Lee Anderson, Ashfield MP insists Jack Monroe has made a fortune on the backs of the poor.

[newnamethanks]

AIBU to hope for a libel trial as entertaining as Vardy v Rooney and an outcome that rivals the Katy Hopkins debacle?

Presumably you missed all those Hello magazine type interviews with him in 2010 when it came up every time the Tories were challenged on health and disability. It was also being cited routinely in canvassing to shut down any suggestion that the Tories had a poor record on health and disaiblity.

In fact that whole campaign in 2010 was based on them no longer being the "nasty party".

He worked at the Sutton pit. It's on HIS Facebook and very easy to find. No mystery at all.

Thank you for your reply. I think your comment that there's not much on my list that your children would eat illustrates my point: we didn't have a choice as children; you ate the meal you were given, there was no plan B. How could there be? There wasn't anything else to eat -we had to eat those meals through the 70s and 80s

I note that you missed out the fact that there's not much that i would have eaten as a child either, despite being brought up in the 70s with not much money.

What you ate was based on what was available where you were and what you're mother was willing and able to cook. Thankfully things have changed since then, diets are more interesting, ingredients are more varied. My children also ate what they were given. They just weren't given the same things that I was in the 70s. That's a good thing.

Surely if you write a book you expect to get paid and if your book is focussed at a particular group then the allegation is incontestable?

Then again it's a Tory so behaviour to quote Lord of the Flies-
"Kill the pig, slit it's throat, spill it's blood" is Dr rigeur.

@teyallm is your post a joke?! You're sending her cash?! GTFO 🤣

@teyallm that's tax evasion 😂 Or more likely satire.

Don’t know why @teyallm ’s post was taken down by MN, but it did prove the point about JM in several ways.

It was probably a troll, sent here to discredit the entire thread. I can't believe someone could be that stupid, tbh. It's not beyond the realms of possibility but still...

Yet again, it wasn't cruel comments about his son. It was comments about him and the way he was using him for political ends. We will of course never know whether the endgame was privatising the NHS because Cameron fucked up and had to resign, but frankly given that he was very much in government for his own benefit and that of his chums it is highly, highly likely.

Sorry, meant to say that it was comments about him (Cameron) and the way he was using his son for political ends.

It's not a backlash for those of us who never believed any of the tripe she force fed us.

@AmwajAnnie Sutton pit that shut in 1989 when he was 22 ?

Really want to know what @teyallm post said now!

Yep. And the idea that the deliberate underfunding of the NHS for over a decade couldn't possibly have had anything to do with a desire to soften the public up for selling it won't wash either. None of this is to say Jack isn't full of shit about her background, I don't know anything about her, but the way in which her tweet was presented as being awful about a child's death is plain wrong.

He's worked at Sutton, Wellbeck, Manton and Creswell pits, there's plenty of reference to these on his own Facebook and website im not sure why people are making out he's secretive about where he worked, he's list them here. www.leeanderson.org.uk/news/brexit-coronavirus-and-everything-between-ashfield-mp-reflects-eventful-first-year-office
He's a twat in many aspects but the whole he never worked at a pit/why won't he say the pits he worked at posts on here and Twitter are weird when it's an easy Google.

Completely agree. I despise the man for various reasons but some in this thread are determined to make out he's lying about his background when he's almost certainly not.

It just smacks of desperation to paint him in an even worse light than he manages himself, as if that somehow negates what an arsehole JM is.

They can both be vile people at the same time.

I wonder if they will actually go through with this libel action because given the amount of media work and other funding sources (e.g. Patreon) they are either going to be shown as earning a decent amount by the standards of those they claim to be helping or they are actually nowhere near as influential as they make themselves out to be.

From what little I know of them, they do seem to play the "I did the poverty thing" card quite a lot. Which frankly suggests they aren't poor anymore. People genuinely on the poverty line tend not to have time to do what they are doing.

I'd expect them to be hoping that the nasty Tory won't actually call their bluff on this one.

As for the Tory MP, just because he's a Tory and even worse, male, doesn't make him automatically wrong. Budgeting and cooking courses, being as they aren't on the national curriculum, are a VERY good idea.

From life and work experience (single parent family/council estate/worked in both benefits and debt) some people are skint because they are truly, genuinely bloody awful with money as the MP in question probably saw quite a bit when at the CAB.

You can increase benefits by however much you want other people to pay for them but some people will not be helped unless they change their spending habits and decision making. Quite a few friends of mine if you gave them a £2,000 cost of living help cheque would have the lot spent in minutes on whatever caught their eye. Net effect? Absolute zero.

Is the backlash against JM because she's not in poverty anymore?

She was never "in poverty" any more than a middle class student is "in poverty" if their loan runs out before the end of term. She had a temporary cash flow issue 10 years ago because she quit her job. That is not the same as being "in poverty". If she thinks it is, then she is the last person who should be commenting about poverty.

Budgeting and cooking courses, being as they aren't on the national curriculum, are a VERY good idea.

If, as he claimed in the Commons, they're a condition of getting food then no they're not. That is support that should be available, yes, but it shouldn't be compulsory. It also far too often, and apparently in his case, goes hand in hand with a refusal to accept that it sometimes isn't a question of good management, there simply isn't enough however the cloth is cut. For some food bank users, cooking and budgeting courses will simply be a waste of their time.

We have had a poster say they actually aren't compulsory at that particular food bank, though I don't know whether that's true or not. If it's not compulsory then that would be better, but it would also mean he's either lying or doesn't know much about the food bank he apparently works at. Neither of which would paint him in a great light.

Good post @AppleandRhubarbTart

A lot of food bank users simply don’t have enough money. Inflation is at a 30 year high and benefits would need to go up by at least 8% just to match what they were a year ago. I was listening to someone on the radio talking about this, someone from Citizens Advice I think.

Personally I really hope the court case goes ahead. For far too long Jack Monroe has been enabled by parts of the media to have a lucrative ‘career’ based on very little talent, her shiftiness needs to be exposed in court.

I’m certainly no supporter of MPs like Lee Anderson, however JM is a classic example of the dangers of social media creating a Saint-like figure who becomes untouchable because of her curated and embellished back-story. On some level I feel deeply sorry for her - having created a brand based on her ‘tragic’ life but with no real skill or talent she has to continue making herself relevant by creating further ‘content’ through Twitter arguments and the retelling of her life story, adding additional emotive-laden issues each time.

However any empathy I feel towards her is eroded because she is so horrible to anybody who dares to utter even the slightest question about what she is presenting. I have a family member who is a narcissist and JM displays similar behaviour.

I wish people on this thread would open their eyes to the damage she causes.

Yes yes yes to this brilliant post.
The embellished grown emotive bs with each new post...ugh
And the horrid way her army jumps on top of anyone she points them to.its disgusting.
It's this saint like status.this superstar veil.people react yo her a bit like me a hinch armys.its worrying.

I can definitely say that not one of the local food banks near me insist on budgeting and cooking lessons. How absolutely patronising to people who have nothing. They don’t get given ready meals by our food banks. They get various food which can be made into meals. We do have a supply of recipes for people who want them though.

Id have no issue with cooking demos if they were voluntary and as an added offer for people who want them. In my experience though it’s down to lack of money not down to lack of budgeting and being unable to cook.

Again the recipes in Jack’s first book were generally good, I used them myself and I still have a copy of that book.

Recipes which can be made cheaply are fabulous but we need to stop talking about the pennies per portion unless we also include petrol/travel costs to get the ingredients, the energy cost in gas or electric, plus the cost of buying the whole pack of pasta/rice/whatever.

it’s never 30p a portion or 11p a portion unless you’ve taken those extra costs into account.