Not so long ago, summer was the season when politicians mouthed a few platitudes before cutting the ribbon and declaring the church fete open, or donned a sun hat for a garden party, where the fruit punch would flow. It was a sign of how profoundly things have changed that last week Conservative MP David Mundell was invited instead to open a new foodbank in Dumfries. If he didn’t actually have to cut a ribbon, there was still a grim fascination in seeing him face the camera, not smiling, as at a Kirk tombola stall, but more like a rabbit transfixed by a stoat. Hearing the cries of those baying for Tory blood, he tried – unsuccessfully – to escape unnoticed by the back door. Had it not been for the fact that his party is more guilty than any for deepening the poverty this kind of refuge tries to relieve, one might almost have felt sorry for him.
It is one of the most shocking and bitter ironies of our times that just as real banks, those monoliths of greed and corruption, have risen from the ashes, dusting off their tarnished reputations and pocketing their bonuses, food banks have opened in almost every town and city. Whether it’s volunteers asking Tesco shoppers to donate tins and packets, churches taking special collections, or individuals seeking out their nearest warehouse to help stock their shelves, the food bank is to this generation what the soup kitchen was in the Great Depression: a shameful, heartbreaking necessity. That around a third of those requiring emergency supplies are children reinforces the ugly fact that this supposedly rich little country is also one of the most unequal in the western world. Hence the recent rise of the phenomenon known as “holiday hunger”, when children from families that cannot afford to feed them properly face greater hardship during the school break. Dickens made his name and fortune highlighting the plight of London’s destitute, but where are the champions of today’s poor?
Well, the Trussell Trust is one such, as is The Poverty Alliance, Scotland, a group that lobbies for improved welfare policies. Then there are individuals, such as the Aberdeen chef Bobby Beasant, who uses his spare time to cook for those living on the streets. Compassion like his, born of personal experience of homelessness, is humbling. But the general public is also generous, responding to appeals for food as willingly as if the responsibility for the hungry was theirs: which, to an extent it is. But as has been said repeatedly – to absolutely no effect – food banks and the goodwill they depend upon are not the answer to a problem of this magnitude. It requires action at government level.
Nor can the Tories be blamed for everything. There is absolutely no doubt that their welfare reforms and long-term economic strategy have helped create a situation where thousands cannot afford to eat three times a day, or go without food so their children don’t. Mhairi Black spoke movingly in her maiden speech of her Paisley constituent who fainted on his way to the job centre, for lack of food. But the SNP is in no position to be complacent. Answering Oxfam’s accusations, a couple of years ago, that Holyrood’s fiscal agenda had deepened inequality, Nicola Sturgeon said that one good reason to support independence was for Scotland to be given the powers to create a fairer society. On such a promise, some of us voted yes. She also said that she would consider the charity’s suggestion of appointing a tsar to tackle deprivation and endemic poverty in certain parts of the country.
But so far, no tsar. While one can understand that the issues underlying the problem are profound, far too deep to be solved by a single appointment, it’s also plain that something needs to be done, and fast. We cannot wait for Tory ideology or bureaucracy to change – granite will have crumbled before that happens. If the SNP truly means what it says about creating a more just society, the first place to start must be to put someone in charge of coordinating a response to hunger and hardship. No civilised country should be doling out food to keep people going over the weekend, or until a welfare cheque or payday arrives. That this is happening here, where the vast majority live in comfort or luxury is an indictment of our government’s political priorities, and the way it views the vulnerable and hopeless. Of course, a tsar would need a magic wand to wipe out all want. But, with imagination and an iron will, such a person might mean that one day food banks will be as much a relic of the past as Lehman Brothers.
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