeth.
In Britain it’s a different story. A young couple went on the television news last week to say they were so poor they regularly went to bed hungry and, I’m sorry, but they were in a house, with a roof, and they have access to a doctor and a hospital. What’s more, their street has lighting and if one of them has a problem, they can call on a police force to help them out. Poor? They simply don’t know the meaning of the word.
If they were really hungry — and I mean properly close-to-death hungry — they’d have been wandering the lanes where they lived, picking berries and scrumping apples.
The fact is — and this is what Jenkin was trying to say — there are many people in this country who are so thick, spoilt and greasily lazy that they think Jamie Oliver is a creature from outer space and that The Great British Bake Off is science fiction. Not that they know what science is. Or fiction. Or even an oven.
They sit there on their leatherette button-backed settees in front of their gigantic benefits plasma TV, expecting David Cameron himself to come round with a bucket of KFC and party seven of Worthington E. And when he doesn’t, they say they’re hungry.
Which immediately prompts a bunch of Liberal Democrats to burst into tears and realise that other people have a greater need for the tinned salmon and Sutherland crab spread that have been languishing in the back of their pantry for 40 years. And that it’d be a nice gesture to give it away.
Inevitably this causes the lunatics to rush about in their cassocks and mitres saying that because Britain is one of the richest countries in the world it’s absurd that people here can only stay alive thanks to charitable donations and food banks. Which then prompts a bunch of bleeding-heart sandalistas to say that the government should be distributing food to the poor rather than leaving it up to volunteers.
Aaaargh. What’s the matter with these people? You could say that of any charity. Why should that poor boy who died of cancer recently have had to rely on Twitter to raise money for research into the illness? Surely the government should be doing that too. And what about the care needed by soldiers who’ve had their legs blown off while serving their country? Or all those important buildings that need renovating, or all the ducks and bees that are on the verge of extinction?
Would you put someone from the government in charge of the Amazonian tree frog? No, and neither would I.
I would not choose to give anything to a food bank — not in this country at any rate — but if a little old lady wants to give away some Green Giant sweetcorn and a packet of Spangles, who’s complaining? Not me, not the person who receives the food and certainly not the little old lady, who can go to bed bathed in the comforting glow of having done something nice for someone.
This is what church leaders and their communist cohorts simply cannot get into their stubborn, stupid heads: that if the state provides everything, it leaves no space for individuals to lend a hand.
And anyway, can you even begin to imagine what a food bank would look like if the government got its hands on it? All the staff would be forced to wear hi-vis jackets and spend all their time filling in forms to ensure the food was picked yesterday, in a sustainable organic way, by a horny-handed son of the soil.
And you wouldn’t be able to get into the place because of all the wheelchair ramps, and there’d be nothing on the shelves because it was either out of date, or it had fallen foul of some obscure European law about what shape it should be.
When will people learn that the government cannot be trusted to run anything? And that if we put it in charge of feeding the thick and the lazy, pretty soon there’d be a diarrhoea epidemic and people in the streets saying, “Bring out your dead”.
Whereas what we have now is a load of unintelligent people who think Oreos grow on trees and that spaghetti is hoop-shaped, milling around in an abandoned branch of Woolworths, passing the time of day with big-hearted neighbours who have a bit of time on their hands. And that to me seems fine.
Sadly, though, none of this could be discussed in the wake of Jenkin’s observations because she said poor people don’t know how to cook. What she should have said is, “They can’t be arsed to cook”. They want it oven-ready, prepacked, ready salted and handed to them on a plate by people who work for a living so they have the wherewithal at the end of the month to do something kind.
Here's how The Independent reported the story of Baroness Jenkin and her rather naive comments about people going hungry because they don't know how to cook.
The whole furore seems completely barmy if you ask me, not least because Jamie Oliver said something very similar a little while back and nobody batted an eyelid.
Maybe it's all down to politics and nothing to do with food.
Baroness Jenkin: Tory peer claims poor people go hungry because they 'don’t know how to cook'
Baroness Jenkin — a PR consultant — has attempted to clarify the remarks
By ANDREW GRIFFIN - The Independent
A Conservative peer has sparked a torrent of criticism after claiming that poor people use food banks because they don’t know how to cook, in the wake of news that the number of people unable to afford their own food is soaring.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington made the remarks while launching a major report that showed that 4 million people are going hungry in Britain.
While launching the report, Baroness Jenkin said: “We have lost our cooking skills. Poor people don't know how to cook.
“I had a large bowl of porridge today, which cost 4p,” Mail Online reported Baroness Jenkin as saying. “A large bowl of sugary cereals will cost you 25p.”
Baroness Jenkin was a member of the inquiry that produced the report, Feeding Britain, which found that many families are so desperate to avoid being evicted because they can’t pay rent, or having their gas and electric cut off, that they are forced to go hungry. “They go without food and therefore see food banks as reintroducing that buffer in their finances which many have lost,” the report’s authors warn. The report called for the government to set up a new network to co-ordinate the work of food banks and other charities.
Jenkin later sought to clarify her remarks, saying that a lack of cookery skills was only part of the problem.
"What I meant was as a society we have lost our ability to cook,” she told BBC Radio 4’s World At One. “That seems no longer to be handed down in the way that it was by previous generations.
Last week the Tory peer Baroness Jenkin put down her game of Candy Crush, summoned a bank of plebs from beyond her duck house and said that Britain is awash with food banks these days because “poor people don’t know how to cook”.
Naturally this was seen as yet another example of government being completely out of touch with how real “hard-working families” live, and as a result she was forced to burn herself at the stake for being a witch. Which is a shame, because she had a point.
Of course, if you take the big wide world as a whole, it’s extremely foolish to say poor people don’t know how to cook, because obviously they do. If you go to the back streets of Calcutta or Tanzania, or anywhere without a benefits system, you’ll see lots of extremely poor people making the sort of food that causes you to drool. The absolute nicest thing I’ve put in my mouth was a pho — a noodle soup — made in Vietnam, on a pavement fire, by a woman with more warts in her mouth than teeth.
In Britain it’s a different story. A young couple went on the television news last week to say they were so poor they regularly went to bed hungry and, I’m sorry, but they were in a house, with a roof, and they have access to a doctor and a hospital. What’s more, their street has lighting and if one of them has a problem, they can call on a police force to help them out. Poor? They simply don’t know the meaning of the word.
If they were really hungry — and I mean properly close-to-death hungry — they’d have been wandering the lanes where they lived, picking berries and scrumping apples.
The fact is — and this is what Jenkin was trying to say — there are many people in this country who are so thick, spoilt and greasily lazy that they think Jamie Oliver is a creature from outer space and that The Great British Bake Off is science fiction. Not that they know what science is. Or fiction. Or even an oven.
They sit there on their leatherette button-backed settees in front of their gigantic benefits plasma TV, expecting David Cameron himself to come round with a bucket of KFC and party seven of Worthington E. And when he doesn’t, they say they’re hungry.
Which immediately prompts a bunch of Liberal Democrats to burst into tears and realise that other people have a greater need for the tinned salmon and Sutherland crab spread that have been languishing in the back of their pantry for 40 years. And that it’d be a nice gesture to give it away.
Inevitably this causes the lunatics to rush about in their cassocks and mitres saying that because Britain is one of the richest countries in the world it’s absurd that people here can only stay alive thanks to charitable donations and food banks. Which then prompts a bunch of bleeding-heart sandalistas to say that the government should be distributing food to the poor rather than leaving it up to volunteers.
Aaaargh. What’s the matter with these people? You could say that of any charity. Why should that poor boy who died of cancer recently have had to rely on Twitter to raise money for research into the illness? Surely the government should be doing that too. And what about the care needed by soldiers who’ve had their legs blown off while serving their country? Or all those important buildings that need renovating, or all the ducks and bees that are on the verge of extinction?
Would you put someone from the government in charge of the Amazonian tree frog? No, and neither would I.
I would not choose to give anything to a food bank — not in this country at any rate — but if a little old lady wants to give away some Green Giant sweetcorn and a packet of Spangles, who’s complaining? Not me, not the person who receives the food and certainly not the little old lady, who can go to bed bathed in the comforting glow of having done something nice for someone.
This is what church leaders and their communist cohorts simply cannot get into their stubborn, stupid heads: that if the state provides everything, it leaves no space for individuals to lend a hand.
And anyway, can you even begin to imagine what a food bank would look like if the government got its hands on it? All the staff would be forced to wear hi-vis jackets and spend all their time filling in forms to ensure the food was picked yesterday, in a sustainable organic way, by a horny-handed son of the soil.
And you wouldn’t be able to get into the place because of all the wheelchair ramps, and there’d be nothing on the shelves because it was either out of date, or it had fallen foul of some obscure European law about what shape it should be.
When will people learn that the government cannot be trusted to run anything? And that if we put it in charge of feeding the thick and the lazy, pretty soon there’d be a diarrhoea epidemic and people in the streets saying, “Bring out your dead”.
Whereas what we have now is a load of unintelligent people who think Oreos grow on trees and that spaghetti is hoop-shaped, milling around in an abandoned branch of Woolworths, passing the time of day with big-hearted neighbours who have a bit of time on their hands. And that to me seems fine.
Sadly, though, none of this could be discussed in the wake of Jenkin’s observations because she said poor people don’t know how to cook. What she should have said is, “They can’t be arsed to cook”. They want it oven-ready, prepacked, ready salted and handed to them on a plate by people who work for a living so they have the wherewithal at the end of the month to do something kind.
Politics of Food (17 December 2014)
Here's how The Independent reported the story of Baroness Jenkin and her rather naive comments about people going hungry because they don't know how to cook.
The whole furore seems completely barmy if you ask me, not least because Jamie Oliver said something very similar a little while back and nobody batted an eyelid.
Maybe it's all down to politics and nothing to do with food.
Baroness Jenkin: Tory peer claims poor people go hungry because they 'don’t know how to cook'
Baroness Jenkin — a PR consultant — has attempted to clarify the remarks
By ANDREW GRIFFIN - The Independent
A Conservative peer has sparked a torrent of criticism after claiming that poor people use food banks because they don’t know how to cook, in the wake of news that the number of people unable to afford their own food is soaring.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington made the remarks while launching a major report that showed that 4 million people are going hungry in Britain.
While launching the report, Baroness Jenkin said: “We have lost our cooking skills. Poor people don't know how to cook.
“I had a large bowl of porridge today, which cost 4p,” Mail Online reported Baroness Jenkin as saying. “A large bowl of sugary cereals will cost you 25p.”
Baroness Jenkin was a member of the inquiry that produced the report, Feeding Britain, which found that many families are so desperate to avoid being evicted because they can’t pay rent, or having their gas and electric cut off, that they are forced to go hungry. “They go without food and therefore see food banks as reintroducing that buffer in their finances which many have lost,” the report’s authors warn. The report called for the government to set up a new network to co-ordinate the work of food banks and other charities.
Jenkin later sought to clarify her remarks, saying that a lack of cookery skills was only part of the problem.
"What I meant was as a society we have lost our ability to cook,” she told BBC Radio 4’s World At One. “That seems no longer to be handed down in the way that it was by previous generations.
Volunteers assemble a selection of tinned food for a client at a food bank depot in Brixton, south London"I am well aware that I made a mistake in saying it and apologise to anybody who's been offended by it.
"The point is valid. If people today had the cooking skills that previous generations had, none of us would be eating so much pre-prepared food."
Jenkin has been actively involved in causes around hunger and poverty, joining in with the 'Live Below the Line' campaign to live on £1 a day in 2011.
"The point is valid. If people today had the cooking skills that previous generations had, none of us would be eating so much pre-prepared food."
Jenkin has been actively involved in causes around hunger and poverty, joining in with the 'Live Below the Line' campaign to live on £1 a day in 2011.
Britain's Eating Habits (5 October 2014)
Jamie Oliver has been hitting the headlines recently - not so much for his undoubted cookery skills, but for his comments to the BBC's Radio Times magazine about the country's love affair with big, flat-screen TVs and the eating habits of poorer families in Britain.
Here's an interesting article from The Telegraph on the 'Feeding Britain' report which put the issue of food banks back in the news the other week.
Part of the report does indeed highlight the effects of smoking, for example, on low income families and here's an extract from the document which drives the issue home.
"The other force at work is the addictions that many individuals and families have, but which particularly sharply affects the budgeting of low-income families. We refer here to the size of income in some families going on drugs, tobacco and gambling. A family earning £21,000 a year, for example, where both parents smoke 20 cigarettes a day will spend a quarter of their income on tobacco. Even if people buy illicit tobacco they will still spend 15% of their total income on tobacco. Budgeting support is terribly important, but budgetary support alone is often not enough to equip families to kick their addictive habits when addiction is being fed and defended by some very powerful lobbies."
Now this is a difficult subject to tackle because the obvious point to makes that if such families decided to stop smoking, then literally overnight they would free up 25% of their income to spend on more and better food for themselves and their children.
"The fascinating thing for me is that seven times out of 10, the poorest families in this country choose the most expensive way to hydrate and feed their families. The ready meals, the convenience foods. Some of the most inspirational food in the world comes from areas where people are financially challenged."
"The flavour comes from a cheap cut of meat, or something that's slow-cooked, or an amazing texture's been made out of leftover stale bread. You go to Italy or Spain and they eat well on not much money. We've missed out on that in Britain, somehow."
Warming to his theme Jamie continued:
"You might remember that scene in (his series) Ministry Of Food, with the mum and the kid eating chips and cheese out of Styrofoam containers, and behind them is a massive fucking TV. It just didn't weigh up."
"You might remember that scene in (his series) Ministry Of Food, with the mum and the kid eating chips and cheese out of Styrofoam containers, and behind them is a massive fucking TV. It just didn't weigh up."
Now I can't really understand what all the fuss and outrage was about - because anyone who has followed Jamie Oliver's career knows that he's a thoroughly decent human being - and he was simply commenting on a situation which, to him, didn't add up or make much sense.
Being able to cook is a great life skill which everyone should learn and Jamie Oliver's latest TV series is aimed at cooking good food - even when people are working to a low budget.
Like everything else in life that probably requires a change of habit and old ways of doing things - and possibly even some hard work - but there's no doubt it will be worth it in the end.
As another TV chef - Keith Floyd - was fond of saying with this old Chinese proverb:
'Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime'.
Politics of Food (17 December 2014)
Here's an interesting article from The Telegraph on the 'Feeding Britain' report which put the issue of food banks back in the news the other week.
Part of the report does indeed highlight the effects of smoking, for example, on low income families and here's an extract from the document which drives the issue home.
"The other force at work is the addictions that many individuals and families have, but which particularly sharply affects the budgeting of low-income families. We refer here to the size of income in some families going on drugs, tobacco and gambling. A family earning £21,000 a year, for example, where both parents smoke 20 cigarettes a day will spend a quarter of their income on tobacco. Even if people buy illicit tobacco they will still spend 15% of their total income on tobacco. Budgeting support is terribly important, but budgetary support alone is often not enough to equip families to kick their addictive habits when addiction is being fed and defended by some very powerful lobbies."
Now this is a difficult subject to tackle because the obvious point to makes that if such families decided to stop smoking, then literally overnight they would free up 25% of their income to spend on more and better food for themselves and their children.
So targeting resources on smoking and other addictions would seem to have the potential for 'win win' all round, not least because I think it's difficult to sustain an argument that families in this situation really are going hungry if they're spending over £5,000 a year on cigarettes.
Some people using foodbanks buy cigarettes instead of food
Some poor families are spending a quarter of their income on tobacco, but a major report on food poverty doesn't want to talk about the issue.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Reverend Justin Welby, is backing the foodbank report. But those aren't cigarettes burning behind him. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA
By James Kirkup - The Telegraph
There are many disturbing facts and accounts in the Feeding Britain report on foodbanks and the financial problems of Britain’s poorest. Admirably balanced and non-partisan, the thoughtful, considered response it’s had from most politicians is well-deserved.
Still, there’s one aspect of the report that seems a little under-explored. Here’s a quote from the document:
“The other force at work is the addictions that many individuals and families have, but which particularly sharply affects the budgeting of low-income families. We refer here to the size of income in some families going on drugs, tobacco and gambling.”
And another:
“…tackling these serious addictions is as crucial for the overall health of our society as it is in restoring a sense of dignity and control individuals have over their own lives and their tackling of these serious addictions is as crucial for the overall health of our society as it is in restoring a sense of dignity and control individuals have over their own lives and their own budgets. We make recommendations here on how food can be used as a way of kick-starting a recovery process for individuals who find themselves in such desperate situations.”
In other words, let’s make sure poor people are eating properly, then we can help them smoke and drink and gamble less.
On that basis, the report then largely ignores the question of spending on booze and fags and gambling. While it discusses the share of household income being spent on food and non-alcoholic drinks, utilities and the rest, it has almost nothing else to say about how much is spent on drink and tobacco.
I can understand why. There are too many people who want to focus on the issue in an attempt to argue or just imply that poor people are poor because they chose to be, that they go to food banks because they spend money on the “wrong” things instead of food. My best guess is that the authors didn’t want to get into that debate, so they ignored the question.
To be clear, I don’t want to make any such argument, or imply any such thing. I suspect some people will glance at the headline of this piece and conclude “Oh look, a heartless Telegraph toff sneering at poor people for smoking.” But that is not what I’m about here. I offer no judgement on poor people who smoke; if I was in the dire straits described in the Feeding Britain report, I suspect I’d want the comfort of a cigarette, or any other earthly pleasure I could get my hands on. And for all that non-smokers like me can be prone to look down on weak-willed smokers, we should acknowledge that this is a monstrously addictive drug, and remember: there but for the grace of God smoke I.
Still, facts are facts whether or not we find them convenient or comfortable. And the fact is that some poor people do spend some of their money on things like tobacco and alcohol. And obviously, a pound spent on cigarettes cannot be spent on food. For reference, the average packet of 20 cigarettes now costs £8.46. So surely a fully rounded look at the issues of food and poverty should include some analysis of spending on such things, shouldn't it?
Let’s start with the basics.
Because the price of goods like alcohol and tobacco is, broadly speaking, fixed, consumption of those goods is regressive: a poor person who buys 20 fags a day will spend a much greater share of their income than a rich one. The IFS has estimated that people in the lowest income group spend roughly twice as much of their income on tobacco and alcohol than those in the richest.
Smoking in particular is worth focussing on here, not least because the Feeding Britain report offers this thought:
“A family earning £21,000 a year, for example, where both parents smoke 20 cigarettes a day will spend a quarter of their income on tobacco. Even if people buy illicit tobacco they will still spend 15% of their total income on tobacco. Budgeting support is terribly important, but budgetary support alone is often not enough to equip families to kick their addictive habits when addiction is being fed and defended by some very powerful lobbies.”
Read that again. Some poor families may be spending a quarter of their income on tobacco. A quarter.
That figure is actually even higher than an estimate produced last year by the Institute for Economic Affairs last year, which said that the average smoker from the poorest fifth of households spends between 18 and 22 per cent of their disposable income on cigarettes.
(The IEA also noted that tax on these cigarettes consumes 15 to 17 per cent of those families’ incomes. A cynic would note that central government therefore has a financial disincentive to reduce tobacco consumption.)
Surely any serious attempt to address food poverty should have more to say about this issue than vague accusations about “powerful lobbies” exploiting the poor? Surely any move to ensure that poor people can and do spend more money on good food has to include an attempt to reduce the amount they spend on tobacco? Surely it’s not good enough to say that we have to sort out the food problem before we can sort out the tobacco problem? Because the basic economic fact is that tobacco is part of the food problem.
Again, just to repeat the caveat, I don’t raise this to criticise or denigrate those on low incomes who spend money on tobacco. I raise it because any attempt to discuss the problems of those people that doesn’t address their full spending patterns is incomplete and likely to fail.
If you care about poor people and want them to eat better, get them to spend less on smoking. Does that mean banning cigarettes? Taxing them even more? Or actually cutting the tax to make them cheaper? Or doing much, much more to help and encourage them to quit? There may well be an argument to be made for all of those options, and others besides. Sadly though, that's not part of the foodbank debate today.
Some people using foodbanks buy cigarettes instead of food
Some poor families are spending a quarter of their income on tobacco, but a major report on food poverty doesn't want to talk about the issue.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Reverend Justin Welby, is backing the foodbank report. But those aren't cigarettes burning behind him. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA
By James Kirkup - The Telegraph
There are many disturbing facts and accounts in the Feeding Britain report on foodbanks and the financial problems of Britain’s poorest. Admirably balanced and non-partisan, the thoughtful, considered response it’s had from most politicians is well-deserved.
Still, there’s one aspect of the report that seems a little under-explored. Here’s a quote from the document:
“The other force at work is the addictions that many individuals and families have, but which particularly sharply affects the budgeting of low-income families. We refer here to the size of income in some families going on drugs, tobacco and gambling.”
And another:
“…tackling these serious addictions is as crucial for the overall health of our society as it is in restoring a sense of dignity and control individuals have over their own lives and their tackling of these serious addictions is as crucial for the overall health of our society as it is in restoring a sense of dignity and control individuals have over their own lives and their own budgets. We make recommendations here on how food can be used as a way of kick-starting a recovery process for individuals who find themselves in such desperate situations.”
In other words, let’s make sure poor people are eating properly, then we can help them smoke and drink and gamble less.
On that basis, the report then largely ignores the question of spending on booze and fags and gambling. While it discusses the share of household income being spent on food and non-alcoholic drinks, utilities and the rest, it has almost nothing else to say about how much is spent on drink and tobacco.
I can understand why. There are too many people who want to focus on the issue in an attempt to argue or just imply that poor people are poor because they chose to be, that they go to food banks because they spend money on the “wrong” things instead of food. My best guess is that the authors didn’t want to get into that debate, so they ignored the question.
To be clear, I don’t want to make any such argument, or imply any such thing. I suspect some people will glance at the headline of this piece and conclude “Oh look, a heartless Telegraph toff sneering at poor people for smoking.” But that is not what I’m about here. I offer no judgement on poor people who smoke; if I was in the dire straits described in the Feeding Britain report, I suspect I’d want the comfort of a cigarette, or any other earthly pleasure I could get my hands on. And for all that non-smokers like me can be prone to look down on weak-willed smokers, we should acknowledge that this is a monstrously addictive drug, and remember: there but for the grace of God smoke I.
Still, facts are facts whether or not we find them convenient or comfortable. And the fact is that some poor people do spend some of their money on things like tobacco and alcohol. And obviously, a pound spent on cigarettes cannot be spent on food. For reference, the average packet of 20 cigarettes now costs £8.46. So surely a fully rounded look at the issues of food and poverty should include some analysis of spending on such things, shouldn't it?
Let’s start with the basics.
Because the price of goods like alcohol and tobacco is, broadly speaking, fixed, consumption of those goods is regressive: a poor person who buys 20 fags a day will spend a much greater share of their income than a rich one. The IFS has estimated that people in the lowest income group spend roughly twice as much of their income on tobacco and alcohol than those in the richest.
Smoking in particular is worth focussing on here, not least because the Feeding Britain report offers this thought:
“A family earning £21,000 a year, for example, where both parents smoke 20 cigarettes a day will spend a quarter of their income on tobacco. Even if people buy illicit tobacco they will still spend 15% of their total income on tobacco. Budgeting support is terribly important, but budgetary support alone is often not enough to equip families to kick their addictive habits when addiction is being fed and defended by some very powerful lobbies.”
Read that again. Some poor families may be spending a quarter of their income on tobacco. A quarter.
That figure is actually even higher than an estimate produced last year by the Institute for Economic Affairs last year, which said that the average smoker from the poorest fifth of households spends between 18 and 22 per cent of their disposable income on cigarettes.
(The IEA also noted that tax on these cigarettes consumes 15 to 17 per cent of those families’ incomes. A cynic would note that central government therefore has a financial disincentive to reduce tobacco consumption.)
Surely any serious attempt to address food poverty should have more to say about this issue than vague accusations about “powerful lobbies” exploiting the poor? Surely any move to ensure that poor people can and do spend more money on good food has to include an attempt to reduce the amount they spend on tobacco? Surely it’s not good enough to say that we have to sort out the food problem before we can sort out the tobacco problem? Because the basic economic fact is that tobacco is part of the food problem.
Again, just to repeat the caveat, I don’t raise this to criticise or denigrate those on low incomes who spend money on tobacco. I raise it because any attempt to discuss the problems of those people that doesn’t address their full spending patterns is incomplete and likely to fail.
If you care about poor people and want them to eat better, get them to spend less on smoking. Does that mean banning cigarettes? Taxing them even more? Or actually cutting the tax to make them cheaper? Or doing much, much more to help and encourage them to quit? There may well be an argument to be made for all of those options, and others besides. Sadly though, that's not part of the foodbank debate today.
