David Cameron is being totally disingenuous on food banks

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.

Foodbank numbers

38 Responses to “David Cameron is being totally disingenuous on food banks”

  1. Newsbot9

    Ah, “just” the poor who are struggling financially – i.e. all of them. And the very little support the state gives…and the Charities who don’t cover everyone, and are seeing funds dry up, because disposable income is plummeting.

    And of course you’ll us any excuse to excuse your vicious attacks on the poor. Keep ignoring the facts! Obesity in the middle class is one thing, the problem with malnutrition and starvation in the poor another.

  2. Newsbot9

    Yes yes, keep claiming the very clear statistics are lies to suit your hatred of the poor. And of course you think the poor getting some basic food is “twisted”.

  3. Newsbot9

    That’s right, you keep up your hatred and bigotry. Keep telling people who work that they should be able to teleport to the shops from work, to make it there before they close. Keep telling them to eat nutritionally inadequate food on a permanent basis.

    Keep on telling them they can afford to buy in bulk, keep on assuming that fuel is free. More important to you that you take away their laptop, which they need to keep track of basics and to work on.

    It’s the usual sick hated of the poor from your far right. (And of course you need to trash the NHS to stop them from carrying the cost of the meagre diet you allow the poor to eat….and when prices rise again, they won’t be affording THAT).

    Keep calling starvation a “sob story”, as your over-entitles backside coasts on unearned income and corporate welfare.

  4. SadButMadLad

    So it’s you who don’t think well of the poor if you think every single one of them is struggling financially. Very progressive of you to think that all poor are the same. Nope. Wrong. Many poor survive quite well.

    I thought the state gave a lot of support. It provides free health care, a roof over someone’s head, and many other benefits. Benefits that have over the last few years increased at a rate higher than inflation.

    Obesity is not a class issue. All classes suffer it.

  5. SadButMadLad

    Now you’ve seriously lost the plot.

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