Jack Monroe again

[scabbers44]

Has anyone seen the recent tweet about her pawning/selling three diamond engagement rings? Aibu to think if you are pleading poverty and asking the general public to donate money one week and then showing off pictures of three massive diamonds you own the next, it's never going to go down well? Especially when you are already being challenged on lying and grifting?

For a long time I thought JM was nothing but a force of a good but I can't understand how she can be so tone deaf. It can't be deliberate but equally how can she not realise how it looks to produce three huge rings just a week after claiming she's so skint she needs handouts.

Apologies if there's already a thread on this.

I see it a bit like MLM companies. It has no bearing on me because I would never join one just like I would never donate to Jack. But it still annoys me when I see the huns LYING about their earnings and trying to convince others to jump onboard too because it's morally wrong. And it should be called out because there will always be some who fall for it. These threads aren't witch hunts or nastiness for the sake of being nasty. I think people deserve to be in possession of the facts before they throw their money away.

The sad thing is a lot of her followers choose to ignore the facts because they have her on some pedestal of sainthood where she can do no wrong.

It doesn't make what she's doing less morally wrong though.

Lol @Oblomov22 Takes ages to get other things deleted but link to Tattle and POOF!

She was with Allegra, then Louisa. Still has work and contracts in 2022. I can't accept the plea of not being able to afford soap in 2022 for the last 2 years.

Oh. Sorry. Didn't know that Gem. Genuinely.

I know a teenage influencer and all the freebies they get, and the money they make. No way is she not getting the same opportunities.

So she always made a big thing of costing out recipes exactly (which I thought was a great idea at the time), and therefore is handy with a calculator.

So why go about taking out lightbulbs unless it’s for performance poverty? I posted a few days ago on another thread about how little lightbulbs cost to run. As it’s summer you only even need lights on for a couple of hours a night - one lamp for a couple of hours costs fractions of a penny. Much less than buying solar lights in the first place. She should be able to work this out if she can cost recipes so I conclude it’s all for show. The same applies to the “making shower gel from soap” thing - it’s a nice enough thing to do if you’re bothered but you can just use soap in the shower anyway (millions of people do and it’s not hardship - I prefer it) and it doesn’t actually save much money as Tesco Essentials shower gel costs 30p and would last a careful adult at least a few weeks. Again, it’s all for show. Not disputing that some people are this poor but I doubt she is.

I don't understand the hate. She is clearly troubled, chaotic and her own worst enemy. But I do believe she tries to do good, and needs understanding not hate.

I follow her on twitter, and see her cycle through her highs (loved up, work success) where she tweets about her hard life turned good, and making it to the other side. She (over) spends her money, and is happy to show that.

Then she hits a manic campaign phase, and does obsessive, unpaid, work for weeks, about issues she cares deeply and personally about. She tweets constantly, gets on TV and the papers, and triggers constant online abuse.

Then she burns out (relationship breakdown, health flare up) and falls into self pity and, I believe, genuine misery.

I would love to see her disappear out of the public eye, and live a boring happy life.

@Oblomov22 Has to melt down soap...when you get shampoo and shower gel for next to nothing if you go to somewhere like Savers. It just doesn't ring true.

If you're paying 94% of your income on rent you right totally fucked yourself over. If she doesn't make that much she took out that rental based on her ex partners income knowing that her ex partner owned another home. That's nobody's fault but her own.

MLM is the perfect comparison, @scabbers44 as they prey on the most vulnerable too.

Why are people so happy to overlook things like buying expensive dogs while being so hard up you have to boil soap to make shower gel? Her USP of being a food poverty campaigner is a noble one. But scratch the surface and it's a VERY different picture.

Also on the podcast thing - if you subscribe, or use patreon to support you get something back, usually the advert-free version of the podcast. It's not the same at ALL as being asked to donate regularly month on month to support the general living costs of the host, who is claiming to be in poverty.

Her recipes are truly disgusting and it's clear she doesn't like food or understand even basic cooking. She's the acceptable face of poor to the middle class media who wouldn't know what to do with a non-white, working class, poor person on benefits speaking about it to the various news outlets that have her on.

Her socials show a huge house with a huge garden that she rents in a lovely area full of lovely and expensive furniture. She has posted about a brand new designer dog and a new (hideous) tattoo in the last few weeks. But is also boiling up soap and hasn't had a haircut in two years and is poor as a church mouse.

She has so many engagement rings because she does a lot of proposing and gets dumped fairly often.

She never signposts anything that can help people on her twitter platform, local initiatives, foodbanks, community projects etc. It's just a steady stream of posting her PayPal details and ranting like a sixth former about the Tories.

If anybody can tell me something tangible she's actually done for anybody I would be genuinely amazed.

I just had a quick search and found this: www.bbc.com/news/business-60287010. Asda had removed a lot of their Smartprice range from their supermarkets in early 2022. Jack complained, they listened and responded.

inews.co.uk/opinion/jack-monroe-help-poorest-cost-living-crisis-mps-done-year-1461833. “Along with economists, charities and statistical experts, Monroe is working on a new price index to measure the cost of basic foodstuffs. While keen to act on the current emergency in living standards for the poorest, she has her eyes on the long-term change such an index would secure.”

So it seems Jack has been busy in 2022. The price index will be very important in tracking basic food costs for those who are struggling on very low incomes.

Sadly two words apply to everything she does...
Attention seeking

@CaptainMerica this is a very accurate cycle of her behaviour and up until recently it's not something I've really had an opinion on other than finding it a bit cringe and struggling to warm to her as a presenter. But when you start conning vulnerable people into giving you what little they already have based on lies, well it's not on is it? That's where the hate is coming from.

All I will say is that Nigella Lawson had sussed her. Look at her reply to a tweet a couple of weeks ago saying how it was “unfathomable “that she is still broke.

Jm is obviously mentally ill. Needs to step away from twitter.

Needs to get a normal job.
People who have worked with her say that she is impossible, because of her illness probably.

And I think that’s maybe why she hasn’t got a normal paid job like most people

Asda have been rebranding all of their "smart price" items away from green/white packaging into a "just essentials" range with yellow/white packaging. I shop regularly there and while this has been going on, there have been periods that you couldn't find certain items - they didn't have the budget full fat cream cheese for about 4 months in my store.

But Ms Monroe is claiming to have single-handedly made the entire chain rethink their policy? Asda has always positioned itself as the value supermarket. They never had a policy of not selling the cheaper range. But again, superb PR for Jack Monroe.

How much did the recent tattoo cost? And the designer dog? Because you can't claim poverty and no soap for 2 years, if you've just spent £1000's in the last few weeks.

Especially as she refers to boiling it – the energy cost at the moment would far outweigh just… using soap. She’s so far from poverty she’s forgotten what it actually is. A whole post on having purchased things for insurance against poverty, and the list is a Burberry coat and a Vivienne Westwood dress? She’s an idiot.

But she never will step away from SM. For the good of her own MH. Because she's fixated on the attention.

It's like that show where people had to live like Victorians for a month or something. I don't know how making your own soap is cheaper than buying super cheap ones. She'd be better using the time spent doing that earning some money - after all, she has a platform and plenty of opportunity. In an hour of soap-making she could earn enough to keep her in soap for ages if she was sensible about her opportunities.

@Pollianne the price index thing is a great idea! But it was mooted about six months ago and doesn’t exist yet. You don’t get credit for coming up with a good idea until it’s actually been completed.

The Smartprice thing was due to availability in one supermarket. Asda were already working on expanding their range and have launched new products recently. Which is absolutely nothing to do with Jack. This was in the pipeline long before she was moaning on Twitter about her local branch.

Where is the VBI? Because I haven’t seen any evidence that it exists, only people talking about how wonderful it’s going to be and how hard Jack is working. There’s already a website that tracks supermarket prices called Trolley. What will the VBI do that’s better?

I tend to agree that she is a troubled soul and it might be better for her own mental health to get a real job and live life out of the public eye for a while.

But I don't see her preying on vulnerable people in the way MLM does. I don't believe anyone who is hard up would feel pressurised to donate to her, and I suspect she doesn't get that much money from all her PayPal links. Some admirers might bung her a few quid every now and then, but being in the public eye doesn't necessarily equate to being loaded. She will have had decent advances for her books but may not have a regular stream of income from them.

There is also a definite trend to rubbish everyone who claims to speak up for the poor. Martin Lewis is getting attacked at the moment. JM did a great job getting poverty talked about and actually some of her recipes are good and really practical. She gets fuel poverty in a way that everyone sneering at "if you're sick of spaghetti hoops wash the sauce off" doesn't.

All I will say is that Nigella Lawson had sussed her

Sadly not. There's a lot of love bombing from Nigella to Jack.

I saw on Jack's Twitter this weekend, her various TV appearances re Tories / poverty. She was vague & hyperbolic, and had nothing specific to say in terms of what action should be taken. Some of her points were cringily nonsensical eg 'get the energy companies to absorb the additional costs' with no actual details of how it might be possible. I'm amazed that serious broadcasting has her as a commentator as while her points are valid, she has no practical suggestions, no substance & isn't very well-informed. It feels like she ticks a box for them - 'Jack Monroe, anti-poverty campaigner' - and they don't care what she actually says.