Who's The Daddy: Things used to be tough, but not as tough as these days
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All we were taught about money as kids was that there was never enough of it. And there really wasn’t.Having said that, it wasn’t that difficult to buy a house and raise a family in it in comfort on one wage.
The little town I grew up in wasn’t particularly rich or poor.Most of my friends’ families didn’t have a car, and if they did they only had one. We were lucky that, thanks to the world-class shipyard down the road and the Cold War that had been raging for a few decades, anyone who wanted a job could get one.A bit like now really, but for different reasons - cheap foreign labour going home after Brexit and the glut of post-Covid over-50s saying “sod this” and jacking in their jobs.But even in those dark days when it felt like the country was falling to bits around our feet, I can’t remember anything in our humdrum little town that resembled a food bank.Food banks have been around for a while now in post-Dickensian Britain.
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Hide AdFor some unfathomable reason some Tory politicians have been known to use them as a photo op, cutting ribbons with a huge grin, whereas if by some miracle I was elected to office and one single food bank was needed on my patch I’d resign in shame.The eating v heating question has largely been made redundant, as thanks to the cost-of-living crisis millions now can’t afford either.Anyway, the reason for this week’s tirade.
We’re lucky enough to live in a pretty nice part of the city. Yet round the corner from us something’s opened up that most of us had never even heard of a few months ago - a warm bank.Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey.
If there’s a need in our society for a church hall to whack on the heating for a few hours so people can get some respite from the cold, something’s gone horribly wrong.And, as predicted in this column a few months ago, all the little strikes are joining hands now to form one big general one. Which, as history tells us, is curtains for any government.