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?

Anyone who can stand up to hateful people like Hopkins is fine by me. I think she has upset Hopkin's supporters.

I also didnt know she had an 'ok' background, I think I must have just believed the rhetoric

Are we back to saying there’s worthy poor and unworthy poor again now?

I’m not JM’s biggest fan but she’s got mental health issues - it’s fair to imagine these contributed to her being in poverty in the first place. She was a young single mum who couldn’t manage the shift work of the fire service with childcare. That’s legitimate.

People experiencing poverty aren’t all the same. Some are born into it and it’s generational. Some fall into it through a series of unwise decisions. Some have mental health problems. Some aren’t educated. It’s often a mix of a lot of things.

I’ve got no idea about the MP and whether he’s ALSO got lived experience of poverty. But what he said about JM is pretty bloody appalling. You may not like her, she may be a hard person to like consistently, because she behaves in an often hard-to-like manner, but it’s offensive to say she’s got rich by exploiting poor people.

Her books haven’t made her rich. Because of her difficult personality/mental health issues too she’s not managed her fame or - alleged - fortune well. That doesn’t make her some calculating rich con artist. It’s sad, really.

Anyone who can't live comfortably on the money she is making is really not in a position to advise other people on how to budget.

He didn't say 30p per meal, he said 30p per day and you have to go on the course to obtain a food parcel. No matter which way you swing it, making people jump through patronising hoops in order to obtain food is abhorrent. He also believes food bank use is overstated and most users don't actually need a food bank. He also claimed people say they're disabled to get benefits which is categorically untrue, disability benefits have one of the lowest levels of fraud simply because of the volume of evidence required to make a claim, and undermines the difficulties disabled people have.

He is also the same MP who said we should have forced work camps with people in tents in fields, knock them out of bed at 6am to pick fruit/vegetables, back to the tent at 6pm for a cold shower and lights out, then make them do it again the next day.

He also made racist remarks about the Traveller community, has been investigated for antisemitism, and boycotted the England games in the Euros because they're "supporting an ideology that undermines our very way of life" (that ideology was Black Lives Matter).

I'm not saying he's a cunt but he sure does make a compelling case for it.

Exactly this and it makes me so cross.
She has no idea what it's like to choose between heating or eating when you have a young child.

And yet she writes this...

"My food writing was an accident, dredged from desperation, paucity and despair. Tapped out on a Nokia E72 mobile phone, to the background harmonies of debt collectors banging on the door for the energy bill, and the mounting bank charges that rocketed into quadruple figures for a £6 missed bill. Sitting in a cold, uncarpeted flat, moving tin cans from the food bank around on the floor, chopping and changing a soup recipe.
I didn’t have a plan. Poverty is lonely, and isolating, monotonous and hopeless and grim, so I wrote about it because I’ve always written about things. Its how I process them, and anyway, nobody read my silly little blog so it didn’t matter. I documented the drudgery, the fear, the immobilising helplessness and depression, and I did it because I was planning to kill myself, and as niche and secret as it was, I wanted there to be some kind of record left of this excuse for a life when I was gone"

Are you saying she is lying?

Wow what a nasty woman pretending to be all kind. Hope this is shared and re shared. Awful people let their true colours show eventually.

Slightly off topic, but who in earth buys her cookbooks - using the term loosely here. The BBC once tried to subject the long severing public to this pretender and her recipes and cooking skills were an embarrassment. Though I suspect she was proud.

On what grounds? You can only sue for defamation or libel if you can prove that what is being said is factually untrue.

Think what you like about Ms Monroe - I'm not a fan. Think what you like about the Tory MP - ditto.

But from my understanding of the facts, there's no defamation here.

I think there is an incredibly large difference between someone who presents actual recipes and ingredients that can be used to cheaply feed people nutritiously, having been tried and tested by someone who has been in that position, and someone who has never even been close to imagining what it must be like to be that poor and make those hard choices, spouting ignorant rubbish about how it's very easy to feed people for 30p a day, without suggesting what to cook or how, or where to buy it.

Monroe saw an issue - food being too expensive - and lobbied a supermarket to bring back a value range so the poorest could still have a choice in some cases. I haven't seen a Tory do that.

There was an article in today's Guardian about how the poorest are disproportionately put on expensive ore-paid meters and in some cases are shutting themselves off from having the ability to heat, or safely store food. They're requesting food from banks be the kind you can eat without heating.

I don't like Monroe's manner particularly but she has proven that her experience and interests lie with the poor again and agains, and I find the snooty whataboutery on this thread nauseating. Yes, she has a book deal now. What of it? Presumably the poor should stay poor and be grateful?

Anyone who thinks she won some sort of moral war with supermarkets needs to realize that she is just a vacuous vessel. Big corporations need useful idiots like her to make themselves look all kind and caring. Asda got some good press out of it.

I think he'll find Jack Monroe has made significantly less 'off the poor' than many businesses that have bankrolled the Tories. I'm sure she is comfortably off now, and well deserves to be, but I see no suggestions she's living the high life.

@AllotmentTime is quite right, all she has done is help people. And she's allowed to make a living from that - she works hard and it, and on top of poor mental health has to deal with extremely nasty abuse from sneering people who don't like to see people do OK for themselves and not automatically become Tories, as if the Tories are owed support the minute you've got a decent standard of living. And she makes a lot less profit than bookmakers and payday lenders who only cause harm to the worst off..

Her cause is very noble but she is very unlikeable
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A succinct summary! I don't think this thread will last but her back story is a bit hole-y and her continued insistence that she is very poor when she has an extremely well supported Patreon is a bit odd.

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Whatever you think about her, she's campaigning very effectively for people who are living in poverty. She's sharing tips and recipes that do work. She's showing empathy for people.. I think many of you need to separate your personal distrust of her from what she's doing.

Lee Anderson is an arse.

I think there is an incredibly large difference between someone who presents actual recipes and ingredients that can be used to cheaply feed people nutritiously, having been tried and tested by someone who has been in that position, and someone who has never even been close to imagining what it must be like to be that poor and make those hard choices,
One of them grew up in a working class area in a working class home in an area of severe deprivation.

The other went to a grammar school and her father has an MBE.

I hope she sues him and I hope she wins.

I totally agree.

Fairly obviously because the tories are the reason why so many people are - in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, let's not forget - in food poverty.

People dislike Jack Monroe for the same reason people dislike Jamie Oliver, for some reason you shouldn't try to champion causes if you have dared to be successful. Oh no, Jamie is trying to help kids, how dare he grumble grumble.

Presumably the poor should stay poor and be grateful?

I don't think people are saying that. I think it's more that she didn't grow up poor and was only poor for really quite a brief time a long time ago.

She has never claimed that she can't. Her knowledge comes from the days before she had any income from books etc.

Are you seriously comparing Jamie Oliver the chef with Jack Monroe the…well, what exactly is her talent again?

How very dare you spit facts?

She was never poor. The value ranges were never dropped. It's all just a massive grift.

You can ask about it on Twitter if you like but she'll just block you.