Oxfam posted this image on Twitter as part of a campaign on falling living standards and poverty in the UK. Conservative MP’s are angry about it and regard it as “controversial.”
Lifting the lid on austerity Britain reveals a perfect storm – and it’s forcing more and more people into poverty.
Tory MPs have reported Oxfam to the Charity Watchdog for campaigning against poverty. I guess the Joseph Rowntree Foundation had better watch it, then. What next, will they be reporting the NSPCC for campaigning for children’s welfare?
The picture is part of a bigger campaign on poverty in the UK, and was posted on Twitter. Previously OxfamGB had invited people to hear how “we investigate the reasons why so many people are turning to food banks in Britain 2014”.
Another OxfamGB tweet said: “We think all political parties need to commit to action on food poverty in the UK.”
Conor Burns, Conservative MP tweeted in response:”This has lost you a lot of supporters. Very foolish.” I think he meant Tory supporters, as other people have realised that it is mostly the vulnerable who carry the burden of the Tory austerity cuts. Since when was a Government above criticism for its policies, especially when those policies are causing suffering and deaths?
Medical experts recently wrote an open letter to David Cameron condemning the rise in food poverty, stating that families “are not earning enough money to meet their most basic nutritional needs” and that “the welfare system is increasingly failing to provide a robust line of defence against hunger.” New research by Oxfam has revealed the extent poverty amongst British children living in poverty, with poor families taking drastic measures to survive. What kind of government is concerned only about critical discussion of its policies, and not about the plight of the citizens it is meant to serve? This is a government that attempts to invalidate the accounts of people’s experience of the suffering that is directly caused by this government. By blaming the victims and by trying to discredit anyone that champions the rights of the vulnerable.
However, Burns has now written to the Charities Commission requesting an investigation into the “overtly political attack” on “the policies of the current Government.”
He questions whether the advert is breach of Oxfam’s charitable status.
The Conservatives are said to be particularly angry at the inclusion of unemployment and high prices in the list.
Well we know that the government lies extensively, and invents statistics. We also know that government “employment statistics” include those sanctioned, those awaiting mandatory review or appeal, those on workfare, in prison, hospital or dead – anyone that has had their benefit claim closed for any reason, since people are not tracked to check if they have actually found a job – The Department of Work and Pensions measures “employment” by off-benefit flows rather than sustained job outcomes. This can create perverse incentives to coerce jobseekers into short term employment outcomes, rather than refer them to long term contracted out support. It can also create a perverse incentive to sanction claimants, as we know.
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