to think ed milliband is lying about spending 70-80 a week on food

[sazham2]

No way does someone that is a millionaire and earns about 7-8k a week with a family of 4 spend 70-80.

In touch Ed claimed that his family of four spent “probably £70, £80 a week on groceries a week, probably more than that” when hijacked with the perfectly reasonable question on ITV’s Good Morning Britain:

order-order.com/2014/05/20/mili-onaire-eds-cost-of-living-crisis/

Bu Maoam if you only need one carrot or one garlic glove why not?

Just because you can afford to waste money and food, doesn't mean you have to.

I think he guessed wildly then knocked some money off so as not to sound too profligate. All very annoying-both the question and the answer.

I wish we voters would stop judging politicians for not knowing stuff like how much a pint of milk costs. What we need from our politicians is awareness, yes, eg basic living costs, average incomes/rents, house prices, level of benefits. But beyond that, surely we want them to be tackling things at a policy level. Even if you know exactly how a family on median income lives, or the cost of basic foodstuffs, that doesn't help anyone unless it translates into coherent achievable policies, does it?

This stuff, done well or badly, is just a cheap soundbite. What's Ed's plan for economic recovery, house building, education, reform of the tax system etc etc?

I assume the money spent on groceries doese not include dining out.

It sounds like a reasonable guess to me. I do all the shopping, but I'd struggle to quickly come up with a figure of how much I spend each week. I reckon if I was put on the spot I'd say about £80. I don't know if that's even close.

Yes Denzil, I don't judge them if they can't identify to the penny the cost of a pinta buy I judge them if they can't create policies to tackle poverty or predict the impact of their actions on all sectors of society.

I also think Good Morning Britain looked shallow and tabloid. How much does Susanna Reid spend on groceries? Is she only allowed to discuss the issue if she shops at aldi and lives off lentil bolognese?

I heard my husband telling his sister last week that we spend £60 per week on food shopping.

It's actually nearer £130, I just don't tell him that

Maybe Ed's really tight like DH so Mrs M lies to keep him sweet

I am more hacked off by the assumption his extremely successful barrister wife does all the shopping than the fact he may or may not have got the figures wrong.

You can only eat so much food...

Breakfast: cereal for the kids. He'll eat at the commons, she'll pick up a takeaway.

Lunch: both out on expenses or subsidised or whatever. Kids eat at nursery (they are younger than I both thought).

Dinner: both adults are probably out 3 nights a week, and they have small children so I suppose they probably eat 'normal' food - pasta, fish pie, chicken.

It's not that much food. I think it's perfectly possible to do it on £80 for groceries (so not including booze, nappies, cleaning products, food eaten for free/subsidised/bought on the hoof/family lunches out on Saturday, etc). The amount of food that family has to put in a shopping trolley every week is tiny, compared to people who don't eat out or have to pay to eat out, take their own lunches etc.

That all said, I completely agree with the pp who said this 'pretend you're normal' schtick is completely unhelpful.

He just makes it up.

He is such a rubbish guy I could never vote for him, ever.

Blatant insincerity, just as ridiculous as when Gordon Brown said his favourite music was Arctic Monkeys (that still makes me giggle though).

I loathe politicians who pretend to be "of the people", it is so patronising and condescending!

I am sure that Boris, who is rubbish in many ways too, would not make comments like this.

He would say: "crikey, do you really think I do my own shopping? I usually eat out or Mrs Thing cooks up something. Lovely venison stew the other day, ah yes."

SaucyJack I think you missed the point, the point was not about his misses career, rather that it is highly unlikely that Mr Milliband does his own shopping, if she doesn't do it they probably have a nanny or someone else do it like others have suggested, the point was still he is unlikely to know - like every other DH I know because he has not done the weekly shop in a very very long time, if ever

Well it's highly unlikely he's the one whizzing around Waitrose with a trolley, so I doubt that he has even the slightest idea how much the family food shop costs

As leader of the opposition in a crisis - a financial crisis he should know what people spend.

don't see why he should have to be able to answer that question accurately off the top of his head

There is no actuate ansa but his ansa was so woefully in accurate its a disgrace.

Its actually very super relevant at the moment with inflation, wage stagnation and people loosing the homes over their heads and people chosing between food and heat in the winter....

Id say its pretty fucking relavant actually.

Boris only eats unicorns Brave . They are vair, vair expensive...

(I would really love someone to ask him about his food shopping though.)

like every other DH I know because he has not done the weekly shop in a very very long time, if ever

Well he is either leader of proposition in tough economic times, the phrase they all trot out or he is just someone's dh...which is it

“If we win the election, we will come to power in tougher economic circumstances than we have seen in generations and that will have to shape the way that we govern*

Oh it will shape the way he governs, well he had better get to grips with the tough economic times first...

It’s a hard reality. But I am clear about it, Ed Balls is clear about it, and everyone in the Labour Party should be clear about it too. People will only put their hope in us if we show how we will make a difference. But people will only put their trust in us if we show we are credible. Only if we have the discipline to face the challenge of our times, can we change the direction of our country

what a load of tosh utter tosh!”

Hey, they all do the platitudes. And yes, they are always a load of utter tosh!

But I think really we all agree. Stop pretending you know this stuff, politicians. Admit you don't, someone else does your food shop. Now tell us how you intend to achieve an economic recovery that will enable all of us to stress less about the bloody cost of groceries. Chuck in an indication of your policy for food security and reining in the power of the big 3 supermarkets, if any, while you're at it.

Well - iirc his kids are school age - and his wife works - so I would expect their lunch and dinner weekdays to be rolled in to childcare costs/school kitty - which you wouldn't off the cuff add to 'food spending'.

Him & his wife work in politics - which often means that meal times are networking occasions - so they both probably take a large proportion of their weekday meals 'catered' - and the rest is probably grabbed from Pret - again, off the cuff you wouldn't necessarily add in every take away coffee and late night pizza delivery.

So for weekends and breakfasts - yeah, I believe £70.

His wife is a barrister. So she will be paying for her meals herself, I would think. No 'expenses'.

I think it's really hard to keep track of how much you are spending on food as opposed to other things. I do know exactly how much we spend in supermarkets, however that will include cleaning products, paper for the printer, socks, stamps, cards, birthday party presents etc. etc.

You have to get down to the level of scrutinising shopping receipts to work out how much you spend on food. I would be worried if Milliband had time to sit down with his calculator and a pile of receipts each week. I would also be surprised if he had trouble buying food based on his household salary.

I want him to care about families who struggle to pay for food and do something about it. He doesn't have to be that family.

I don't think that's an unlikely amount. My bill for food is probably around that amount and I have a teenage son who is a bottomless pit. How old are the children?

perhaps his maths is as bad as yours - where on earth do you get the idea he earns £7 - £8k / week? he earns precisely a third of your minimum amount. I earn more than him and probably pay that much / week on groceries if things like cleaning products are taken out (Like him however I do get q a few meals care of the office / kids have lunch at school)

Why do you assume he's lying?

There are 5 of us and on the weeks we don't buy booze, we can eat very well for that amount. Just for the record we buy no meat at all, and eat a lot of beans, tofu and eggs with most things being made from scratch.

Does he have children?

He's still got just one stomach and one arse. Where do you want him to put all that food?

Agree with DenzelWashington

It's a bit of a daft point-scoring question tbh but he had to have an answer to guessed and probably got it wrong. I don't know how much I spend on shopping in a week, and I do it . I do a big delivery from Sainsburys about once a month and then bits from the local supermarket most days. I also don't know how much a pint of milk costs because I just put it in the trolley and I'm not price sensitive to milk - mainly because I know the supermarkets make sure they all charge more or less the same for those kinds of things.

It does always frustrate me when people say politicians are out of touch. They actually are more in touch than most people - because they have to manage constituency issues which means sitting with people in bleak church halls, trying to sort out issues about housing, benefits, gas bills etc etc. I have worked for an MP on constituency issues and several others on other matters and they were all very conscious of how people live because it's their job. And even when they become very senior and have local reps to run their surgeries for them (probably Ed M does this and DC and all the other party leaders and ministers) they still cut their teeth on local issues, doorstep leafleting, tackling constituency issues. It's a huge part of the job.

I'd like to know where you get your information about his wage from!! 7-8k a WEEK?? That's total bullshit. He will earn a lot of money but it will be closer to 150k per year not 400k.
I agree he clearly spends more than that a week on shopping but perhaps he doesn't do it himself so doesn't know?

Threads like this irritate me