A Christmas Message about poverty

By Alastair Darling, MP and Ex-Minister responsible for much of it

dannyalexanderfoodbank1This Christmas time it’s important to remember others less fortunate than ourselves. The losers in the lottery of life; people for whom a cucumber face mask would be considered food.

We see them in every city and town… milling about next to all those new banks the Trussell Trust is setting up; which is living proof, I might add, that the UK is heading out of recession so we should pay no heed to splittist propaganda.

I mean more banks means a growing economy – even if it is for the odd past time of storing your groceries… what’s wrong with kitchen cupboards… has there been a spate of burglaries that’s made people want to store food in a bank? Who knows?!

Although in all fairness, they may just not have a kitchen anymore as they’ve been forced to slap a bed in it after the Bedroom Tax forced them to downsize to one of the very easy to find and unbelievably available 1 bedroom flats that litter the marketplace in the UK… which I understand are kitted out particularly well for the disabled and are far better than their previous homes.

Anyway, I digress. Danny Alexander has said that he and many other MP’s have even had photo-ops and grand openings at these banks, so at least there’s still a free party circuit on the go for these unfortunates to enjoy. However as you may be aware, this year there are thousands of children living in poverty.

I often talk on this subject but tend to come back to the wise words of my Lib Dem pal and Minister for Portsmouth, Alistair Carmichaelmoore. Alistair, or old bruiser as we call him – which is on account of his unbelievable ability to bruise and swell up like a banana under even the slightest pressure – anyway, he is quite philosophical about the whole child poverty thingy and says “no one can really know for sure, and since no one can know, is there even a single child in poverty out there? Doing something to help may just be wasting resources on phantom figures… I mean if a politician isn’t there to hear a child crying, do they even exist?”

It’s a conundrum that I have often asked myself as I travel around the world on my latest speaking appointment - £170k and counting – but you can’t dwell on thoughts like that as they only get you down, so instead I like to read the technical manual for an Astute submarine and thank god we punch above our weight internationally… I mean we would be in pretty dire straits if we were useless at home AND abroad.

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But as wise as ‘old bruiser’ is, it pays to be prudent, so this year I call on everyone, young and old, sick and healthy to give, and give generously by pooling resources.

And what better way to pool resources than to stay in the Union and ensure that MP’s like myself and others, are not cruelly stripped from our luxury lifestyle and future entitlement to a position in the House of Lords and that wonderful furry ermine.

We have all known hardship… your elected representatives are not asking for too much… just an 11% pay rise and poorer oversight of expenses; which I’m sure we all agree is fair… after all, fairness works both ways.

From my own life, I have always entered into the spirit of giving and have ensured that on each of the 4 times I flipped my main residence on my expenses claims; that when I got new white goods delivered, I always gave the box to the homeless.

Without that simple act of generosity, there would be 4 less homeless people sleeping in the luxury of a cardboard box big enough to hold an American Fridge Freezer; 4 less homeless children who would never have known the joy of a whirlpool bath, or any other make - other brands are available - and all have boxes good enough for a children’s annex leading off from the main fridge residence.

And even when I was living in my grace and favour home at no 11 Downing Street – renting out the flat in central London I was claiming expenses on – I never lost sight of the fact that homelessness was an issue. But with the right amount of passion, determination and… if I do say so myself… political weight, you can indeed make a difference.

And so it was that I made that difference…I will never forget the struggle, the difficulties and the heart-breaking stories I heard when I tackled the homelessness issue on my doorstep. The local council said it would take a while to round the little bastards up and move them to somewhere more appropriate, somewhere poor outside of Westminster, but I was pleasantly surprised at how ruthlessly efficient they were – thereby removing the homelessness issue that was reducing the value of my flipped property.

With the homeless now back amongst their own, I felt a warm glow. There was no need for them to thank me, their joy as they peered out from a little peep hole they had carved in the word Bosch was payment enough.

And its stories like that – stories that I hear time and time again from across these lands of people helping the hungry, needy, poor, downtrodden, abandoned, ignored and despised… and by god, there are a lot of those people in the UK today – that makes me KNOW that the correct course of action is pooling our resources, or rather pulling the resources of the North Sea to London, in order to help those people most affected by the current political climate… mainly those who have lost most… in bonuses and expenses… namely bankers and politicians.

Together we can ensure that no old person that freezes to death in their home from fuel poverty will have died for nothing; the mother struggling to feed her family on ever reducing welfare payments will not be struggling for nothing; the youth that are paying for their education and bonding themselves into debt slavery, shall not have lost their economic liberty for nothing.

No, for I am asking you all to pull together as Ed Milliband (the messiah of the UK) has decreed, and work as ‘One Nation’ under a Labour party – which is set to be elected against difficult polling results in a 2015 general election… honest.

Yes… this Christmas I want us all to unite, call out in unison and really RMT it home that we are better together pooling resources and helping our neighbours… after all that’s what the Union is all about.

Thank you and have a better together Christmas – it really is better together as you will save on your heating bill.


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