Are Our Foodbanks Too Exclusive ?
There is little doubt that more and more of us are struggling to keep ourselves and our families fed at present. This unhappy situation has arisen because of a ‘perfect storm’ of adverse circumstances and events that have hit us all over the past couple of years, and which shows little sign of abating. The pandemic is widely seen as the principal source of our recent decline in fortunes, but in reality our population demographics, Brexit, the Ukraine war, mistaken monetary policies and a decade of austerity introduced by the coalition government after the 2008 financial crisis, have all contributed. Food banks have been a lifeline for some of the least fortunate in society for many years. Until relatively recently, however, the numbers really needing to use them were relatively small. Over the past year, however, the added financial pressure of sudden-onset and rampant inflation, and the rush by BofE to raise interest rates in a vain attempt to restrain it, have pu...