On Newsnight yesterday Jon Cruddas, MP and head of Labour’s Policy Review praised Food Banks ..
He said “Food banks are here to stay”.
Labour would support them as part of the ‘self-help’, community organising politics that Cruddas sees as part of the party’ new agenda..
On the 13th of December Cruddas said,
in the early years of the twentieth century, the Labour movement was about creating a responsible society, driven by collective self-help. It was about nurturing a common life in the face of the dehumanising force of industrial capitalism
In fact the early 20th century was when the labour movement dropped the old, narrow ‘self-help’ of friendly societies, mutuals, and craft unions, and backed universal welfare provision, industrial and white-collar unions for all.
Cruddas then referred to this,
(the) emerging debate about the relational state and about relational welfare and about self-regenerating communities.
Like the ‘Big Society’ this gibberish seems to mean: people doing things that public authorities should pay for, and do, and making those on benefits dependent on the good will of “communities”.
This means more Charity, Food Banks included.
Or as one section of the Cruddas Blog cites a Dagenham Church group, “Starting a Foodbank seemed the most obvious way to communicate God’s love in action.”
Jon Cruddas is MP for Dagenham and Rainham and is head of the Labour Party’s policy review.
The deserving poor of Dagenham got a tasty hamper this year (see here)
