Yesterday during Prime Minister's Questions, David Cameron responded to a question on food banks by claiming that the use of food banks increased "ten times under Labour". When Cameron says this he is factually correct. He is being totally disingenuous, however.
Yesterday during Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron responded to a question by claiming that the use of food banks had increased “ten times under Labour“.
When Cameron says this he is factually correct. He is being totally disingenuous, however.
As the chart below shows, the number of people using foodbanks in 2005/06 – five years after the first one opened in Salisbury – had increased “ten times” by the time Labour left office in 2010. By more than ten times, actually; the real figure is closer to a seventeen fold increase.
What David Cameron fails to mention, however, is that whereas under the previous government the number of people using foodbanks gradually climbed over five years, under the coalition this figure has shot up dramatically – to 128,697 last year, an increase of 4,573% on the figures for 2005. (see the Trussell Trust graph below).
In terms of the number of foodbanks (as opposed to the number of people using them), the next graph below shows the rate at which they have increased in the last nine years. I don’t think it requires any further comment from me.
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38 Responses to “David Cameron is being totally disingenuous on food banks”
Newsbot9
Except, of course, the food inflation this century means it’s not cheaper.
Keep glossing over the malnutrition and starvation in the UK.
LB
You spent all the money.
Now they have no choice. Screw people with taxes and cut benefits.
Why the surprise. You caused it.
SadButMadLad
Food inflation. What’s that? Something you thought of? Real facts show that food is a lot cheaper than it used to be.
Just think of the many items of food that used to be real luxuries and are now so common they are eaten every week of the year. Food is so cheap now a days, that we even throw away good food. If it was expensive then people would not throw away even scraps.
In the 1950s we spent 25% of our income on food. Now we spend just 10%.
Newsbot9
Yes, you keep calling facts names.
And yes, you keep talking about what the middle class and the rich eat. The poor don’t. They can’t afford to throw away food.
That your rich and middle class spend less on food, when other costs have risen so sharply – keep up the plain denial of the facts on malnutrition and starvation.
Newsbot9
Yes, keep lying. Your rich are getting richer at record rates. Keep claiming there’s no choice but to carry out your genocide.