Jayne Dowle: Arrogant Gove in need of a diet of humble pie

IF Michael Gove is going to make pronouncements on why people are relying on food banks to feed their families, he should at least find out what he is talking about before he opens his mouth.
Michael GoveMichael Gove
Michael Gove

I’m not sure when a detailed knowledge of food banks came under the Secretary of State for Education’s brief anyway. His insensitive comments were a response to a query from Labour MP Luciana Berger on where school uniforms are available. He’s on something of a mission to expand his portfolio though. So he seized this opportunity to make a point.

However, his arrogance is not only an insult, but shows the extent to which he is divorced from reality. How dare this highly-privileged man suggest that individuals end up queuing for what’s donated because “they are not best able to manage their finances”? Isn’t that what food bank users are actually doing – managing their finances? Saving money to pay for other necessities, such as the rent or the gas bill? And what does he know of individual circumstances? Does he think anyone would seriously trade in a proper supermarket shop, with choice and everything, for a pick over what’s left that day?

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Reliance on food banks has tripled in the last year, according to figures from Oxfam. More than half a million people in the UK are now thought to depend on the hand-outs they provide to survive.

What should this tell a senior government minister about the country he serves? No doubt some of these people will be at the food bank because of the wrong decisions they have taken in life, as he also suggested.

However, Mr Gove should condemn a little less and try to comprehend a little more. How many women ask for their husband to walk out, taking his monthly salary with him? How many workers volunteer to lose their steady jobs when a factory closes or an office relocates abroad? Who sticks up their hand and offers to accept a pay freeze for three or four years?

We might be responsible for our own predicaments, but we’re not responsible for circumstances beyond our control.

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I can’t help but wonder when the top Tory last did a proper supermarket shop himself. I’d bet my weekly food bill – around £120 for four of us, if you’re interested – that it’s all done online at Gove Towers.

Perhaps he should talk to Asda’s chief executive Andy Clarke, who’s right there on the frontline. Mr Clarke is warning that households face at least five more years of financial pain. It’s an interestingly political salvo. The talk recently has all been of recovery.

If Mr Gove was to venture to his nearest Asda though, he would see that not everyone uses a credit card for groceries by choice.

Thousands of respectable families have no alternative but to put this basic necessity on plastic, along with the mortgage payments and the car tax. Food banks are just the iceberg above the waterline.

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That’s why the Asda boss is urging the Chancellor to lift the income tax threshold not just to £10,000 as is planned for next April, but to £12,875. This would give those on the lowest incomes a break. And of course, it could stimulate profits for his store, because even the poorest customers would have just a little more cash to spend.

Supermarkets are in a tough market. Morrisons is the latest to announce a drop in pre-tax profits; down from £440m to £344m in the half year to August. In April, Tesco’s profits fell for the first time in 20 years. These big retailers are under siege from discount stores such as Aldi and Lidl. Pound shops are selling milk, biscuits and crisps. That might not represent a huge market shift in itself, but every little is helping to chip away at the retail hegemony of the established “Big Four” – Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons.

We must also factor the rise in food-shopping online into this. New industry figures predict a 126 per cent growth in this sector in the next five years. It’s convenient, it saves queues and cuts down on car use. It also stops shoppers giving in to impulse buys and special offers in-store, affecting profits and demanding costly investment from retailers to keep up.

What does this say about our attitudes towards what we eat and how we get it? That we face a nation divided: one half clicking away on their broadband connections, happily anticipating doorstep delivery, the other half standing there with the begging bowl out. It’s like the 1920s all over again. Except the butcher boy’s delivery bike has been replaced with an Ocado van, and the soup kitchen has become the Salvation Army food bank.

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I fear that Mr Gove might find the politics of food shopping even more complex than the politics of education.

He might be better off keeping all his eggs in one basket for now. Otherwise he’s going to end up with one all over his face.