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AIBU?

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Original poster

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

171 replies

sazham2 · 20/05/2014 09:56

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/

OP posts:
LadyWithLapdog · 20/05/2014 16:59

By the sounds of it, he does have an idea.

SnowinBerlin · 20/05/2014 17:08

Events, business lunches, expense fraud, you know...

When the Telegraph expenses scandal broke they did an MP Saints n Sinners List. Guess who was top of the saint list?

Right, I'm going to get on with some work now. I've defended Ed enough for people to suspect I'm Justine.

LadyWithLapdog · 20/05/2014 17:12

You've done a good job, SiB. Factual and kept your cool.

ILoveCoreyHaim · 20/05/2014 17:17

On the link I posted earlier you can see all his expense claims and what he claimed for using the search option. I think he claimed gas and electric and his brother also as well as TV licence and water rates. I would need to look again but it's all on there. I looked at all the claims for labour run Durham council and there were some massive claims which came to a huge amount between the 4 of them.

gordyslovesheep · 20/05/2014 17:19

well done SIB

I am mystified as to what an 'expensive comp' is ...

letsgomaths · 20/05/2014 17:56

Since when have politicians told the truth???

pigsDOfly · 20/05/2014 18:00

Not sure why some poster are talking about what they spend on food and how £70-£80 pw is feasible. I doubt the majority of poster on here have similar lifestyles to the leader of the labour party.

Does this spend include food for entertaining and for the live in household staff needs or is it just for the family's personal use? Because if it does then the figure is nonsense.

I'm pretty sure he has absolutely no idea how much his household spends on groceries, and why would he. I doubt he knows how much his office spends on printing paper either.

He has staff to do that sort of thing for him. The question is silly, lazy journalism. Does anyone really think that a man with his wealth in his position would concern himself with how much a packet of HobNobs costs.

LadyWithLapdog · 20/05/2014 18:05

Of course lazy journalists go for that. Then they can compare with man of the people who knows the price of a pint and a pack of fags. God, I hate all this.

Fluffycloudland77 · 20/05/2014 18:06

Wonder how much teasing his dw had today? "Beans on toast again tonight?"

If I earnt thier money I'd have a bottle of Chablis or Sancerre on the go every night.

I'd like them to realise just how bad it is, just because the average bill is X amount doesn't mean people can afford it.

prh47bridge · 20/05/2014 18:09

He went on Radio Oxford and said, "Well, I said this morning it was on the basic groceries, the basic fruit and vegetables, about £70 or £80". I think we can take it the Miliband family are definitely getting their five a day!

pigsDOfly · 20/05/2014 18:14

So now he's backtracking and saying that his family of four spends £70-£80 pw on fruit and vegetables? Bloody hell. Like I said in my pp. He has no idea; neither it seems do his advisers.

Who tells him to come out with this crap.

falulahthecat · 20/05/2014 18:19

I imagaine that when he said 'groceries' he menat literally just fruit and veg.... Hmm

LadyWithLapdog · 20/05/2014 19:13

I haven't heard the interview but I'd take the comma to mean 'and'. As in 'mother, father and child'. So groceries, fruit and veg. Has politics really come to this? That we have to disagree with everything that doesn't match our lives?

tb · 20/05/2014 19:15

Imagine he spends that on a couple of bottles of wine.

Tit.

Chunderella · 20/05/2014 19:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

shebird · 20/05/2014 19:29

It's perfectly possible that they spend this amount if they eat out a lot with work and the kids eat at school. Just because you are well off doesn't mean that they have to spend accordingly. Some of the wealthiest people I know are the most thrifty and love a bargain. My FIL is one, he loves shopping Aldi and Lidl but at the same time will think nothing of spending a fortune in a really good restaurant.

iK8 · 20/05/2014 19:44

His bowels must be very loose if he's eating his share of £70 of fruit and veg. Just sayin'

VIPissArtist · 20/05/2014 19:49

I would be quite surprised if he actually knows though and tbh I'd rather the leader of the Opposition was too busy to do his own Tesco order

Missing the point, eating is so basic and its a big thing at the moment - well since credit crunch, his aids, his people should be making him aware of basic things like average weekly shops...

I mean to really get to grips with the issues - people face should he do one shop...on a budget for his family?

Chunderella · 20/05/2014 20:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

VIPissArtist · 20/05/2014 20:31

Ed Miliband wasn't asked about the cost of the average weekly shop, he was asked what his family spend. Not the same thing by any stretch, and as such you blur two unrelated issues

If he has no idea of his own weekly shop how can he compare himself to others, how can he be real and with one of the people.

Lets say, he has no idea about heating, food, wages, petrol....and so on, fine but all of the prices of these things are the vital cogs of our lives, every day...

Great ED has no idea about these things, fine, just don't say your one of the people or getting tough on the financial crisis, because the reality is, your a stuffed puppet, but a rich puppet with no idea of peoples every day lives... being dragged around, told to say your getting tough on..real issues your working class fan base is facing.

VIPissArtist · 20/05/2014 20:34

I will add again, him doing a shop would be a good thing to do, however, I am not sure how busy someone would have to be, to ask his wife or his house keeper the cost of the weekly shop...maybe less than a minuets exchange.

You don't seem to think its significant, it is and indeed is very Marie Antoinette....let them eat brioche, a total lack of understanding of bread prices...it cost her her head it does matter.

merrymouse · 20/05/2014 20:50

The thing is, as other people have said, there isn't such a thing as a 'standard weekly shop'. Ed could wander around Waitrose, Tesco or Aldi doing what he thinks might be a weekly shop, but he could pretty much put anything in his trolley without worrying whether he could afford to pay the gas bill and, as has been pointed out many times, his shop would not be the same as that of a family who eats every meal at home and includes packed lunches.

There isn't a standard bread price either - it depends what kind of bread you buy - or indeed whether you buy bread at all or eat a gluten free diet. Outside the consumer price index (again information available from a statistician) we all put different things in our shopping baskets.

He should have an idea of how food prices affect the general public, but from one of his many researchers, not from popping into Tesco's or his wife.

missymayhemsmum · 20/05/2014 21:29

Most people have only the vaguest idea of what they spend on food each week, why should Ed be any different?
In looking at even the most basic household budget I'd think £80 a week was low for a family of 4, unless they all eat elsewhere most of the week.

VIPissArtist · 20/05/2014 21:48

Most people have only the vaguest idea of what they spend on food each week, why should Ed be any different?

Sounds very Marie Antoinette to me...except she would have been not vague but totally clueless.

Most people do know what their weekly shop is, actually, and know it to the last miserable penny.

OTheHugeManatee · 20/05/2014 22:53

VIP - that was kind of my point about the cost of living stuff sounding ridiculous, when it comes from a party stuffed with the rich children of politicos who clearly don't and probably have never worried about the cost of their weekly shop. Under Miliband Labour has ditched its origins and become a right-on but slightly directionless middle-class think tank.