Lee Anderson MP for Ashfield is a pompous, ignorant, patronising oaf

[newnamethanks]

Mr Anderson invites us all along to his local food bank to see how they do things there. If you're poor enough and don't have any food you can register there for a handout. You have you sign up to be taught to budget and cook and be properly grateful. So, great. Budget with the cash you haven't got in the first place then cook with the fuel you can't afford. Reminds me of something I read in "Wotking Class Wives" a study of poverty in the 1930s. Lady Health Visitors were surprised that when some people were rehoused from the slums into houses with gas cookers, they continued to cook on the fire. Because, like now, they couldn't afford 2 amounts of fuel, gas AND coal. Such progress we've made in the last 100 years. I'd like to kick his arse.

Sorry duncin, traditionally it's 'cooked water ' and I've read that during the Nazi occupation a stone was sometimes added to boiling water when cooking foraged wild greenery, most of the other ingredients having been commandeered by the Nazis. Although it's a meal as you describe, it can also mean it's a meal even less than gruel. I'm going now in case Lee Anderson finds out that dandelion leaves are edible and selects a squad of the impoverished to collect them to make themselves some wholesome salads. Nothing wrong with dandelion leaves but you wouldn't choose to live on them.

It's policy @GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing, break it to re-make it. All of our institutions are being defunded, demoralised and deconstructed. Police, GPs, Dentists, NHS staff and hospitals, Emergency Services, Prisons, Schools, Universities, Libraries, etc. All of it and more is slipping away from us and being flogged off to the Tories mates. Everything familiar to over 40s will be gone in the next 10 years. We are effed. I don't believe we can recover even if Bozo is slung out tomorrow. Very depressing.

I don't believe we can recover even if Bozo is slung out tomorrow.

I agree @newnamethanks .The damage the Conservative party has done to the UK in the past 12 years is so deep, I'm not sure we can ever come back.😡

Britain is fucked.😥

I don't disagree that people should know how to cook and budget. But I can do both of those things and 30p would be very hard to eat properly on.

I am shocked by the number of food banks to be honest. I think shelter, warmth and food are basic human rights.

I think shelter, warmth and food are basic human rights.

They should be. Unfortunately the entitled and the rich believe that their money should be much more a priority than human rights and this Tory government agree with them.

Disgrace!

Apparently only a story because the nasty BBC has broadcast rubbish. He gives £1000s and he's doubling down on R4.

Not sure it it's true, nor whether it will come to court but -
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/15/food-writer-jack-monroe-sues-tory-mp-claims-she-makes-fortune-poor-lee-anderson

I think it might genuinely be more likely to generate pressure for change amongst the readers of the popular press if there were more stories about all the dogs being abandoned and starving. The owners will be blamed but I wouldn't be surprised if there was more empathy for the desperate from those stories than there would be from stories of freezing and hungry families and children.

I wonder if there will be a particularly strong turn out in Parliament of Conservative male MPs seeking to ask questions when the nearest opportunity presents?

For all you unreasonable people who asked the Chancellor to completely remove all the effects of inflation on everyone and who ridiculously expected the PM to use magic to prevent all inflation again for everyone, please don't embarrass yourselves and compound your unreasonableness if the hard working government announce a windfall tax this week. No, it won't have anything to do with the publication of any reports, it's because the government cares.

I would think Lee Anderson understands pretty well what its like to be poor, mining communities aren’t known for their affluence. The growth in the number of foodbanks isn’t due simply to more people being in poverty (how that is measured isn’t exact anyway) but the fact that they are accessible to anyone.

Working on council housing estates (which I did) is a good example of seeing how differently the same income can be used in various households with similar needs. Learning how to budget, how to avoid expensive debt, and how to cook cheaply are all skills worth having, especially when money is scarce.

Really Seymour? Nothing I like better than ensuring my salary is in my bank account then hopping in the Jag to get to the Food Bank in time to grab some cans simply because they're free. Can't move in there sometimes for the amount of well off mums and dad's jostling for a handout just because it's accessible to anyone congratulations to you, you have all the compassion and understanding of Mr Anderson himself.

I thought you had to have a referral to go to a foodbank anyway? And were only allowed to go a certain number of times, or something like that?

As Newnamethanks points out, it is certainly not a case of well-off folks skipping off to get freebies.

Lee Anderson is 55. When he was growing up in his mining community, the world was a completely different place - and he hasn't kept pace with it, as evidenced by his tone-deaf comments.

The 'people will come for it because it's free' argument is one the Tories have been using for years to sweep growing poverty and inequality in the UK under the carpet. Slowly, slowly people are starting to see it for the bullshit it is.

Look at the leader of the Tory Party and how he is being supported by Tory MP's despite breaking the law, lying to Parliament and bringing the role into disrepute. So - why does Anderson and his behaviour surprise you?

Well the only surprise is that, in the face of unarguable evidence that he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's still prepared to open his mouth and display his ignorance loudly and widely. But it's just a moment of surprise. Look at the rest of them, as you say. Maybe he passes as a learned intellectual amongst them.