The Lord giveth and the Dark Lord taketh away. “I sometimes feel the main part of my job is to nod benignly,” said Justin Welby, nodding benignly at the launch of Feeding Britain, a Church of England-funded report on the increasing numbers of people using food banks in the United Kingdom.
Politicians on all party-parliamentary groups find it every bit as hard to stay on message as troublesome clergy, and the archbishop of Canterbury was doing his best to head off any trouble.
“This isn’t a political issue,” said Welby, crossing himself several times while offering an inward prayer that this white lie would be forgiven.
Even the miracle workers at the Church of England have been struggling to make five loaves and two fishes go round and the report’s two main findings were that the government and supermarkets should be doing a great deal more. His primary task, though, was to get everyone through the next hour without a fight.
Tory John Glen tried his best to remain neutral, professing himself slightly baffled that the government’s long-term economic plan should be working so well while so many more people were going hungry at food banks.
Then came, Lady Jenkin, normally considered to be rather brighter than her husband, Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin.
The problem, she declared, was “the poor do not know how to cook. I had a bowl of porridge that cost just 4p this morning, while the poor had to make do with a sugar-coated cereal that cost 25p”.
The poor also had to miss out on a decent bottle of champagne: Baroness Let Them Bake Cake is on the House of Lords refreshment committee that recently decided it didn’t want to share catering facilities with the Commons because MPs drank such rubbish champagne.
After that, the gloves rather came off. Labour’s Emma Lewell-Buck used her allotted two minutes to criticise the Department for Work and Pensions for five minutes on the delays in paying benefits that had been identified as a significant factor in food poverty. No one dared call time on her.
Having lit the blue-touch paper, this was the cue for the archbishop to remember he had a particularly urgent meeting he had to attend.
The ever-so-polite slugfest continued with a response from Rob Wilson, the minister for civil society, who didn’t appear to have noticed that a third of the report’s recommendations related to improvements needed in the social security system and wrung his hands in despair at the supermarkets’ greed.
Frank Field, the inquiry’s co-chair, willed the clock onwards so that everyone could tuck into cake made from leftovers. Of bananas and political consensus.
At times like this, the services of a peacemaker always comes in handy. Too bad, then, the Commons had to make do with work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, and his Duracell bunny – the employment minister, Esther McVey – at DWP questions.
“There are 300,000 fewer people in in-work poverty,” she said over and over again, implying some food bank users are just very greedy, before Rachel Reeves switched her off.
“I take this report very seriously,” said Duncan Smith, jotting down a reminder to himself to read it sometime.
“The department will implement an awareness programme.” Subject to the usual delays. The Dark Lord moves in predictable ways.
