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?

[Clymene]

@FitAt50

So many horrible nasty people posting on here. Jack does all she can to help the poor and hungry and has really put presure on supermarkets to do more. We do have a terrible habit in this country of attacking the people at the bottom, whilst ignoring the millionaires who cause all these issues. SHAME ON YOU

She'd help a hell of a lot more if she paid her bloody taxes.

[dragonatetheparsnips]

Doesn't matter about personalities or what you think. She has done shit-tonnes to support people in poverty - including sending her recipe books to food banks and saying that they can photocopy the hell out of them - and he has claimed over £200,000 in expenses for every single bit of his grift.

And I don't think she would sue unless she thought she could win. Some very specific things have been said on Twitter - for example that she earns more than the prime minister. Pretty easy to prove that or not.

Incidentally, books are not a good way of earning a living and most authors have other jobs.

[WarnerSisters]

What @Clymene said. It’s absolutely cosplay, but because she ticks lots of lefty liberal boxes, people like me supported her for far longer than we ought. Total
grifter, terrible cook, and anything that does work is lifted and tweaked from Nigel Slater and other successful food writers.

JM provides a really interest object lesson in purity spirals and tribalism: you look the right sort and say you have the “right” enemies, so you can join our gang, regardless of your actual behaviour and actions. How often has she provided ANY of the things she’s promised on social media? The donations, the freebies, the support systems, the charitable organisations? Where’s any evidence that she does anything for those in poverty other than charging them for her books and encouraging them to support the patreon?

Just because that Tory MP is a gross buffoon, doesn’t mean what he’s saying is false. Stopped clocks, and all that.

[Sorrynotsorryyeah]

@FitAt50

So many horrible nasty people posting on here. Jack does all she can to help the poor and hungry and has really put presure on supermarkets to do more. We do have a terrible habit in this country of attacking the people at the bottom, whilst ignoring the millionaires who cause all these issues. SHAME ON YOU

Go on Tattle Life and read the threads on her there, where all of her lies are exposed, with evidence to back it up. That might make you see things in a different light.

[dragonatetheparsnips]

Also, people are flawed, all of them. No one is all right or all wrong. I think Boris Johnson is predominantly an imbecile but I will concede that he was utterly right to arm Ukraine when he did.

She clearly gets on peoples nerves - but as a fellow ADHD person I know I do that too - but if any of you have done one quarter as much to help people in poverty as her, then do tell us about it and then criticise her actions not her life.

I suspect that most people on here don't like JM because of the inconvenient truth that their lives are built on a level of affluence which many people don't have, and they don't like facing up to the inequality of how they live, or the exploitation involved in it.

[ThinWomansBrain]

Jack Monroe has undoubtedly moved away from poverty by writing cookery books and newspaper columns based on a period in her live where she was poor and living on benefits. I don't like the persona all that much, but I doubt it was the truly impoverished shelling out £15 for a cookery book or buying the guardian.

I don't like Lee Anderson much either, & not defending him; I've no reason to doubt his backstory that his upbringing was poor - complete arse for what he said - but it does seem that he genuinely volunteers at thefoodbank, and in a discussion on Radio 4 this morning he said that his most recent donation to the foodbank was £1k; apparently he donates all monies from media articles etc.

So - two not particulalry likeable people having a media slanging match. The joys of free speech.

[Trainbear]

@Mayorquimby2

Good to see other right wing grifters being pulled in to the fray.

Hopefully bankrupt a couple of them and if we're lucky ruin their lives.

We won't be lucky though. It will just set up a further grift to fundraise for legal fees and bang on about woke lefty lawyers trying to censor them.

Bitter a bit?

[FangsForTheMemory]

@FitAt50

So many horrible nasty people posting on here. Jack does all she can to help the poor and hungry and has really put presure on supermarkets to do more. We do have a terrible habit in this country of attacking the people at the bottom, whilst ignoring the millionaires who cause all these issues. SHAME ON YOU

Exactly this. I always wonder why so many on Mumsnet have such a down on someone who has helped a lot of people.

All the detractors - let's see you do more to help out then.

[sst1234]

@FitAt50

So many horrible nasty people posting on here. Jack does all she can to help the poor and hungry and has really put presure on supermarkets to do more. We do have a terrible habit in this country of attacking the people at the bottom, whilst ignoring the millionaires who cause all these issues. SHAME ON YOU

Oh dear, you fell for it.

[Dauncets]

Her dad owns half of Southend. Sure he could have given her one of his spare houses during the 18 months she spent on the dole after quitting her fire service job. Dunno why she didn't ask him to.

[Clymene]

Are there any other tax evaders posters would like to defend?

[sst1234]

@Clymene

She'd help a hell of a lot more if she paid her bloody taxes.

Yeah but, no but………

[Pumperthepumper]

The Tories have been in power for what, 12 years? And in that time have consistently voted to make conditions for the poor more and more shit. If I was Lee Anderson I’d be very fucking quiet about what people are doing about poverty in Britain.

[KnitPurlKnitPurl]

I think this thread just proves that Jack Monroe / Melissa Jayne Hadjicostas has done a fabulous PR job.

People truly believe that she was this dirt poor girl from a dirt poor background, with no other option but to live on a shoestring. Despite lots of evidence to the contrary.

And the MP, who was from a very poor background in a deprived area is the affluent, middle class grammar-educated type.

[sst1234]

@Dauncets

Her dad owns half of Southend. Sure he could have given her one of his spare houses during the 18 months she spent on the dole after quitting her fire service job. Dunno why she didn't ask him to.

But that wouldn’t make a good story then, would it? Virtues must be signalled. At very given opportunity. At every given opportunity, I tell you!

[Pumperthepumper]

@KnitPurlKnitPurl

I think this thread just proves that Jack Monroe / Melissa Jayne Hadjicostas has done a fabulous PR job.

People truly believe that she was this dirt poor girl from a dirt poor background, with no other option but to live on a shoestring. Despite lots of evidence to the contrary.

And the MP, who was from a very poor background in a deprived area is the affluent, middle class grammar-educated type.

I think it just proves that people are very blinkered to the damage the Tory government has done to Britain.

[Pumperthepumper]

@sst1234

But that wouldn’t make a good story then, would it? Virtues must be signalled. At very given opportunity. At every given opportunity, I tell you!

Exactly - like running budgeting classes from a food bank your own government made necessary for millions of people.

[dragonatetheparsnips]

@KnitPurlKnitPurl

I think this thread just proves that Jack Monroe / Melissa Jayne Hadjicostas has done a fabulous PR job.

People truly believe that she was this dirt poor girl from a dirt poor background, with no other option but to live on a shoestring. Despite lots of evidence to the contrary.

And the MP, who was from a very poor background in a deprived area is the affluent, middle class grammar-educated type.

Not really. I believe that she has done a lot to help people in poverty and draw attention to just how shit things are for some people, and that he is a stone-headed dolt without a single shred of empathy who supports a sleazy, heartless, self-serving political party.

It's about actions, not background or personalities. If who you were is all that matters, the Tories win.

[Dauncets]

@sst1234 yy signalled all the way to Patreon.

[StrawberryLipstickStateOfMind1]

@Dauncets

@sst1234 yy signalled all the way to Patreon.

She's making a couple of grand a month from that plus anything else.
Poor my fucking arse!
She was in Venice recently, then ten minutes later couldn't pay her bills.

She properly boils my piss.

[Crikeyalmighty]

Actually I admire Jack, ok she may be not quite what people think and doing reasonably ok now but she is making use of what she learnt in terms of coping in the period in life where she had an awful time to maybe help other people. No different to those of us on here who try and support/help people in various situations we have experienced- but may not be experiencing right now.

Lee Anderson on the other hand is an arse , in more ways than one, a misogynistic big mouth who changed political direction once he realised what way the wind was blowing in Ashfield- I'm originally from that area and given that he's making exceptionally good money and expenses might have been better keeping his views on people's bad budgeting habits and Jack monroe to himself , she's actually a very smart cookie -

[newnamethanks]

You're right as usual @jgw1, poke one with a stick and they all come running out. Must be a slow weekend at CCHQ where they're probably having an essential working party. Shame about the rain.

[Crikeyalmighty]

@dragonatetheparsnips Totally agree- she's a very smart cookie - if people are daft enough to think she's dirt poor now then that's on them- doesn't detract from the message o feel, or the fact what she says may well help people -

[Clymene]

They are both awful people. One of them isn't lying about who they are and where they come from though.

[Pumperthepumper]

@Clymene

They are both awful people. One of them isn't lying about who they are and where they come from though.

One of them is pretending to give a shit about the poor while being part of a government deliberately making things much much harder for the poor.