Hungry Brits will die of starvation as food and energy prices soar, warns poverty campaigner Jack Monroe.
Ten years on from appearing in this newspaper with her baby son to highlight a food poverty crisis, Jack says the situation is worse than ever for vulnerable families across the UK.
“People will die of starvation,” Jack tells the Sunday People.
“An elderly man got in touch with me to say he went to bed eating a teaspoon of toothpaste to stave off his hunger, just to feel like he had something in his mouth.
“He was just drinking pints of water to try and fill himself up.
“There is another woman who contacted me to say she hasn’t eaten for six days. People are literally starving.
“The only thing that really seems to have changed in the past ten years is that queues for food banks are getting longer, prices are getting higher and the number of people who are destitute is rising – the situation is getting worse and worse and worse.
“Food poverty used to be an abstract concept to a lot of people. Now it has ceased to be something that affects only a handful of people, but is the reality of life for millions.
“The cost of living has become extortionate, that’s the only thing that has changed in the past ten years.”
Over the past decade, Jack, 33, has worked her way out of poverty and written best-selling cookbooks of her austerity recipes.
She is also an impassioned political campaigner, using her voice to fight for the poor.
But she still remembers her first interview with the Sunday People like it was yesterday.
“I can’t believe a decade has passed since that Sunday People article,” she says. “I look skinny, pale, haunted, exhausted, defiant and scared.
“But my heart breaks more and more knowing millions of people are in this situation now.”
The official cost of living rose by 5.4% in the 12 months to December – the highest Consumer Price Index rate in 30 years – which sounds bad enough.
But Jack says that measure grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation for people on low incomes, with some everyday food items increasing by a staggering 344% in a year.
Her Twitter thread on the matter has gone viral with millions of views.
Meanwhile, six million Brits face fuel poverty this spring as bills get set to increase by another 50%.
Foodbanks handed out 32 meals a minute over the past six months as hungry families struggled to feed themselves – and the problem is only going to get worse.
Council tax bills could soar by as much as 6% this April while a 1.25% hike in national insurance will make hard-working families poorer.
Small businesses are increasing prices in a bid to survive after lockdowns ravaged them.
A recent report by The Resolution Foundation predicts higher energy bills, stagnant wages and tax rises could leave households with a £1,200 a year hit to their incomes.
Campaigner Jack says: “When you see those figures it’s easy to be overwhelmed but we have to remember that every single of of them is a person whose life hasn’t worked out the way they had hoped
“The causes of all this are sat in government.
“How can ministers pretend to be appalled by this when they’ve systematically removed the entire construct of a social safety net over the last ten years?
“It’s like going up to a kid in the playground, punching them and stealing their lunch money, then being surprised that they haven’t got any lunch.
“The Government is literally taking lunch money off us which has been made worse by the axe of the £20 Universal Credit uplift – they’re taking £20 off starving children.
“It stinks. Sometimes I feel like I have no anger left. But that only lasts fleetingly and I get absolutely furious again.”
Jack repeated the exact same shopping trip she did for the Sunday People ten years ago, showing how she fed her and her son Jonny, now 11, for just £10.
The price of her basket of basic food items, which included bread, jam and tinned soup, has increased by 74 per cent from £10 to £17.11.
Jack says: “Me and Jonny were really struggling with just that £10 and I would skip meals.
“So I don’t know how families will survive today with this increase.”
Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Jonathan Ashworth, said: "After years of the Tories, foodbank use has exploded and more children are growing up in poverty.
"Rocketing heating bills, price rises and cuts to help like Universal Credit will hit struggling families even harder.
“Instead of trying to save the skin of Boris Johnson, Tory MPs should be implementing a cut in VAT on fuel bills and more help with heating bills to support families.”
Scandal of strugglers hit hardest by Jack Monroe
I woke up one morning last week to the radio, where the presenter was talking about the cost of living rising a further 5%.
But the Retail Price Index (and Consumer Price Index) that they use for this calculation grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation as it happens to people with the least.
This time last year, the cheapest pasta in my local supermarket (one of the Big Four), was 29p for 500g. Today, the cheapest pasta is 70p for 500g.
That’s a 141% price increase – and it hits the poorest and most vulnerable households the most.
This time last year, the cheapest rice at the same supermarket was 45p for a kilogram bag. Today it’s £1 for 500g. That’s a staggering 344% price increase.
I could go on and on: curry sauce was 30p, now it’s 89p – a price increase of 196%.
A bag of small apples was 59p, it’s now 89p - and the apples are even smaller!
When I started writing my recipe blog ten years ago, I could feed myself and my son Jonny on £10 a week. The exact same shop now costs £17.11 from the same supermarket.
The system by which we measure the impact of inflation is fundamentally flawed – it completely ignores the reality and the REAL price rises for people on minimum wages, zero-hour contracts, foodbank clients, and millions more.
For as long as I can remember, my local supermarket had more than 400 items in their value range, now it’s just 87.
And the boss of Iceland admits it is losing customers not to competitors, but to foodbanks and to hunger.
That is a phenomenally terrifying thing when even the budget supermarkets are too expensive.
More than anything, the Government needs to listen and be held to account.
