poorer people are less likely to have access to WIFI/Internet. That’s a big problem right there.
4 Likes
Thats why you have the second option(receipt/clubcard).Most people already use this type of thing in shops and it says nothing about weather you have money or not.
1 Like
If they got Candy Crush, they got data 
2 Likes
I don’t think the solutions are that difficult. It just needs the government to sort it out without employing a mate, and some middle man to ramp up the prices and skim a heap of money off the top.
They’ve literally gone from providing fuck all to providing fuck all but spending a huge sum of money at the same time. It is this government in a nutshell.
Food parcels are not the way to go as the only provide the basics. We all know you need a few more staples that live in your cupboard and you only resupply on a monthly basis or whatever.
4 Likes
That applies to a lot of nations, unfortunately 
2 Likes
Not all shops use the club card system do they?
1 Like
We’re talking about supermarkets which i’m sure are the same in most countries.
Spar
M and S
Tesco
Dunnes stores
Superquinn
Lidl(recently setting up scheme)
In Ireland all of these have a clubcard(under other names) type of scheme and have done so for years.At least 3 of them have a huge number of grocery stores in the UK(surely they have similar there).I am unaware if the likes of sainsbury,morrison and asda have similar types of schemes but wouldn’t be surprised if they did.
2 Likes
Sainsbury have the Nectar card and Morrisons have their own More card.
Asda I don’t know about.
2 Likes
Just Christmas, Birthdays and other celebratory anniversary’s.
3 Likes
I wasn’t aware of the lidl one (requires downloading an app, which may be an issue). Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s do. Asda doesnt. M&S i would assume is more expensive for its food than the other supermarkets. Morrisons also has one. I don’t think Aldi has one, but would be happy to be corrected on that.
1 Like
Just for clarity we are dealing in LOYALTY cards here, I mean its about loyalty, nothing to do with having data on your shopping trends so you can be exploited on price.
4 Likes
If you’ve been following Jack Munroe’s tweets today, you’ll have seen really frustrating stories. Lots of people DMing their shit food parcels, reporting problems with the voucher schemes (One woman’s vouchers needed printing, she was told to go to the library, which is now closed).
I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with this is to just give people the thirty quid in cash. Give people the basic human dignity of being trusted with money in the same way as everyone else is.
And before anyone says ‘but they’ll spend it on booze and fags’. I’ve three thoughts on this.
-
I don’t care. The number of people who abuse benefits payments is incredibly small. It is not worth the layers of admin to police the system for the majority because a small minority would piss it up again the wall.
-
If you care about people abusing public money, let’s start with these cunts first.
Honestly, it’s sickening how many people are happy to put the boot the boot into poor, vulnerable and probably ill people spending their benefits in ways that they deem unsuitable, but barely ruffle a feather at the billions that get creamed off the public purse by politicians and their hangers on.
- At noted in the thread already, giving people enough money to buy food tends to reduce spending on smoking and alcohol, as people are living under less stress.
10 Likes
3 Likes
Also worth noting that the food parcel posted in the original tweet was for 10 days I believe.
2 Likes
i had posted this in the wrong thread…what a noob!
4 Likes
10 years ago I was student in the UK and had a young daughter.
Because I was low income, I was entitled to a scheme called “Fresh Start”. Every week I was sent vouchers that could be used at any supermarket, and could only be used for Milk products or Fresh food. It was brilliant.
When thr Tories came in and scrapped this as part of the austerity cutbacks. Don’t remember any claims of abuse.
This is the exact same system they should have implemented.
6 Likes
Googling they do have it still. It’s called Healthy start
edit, I think I might of mixed up the healthy start/best start with Child Trust Fund (a different initiative for poor families that got cancelled)
2 Likes
The demonisation of poor people as scroungers unable to be trusted to spend a few measly pounds on food has been ongoing for years. In the run up to tory austerity, we were softened up and drip fed a series of tv programmes about dole scroungers and benefit streets and the arse wipe rags like the sun constantly slandered (and still do) the lower class on the back of a few no-gooders that did cream the system. Anyone buying into this shite is either daft or a bigot.
It’s staggering that many would deny millions of needy people the dignity of £30 to buy food of their choice due the risk of a very small amount of them choosing to buy vodka or cigarettes, and would gladly hand over the money to well heeled companies to take a massive chunk of it as pure profit, especially when you consider the actual impact of the much smaller portion of food going to the people who need it.
9 Likes
Hear hear.
1 Like