Jack monroe challenged on twitter

[KarlWrenbury]

Maybe by a sock puppet account Etc but yes- how are they still not making ends meet after all this time ?

Mary Berry's tomato soup is the business, isn't that expensive to make (as long as you leave out the bit about swirling in your own homemade pesto) and doesn't involve a tin of soup as one of the ingredients.

was reading through this about the jamie oliver thing - i wasnt aware of it at the time

limegoss.com/jack-monroe-jamie-oliver/

If she was truly a 'poverty campaigner' as she states, it wouldn't matter who was giving advice on budget cooking as long it got the word out there. Instead she has a huge Twitter tantrum about 'THAT MAN' stealing her 'niche' (and I've got news for Jack - I think Delia got in first with the cooking with cans thing).

Anyway, Jamie handled it all with dignity and grace...and completely ignored her.

Its on record that Jack's sons dad had him 3 nights a week when she was going through tough times

Her mum also said she didn't want help when her mum was criticised when the People interview came out

Even a months worth of her Twitter feed is a swirl of perplexing contradictions. A blog post about how she is so poor she is taking her belongings to the pawn shop; posts about a brand new puppy, a plan to buy a tattoo...

I can believe she is terrible at money management, but she needs to own that.

Astonishing that (if true) she would rather live in such penury that she can't afford shampoo than move to a more sensible sized house. Incomprehensible to actively take decisions to spend money on tattoos and a new puppy if money is that tight

Then when she makes them, she eats the entire recipe for four herself!
Tbf, no one else is going to eat rinsed beany salmon paste soup.
Just eat noodles and toast like the rest of us do when we spent our food budget on gig tickets/new trainers etc.

She lies constantly and her attitude towards poor people is incredibly patronizing and rude. She definitely has a deserving and undeserving poor attitude going on.

Also if you tell everyone you are poor and solicit donations but are living in a 1500 rental in a nice area, show regular displays of affluence on your Twitter feed and can afford to spend all day on Twitter doing performative book edits, then you are not poor. You are basically a con artist.

As for campaigning, a lot of it seems like smoke and mirrors. 'Working behind scenes'
Claims that she invented Healthy Start vouchers but she didn't. Verifiable inconsistencies in her 'work'.
Rarely gives advice or signposts resources and links.
Often gives out incorrect info and stats.
Free stuff on her website but ALL cooks and chefs do this.
Donating books but she allegedly raised a crowdfunder from the public to buy the 'donated' books... Not donating then are you?
Kickstarter fiasco - shocking. When people complained they hadn't received their books and started asking questions as to where the money had gone, she started threating lawyers to shut them down.
Trussell Trust donation - all a bit weird. TT publicly said they actually hadn't discussed this 'large donation' with her at all. Strange way to go about it.

People have been cancelled for a whole lot less, but she seems untouchable. The reason is because her message is a good one, no-one can disagree that poverty shouldn't exist, plus because she leverages identity politics to shield herself from criticism.

I came across Jack years ago on another 'Internet space'. I didn't know who they were but at the time they were "famous". And also presented as female, which I believe they are also doing now so I'll refer to as she.

She was posting a lot becoming very distressed about having Rheumatoid Arthritis, lots and lots of posts. I DM her offering reassurance as I am a similar age, young son etc etc and a bit further down the path of treatment etc.

None of her replies made sense re actual diagnosis; tests, meds etc. It was like she had a sore knee and went that's it I'm buggered.

I forgot all about her for a few years then realised who she was.

During lockdown she posted that due to her arthritis she was CEV (not that I was aware RA were not more vulnerable to covid on any meds except steroids they thought for a while)

Then she decided she could go out and about.
Where she then bought something like 17 litres of paint (just over 3 stone in weight) and carried it home in a rucksack. For a fair distance over a mile or more.

Next she non stop painted, sorted and rebuilt quite a few rooms in her home, alone.

That was more than enough to let me know that my initial thought years ago that her story didn't line up was probably right. I can't see anyone with RA, even very well controlled being able to do this. In fact I doubt a healthy person could actually walk for miles carrying 17litres of paint....it couldn't all fit in a rucksack surely?

Also in regards to benefits; if she was properly diagnosed with all her conditions she would be entitled to PIP, Personal Independence Payments, an absolute mindache to apply for BUT available to all REGARDLESS of other income. Also a good benefit to have as provides access to other benefits like council tax relief etc

Again if disabled she could apply for ESA - Employment and Support Allowance BUT NOT IF SHE HAS SAVINGS OVER £16,000. This could be part of UC in her area. But UC, ESA, jobseekers all have a cap of between £6,000 and £16,000, whereby you can't get benefits until your own savings are depleted.

I think her mention of the "pot" of money saved after her "alcoholism", plus whatever else she has tucked away after paying herself NMW for all these years means she CAN'T apply for benefits not that she us fearful or has PTSD

This is shocking. Somebody needs to take her Twitter away from her. She is doing herself no favours. Nobody would possibly hire someone who is such hard work and so unprofessional. I do think she is stunningly beautiful and probably TV friendly, but SO much baggage.
Autistic
Alcoholic
Rheumatoid arthritis
Non binary
The list just goes on and gets more and more unbelievable.

She was probably lying about how much paint she was carrying. She's probably lying about the RA. She's probably lying about being CEV seeing as the week after she posted about being locked in her house, she was off to the BBC studios. She's probably lying about being autistic and being unable to lie. She's probably lying about her alcoholism. It seems to me that Jack Monroe is to AA as Marla Singer is to 'the testicle thing' in Fight Club.

That's the thing with repeated liars. Once you see it, you can't unsee it, and you start to doubt everything that comes out of their mouths.

I’ll defend her in this to somebody extent (god knows why!) and say that some of the things she’s tweeted in previous years at least indicate that her parents and grandfather, whilst she had a good relationship with them, more or less told her they were disappointed and thought she was throwing her life away by continuing with an unplanned pregnancy so young whilst in a short relationship which was unlikely to work out

A few years ago she explicitly said that her parents had been involved and supportive throughout her period of poverty (with her mum in particular visiting every week) and they would have helped her out but she didn't see want to tell them she was struggling.

It read like they'd challenged her on what she'd been saying and she felt forced to correct the record but, regardless of the reason, it was very clear by Jack's standards.

The relationship with her parents doesn't seem to fit the narrative at all. All very positive and yet she seems to constantly battle as if she has no family support. I can't help but wonder what impact the fostering had on her.

I had a look on twitter, and it's absolutely surreal as there's all these people, plenty of blue ticks, resolutely defending her as if this is a baseless attack and it's just people being horrible, yet all this information about how she's lied and contradicted herself is right there!

JM also claims in the following article that they lived rough for two years during ‘the poverty’:

www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/tin-can-cook-jack-monroe-is-determined-to-show-people-how-to-eat-well--no-matter-their-budget/2018/12/07/f8ae7654-f422-11e8-bc79-68604ed88993_story.html

The story gets more embellished every time it is told.

You might have something there @guinnessguzzler! I watched a documentary about Rachel Dolezal once and I remember her life of pretence seemed to be triggered by the adoption of three children into her family home.

I don't understand why her homelessness /poverty story varies so widely. I was homeless with two young children for three weeks and then also had a period where money was very tight (and, possibly like jack, I was too proud to always tell my parents quite how tight ), but my story when I tell it is consistent (and full of recognition that my family background and education level meant I had it far easier than many in that situation)

I read Jack’s blog post the other day when Nigella Lawson tweeted to her. She hadn’t really been on my radar before that. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since! I couldn’t believe that what I was reading was true. Turning off hot water, melting soap down into shower gel, taking out the lightbulbs? When she’s got a massive social media following and has been on the television. It all seemed so strange, not to mention literally grinding her bones into dust working for 100 hours a week for nothing, applying for tons of different jobs which have nothing to do with what she’s successfully done so far. Lugging a big dog about when she’s got arthritis. Then I googled her and now I’ve been down the Twitter rabbit hole. She’s got quite the cult following hasn’t she.

I showed my mum her blog post, my mum volunteered for the Citizen’s Advice Bureau for years, helping people in really dire straits and she was incredulous as well.

I wonder if one day there’ll be a Netflix documentary about how much money she has actually conned out of well meaning people. I find all of it appalling

Well social media following does not translate into money. I have quite a large following myself. That said I would not be getting a dog and ranting on Twitter all day if I could not afford shampoo. I would be out stacking shelves if that was the only work I could find, not wasting my time blogging and attacking Jamie Oliver. But of course you can't do that with arthritis so...

Well the large social media following + a link where people can donate money to you + Patreon donors + published books that your followers can buy + publicity from people like Nigella Lawson must make enough that you don’t have to turn your hot water off surely

Plus sponsorships by the likes of Hellmans, Superdrug, Del Monte and Linda McCartney and tv slots on Lorraine and This Morning plus numerous tv interviews and articles in national newspapers.

This is such an interesting thread. I guess there are a lot of people whose social media personas are built on a house of cards, but Jack Monroe seems to have been particularly poor at covering her tracks. One minor thing that I don't understand - why is she the "bootstrap cook"? I know it was the name of one of her books - cooking on a bootstrap - but I've never heard that expression before. Shouldn't it be cooking on a shoestring I.e. shoestring budget? Or have I missed a really common expression?

Yes, but I think that title was already taken!

@BemusedBrenda

’bootstrapping’ is probably more commonly used in the US but it means doing something for yourself

‘pulling yourself up by your bootstraps’ is to improve your (usually financial) situation by yourself, bootstrapping a company is to found something without external investors

I think she was trying to convey that she was making recipes for people who had to get on with it by themselves and without lots of help

ironic, really…

One minor thing that I don't understand - why is she the "bootstrap cook"? I know it was the name of one of her books - cooking on a bootstrap - but I've never heard that expression before. Shouldn't it be cooking on a shoestring I.e. shoestring budget? Or have I missed a really common expression?

Nope. It is cooking on a shoestring or pulling yourself up by the bootstraps (the latter being quite a Tory notion, tbh. The idea that anyone can do it, without help, if they just try hard enough). It's something that's always annoyed me and I don't understand why her publishers never picked up on it, especially when she's marketed towards people who may not have much money.

Large social media following also translates into money with paid partnerships, something JM could have made serious money out of if she had used her brain.

Look at eg Kat Farmer, even the (now disgraced) MOD or Clemmie Telford - all have/had plenty of lucrative partnerhips from brands keen to reach their audiences.

Jack has had a few of these but tends to screw them up, eg that Hellmanns thing, more recently Superdrug.