Food bank near Truss and Kwarteng’s homes says locals need ‘torrent’ of help
A food bank serving the London neighbours of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng has said it will struggle to survive this winter without “a torrent of support” for families who were going hungry.
Greenwich food bank said it had distributed 92,000 emergency meals to residents this year – already more than last year’s total – and that it was forecast to hit 130,000 by Christmas Day.
Demand for food is now so great in the borough that a new food bank is poised to open just 500 metres from the £1m Georgian houses where the prime minister and chancellor are neighbours.
Jamie Ginns, the chief executive of Greenwich food bank, said it faced “serious operational issues” this winter that would be compounded if Truss’s government refused to increase benefits in line with inflation.
He said: “For over a year now we’ve been hearing stuff in Greenwich about people choosing between heating or eating. I spoke to one guy pretty recently who was having to cook entirely off a camping gas stove in his kitchen.
“Even the phrase trickle-down economics: people don’t need a trickle, they need a torrent of support, times are that hard.”
Ginns said there were “pockets of real poverty” in the streets surrounding the smart Georgian terraces where Truss and Kwarteng live, part of the so-called Greenwich Gang, which includes the pro-Truss former Brexit secretary David Frost and foreign secretary James Cleverly.
A survey of 64 food banks across Britain, carried out by the donations platform Bankuet, found that almost all were facing soaring demand at a time of falling donations.
Three in four of those surveyed said they were busier or as busy now as they were at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, while 47% said they had already given out “cold packs” to people
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