To think if you vote Tory now…

[Joanna1988124]

You’re effectively propping up this absolute shit show of a government and have no empathy.

I’ll be honest, I’ve voted conservative before as a middle class family their (taxation) policies have suited me more than Labour. I honestly feel ashamed of this and I wish I could’ve seen that the conservatives agenda of ‘levelling up’ is BS.

Regardless of your personal situation, enough is enough now right? People are reliant on food banks, they’re choosing between heating and eating. Austerity has been a total nightmare for society causing the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.

@Blossomtoes

I think you underestimate the very real hardship that some people are facing in this country

Indeed. And it’s a bloody picnic now compared with what some people will be facing next winter.

I agree. Anyone who doesn't believe there are increasing numbers of people in this country struggling to feed themselves is deluded.

I m sick of being told we must put our rights aside because there are more important issues.
Shut up women while we deal with the unemployment.
Shut up women while we deal with education,
Shut up women while we deal with education or the NHS or the economy.
Support the men to sort out their issues and we'll get round to yours. Except they never do and only under intense pressure or legal reviews.
We are always getting told to put our issues to one side while they deal with the bigger more important stuff.
Except if we sign our rights as a sex-based class away then we can no longer present the evidence that women are disproportionately affected by specific policies because the data underpinning all that is trash when a woman no longer means biologically female anymore.

@reesewithoutaspoon the government doesn't care. It's all quite sickening really

@reesewithoutaspoon I don't fully understand your last paragraph though can you dumb it down for me. 😊

I'll be voting Tory in our local elections for several reasons.

1: the local Tory councillor was the only one that helped me try to save the local playing fields. Labour and the SNP ignored the law and voted to build on them.

2: they have proposed to save single sex spaces

3: they're the best chance at keeping the SNP out.

@DragonOverTheMoon

To add to my previous post with figures supporting what you're saying, the Trussel Trust says of their food banks in their end of year report between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021:

"Our statistics are a measure of volume rather than unique users, the available data indicates that people received around 2.4 food bank referrals in the last year."

This means that 2.4 million food bank referrals and, therefore, food parcels being sent out does NOT equal 2.4 million people at all.

The Statistica link used by @Blossomtoes to suggest so is clearly incorrect which the website should correct.

Trussel Trust continued:

"For example, if a family of three were referred to a food bank twice in one year, this would count as six supplies on the system because it would reflect six instances of a supply going to someone in the household. However, if a family of three were only referred to a food bank once, this would count as three supplies."

Clearly, it's very lazy and faulty logic to think that numbers of food bank parcels equates to numbers of individual users known as unique users.

Referring again to an earlier study which was the first to suggest that headline figures have overstated how many people are ultimately accessing food banks. And they're not all in the most deprived areas.

Trussel Trust asserted that:

"Trussell Trust figures cannot be used to fully explain the scale of food bank use across the UK, because our figures relate to food banks in our network and not to the hundreds of independent food aid providers and community-groups also providing support."

This means there's no objective way of measuring how many people are really accessing food banks in total as unique users. People could access more than one food bank provider, but this doesn't tell us how many people are actually needing them.

Considering most users of Trussel Trust food banks need to access food banks once or twice in order to get out of a difficult situation, not very many are actually relying on them daily.

It adds up to a small minority of the total UK population of 66 million or so people are food bank users. Likely estimate is around 1 million people access food banks as unique users.

But NOT 2.4 million unique users as Statistica incorrectly record. They should change their site to reflect it as a measure of VOLUME which wouldn't then be misleading to people arguing against the actual stats.

Thank you for all of that @DownNative I know experience doesn't always equate with statistics but I'm happy to see they support my experience.

@DragonOverTheMoon

Thank you for all of that *@DownNative* I know experience doesn't always equate with statistics but I'm happy to see they support my experience.

No problem, you're welcome!

@Marney

If any party got rid of the you caǹ only phone for a Doctors appointment at eight in the morning when you join a hopeless qu e and finally get told at eight fourteen the appointments have all gone so phone another day at eigh r I would prob vote for them I've a potentially serious problem and it's the same every day.Otherwise I would vote Tory Iwalked the dog more than once a day and know plenty of p3ople who made the decision to stretçh the rules and take the odd extra walk

Have you tried accessing medical care via 111? I’ve found it really helpful when I couldn’t get a GP appointment. Described my symptoms, discomfort etc., they made me a next day appointment with a walk in GP centre, who diagnosed and prescribed necessary meds.

You can rubbish the stats all you like @DragonOverTheMoon and @DownNative but the fact that food bank usage has increased exponentially under Tory governments is unarguable. The fact that you’re both so smugly intent on being right just shows yet again what an incredibly low bar you set.

www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/

Food banks get used because they are there to be used. Before food banks there were crisis loans from the dwp (under labour). Some people (1 million out of 66 million) may need support in a short term crisis. That doesn't mean 1 million people are living off of refugee portions in this country.

This will probably change by the end of the year. Fuel, food and living costs are soaring. Then we'll have real poverty, but since labour ect have been hyperboling poverty and food banks they won't be able to get the msg out.

The issues with poverty and benefits are too complex to just chuck money at. Money in peoples pockets won't solve it. Education would help, lots more early intervention, real community support. Instead we live in a isolated society where people who need support don't accept it as they feel they don't belong in libraries and parent and baby groups. A person who grew up feeling connected to others would still take her dc to the park, the libraries and look for free things to do and healthy but cheap nutritious meals to cook. Someone who grew up feeling lonely (loneliness has the same rates of death as smoking 20 fags a day) would feel too awkward. That's the root of the issue, not food banks.

The issues with poverty and benefits are too complex to just chuck money at. Money in peoples pockets won't solve it.

You are an ideologue but just incase you are willing to learn

Education would help, lots more early intervention, real community support. Instead we live in a isolated society where people who need support don't accept it as they feel they don't belong in libraries and parent and baby groups.

Correct. What a shame Cameron closed all the Surestart centres the 97-2010 Labour government set up.

And that austerity reduced the number of public libraries by more than 10%.

They're all being opened up again under a different name @Blossomtoes they're to be called family hubs. Loads of great early intervention work is going on right now. Early intervention saves so much money down the road. I've repeatedly said on this thread Economically I agree with Labour. Gordon brown was an excellent chancellor imo, although the issue of benefit families started. I don't actually give a flying shit if someone wants to be on benefits for life, the rich get richer using all sort of schemes and lies so I don't give a shit at the other end of the scale either. The issue with benefit families ime is that their lives are usually pretty miserable, work and community are great MH interventions.

They're all being opened up again under a different name

Really? Why is the media not reporting it? And why were Surestart centres closed in the first place? Libraries aren’t being reopened or replaced with something else.

@Rainbowshit

I'll be voting Tory in our local elections for several reasons.

1: the local Tory councillor was the only one that helped me try to save the local playing fields. Labour and the SNP ignored the law and voted to build on them.

2: they have proposed to save single sex spaces

3: they're the best chance at keeping the SNP out.

They've been in power for twelve years and done fuck all about single sex spaces. They have a long, long history of lies and broken promises. What makes you think that will change?

I think public health are funding them. They haven't opened up yet but job adverts are going out and teams are being built. I'm quite tempted to join myself. I much prefer early intervention work than the fire fighting work I do.

@DragonOverTheMoon

I think public health are funding them. They haven't opened up yet but job adverts are going out and teams are being built. I'm quite tempted to join myself. I much prefer early intervention work than the fire fighting work I do.

So it’s a local initiative? Surestart was national and government funded. And no longer exists because the Tories closed it.

[quote Blossomtoes]You can rubbish the stats all you like @DragonOverTheMoon and @DownNative but the fact that food bank usage has increased exponentially under Tory governments is unarguable. The fact that you’re both so smugly intent on being right just shows yet again what an incredibly low bar you set.

www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/[/quote]
You're blatantly ignoring that Statistica states "Number of people" for the 2,537,198 million figure. Statistica is using the figure to represent total number of unique users.

And they're actually quoting the Trussel Trust's own figures. What does the Trussel Trust actually say about their own figures?

"Our statistics are a measure of volume rather than unique users, the available data indicates that people received around 2.4 food bank referrals in the last year."

In other words, 2,537,198 million does NOT mean 2,537,198 million people.

Sorry, @Blossomtoes, but you've shown you don't understand how to figure out how to record as well as read statistics. Statistica are misleading here and ignored what the Trussel Trust actually said.

Volume or individual users makes no difference. The increase is staggering, however you cut it.

My Tory voting FIL thinks people going into poverty is media scare mongering. Thinks there’s loads being invested in the NHS. Breaking the Geneva Convention and shipping out asylum seekers to Africa will be music to his ears. I just don’t understand how some people view life.

@Blossomtoes

Volume or individual users makes no difference. The increase is staggering, however you cut it.

Actually, it DOES.

It's a spurious correlation to think that increased usage of food banks means that more people are using food banks. Its NOT axiomatic.

After all, it could easily mean there are people using food banks multiple times which is what the statistics really tell us. This would then increase VOLUME for the Trussel Trust's food banks.

You might as well say that since sales of ice cream and cases of murder both increase during summer that means that ice cream is the murder weapon!

No it's national. Or so I have been led to believe. The money from gov is going to public health. But I may have that wrong, it may be going through social care funding.

It's really not Tories bad, Labour good. There are good and bad on both sides. You don't have to pick a side and defend it to death. Tribalism and attacking others if they don't share your belief is quite sad and a waste of energy.

I understand that @DownNative. Regardless of how it’s measured, just look at the size of the increase. If it was 10 or 20%, you might have a point - the increase percentage is 87,500%.