This is the real “Broken Britain” – and it should be our national shame

At least half a million people are going hungry. That number had trebled over the past twelve months as a government’s failed economic policies, inflation, cuts and debt drive many families to destitution. But this isn’t a tale of some rotten tinpot country far from home. This is modern Britain. Welcome to Cameron’s Broken Britain.

The Independent reports this morning that the number of people visiting foodbanks over the last year has trebled, with conservative estimates placing the number of visitors at half a million. Some food banks have been forced to close in recent months as they’d run out of food. As the Independent put it this morning, we have a “hunger crisis”.

In the 7th richest country in the world, we’re unable to provide at least half a million people with enough money to eat. This graph from Left Foot Forward shows just how bad the situation is, and just how quickly it has spiralled out of control:

Yet foodbanks are just the – admittedly stark – tip of the iceberg, when it comes to Broken Britain. As well as being unable to provide one of the basics of human survival – food – as a society we also seem incapable of providing one of the others – housing.

The need for more (and affordable) housing will be well known to all LabourList readers, so I won’t repeat the arguments here. But the situation is currently so bleak that many families are forced to live in Travelodges and Premier Inns – at significant financial cost to the taxpayer and social cost to themselves – as a result of the housing crisis. According to the Independent (again – as they seem to be the paper most focussed on the national crisis that’s unfolding here) spending by Britain’s largest cities on so-called “bed and breakfast accommodation” has increased by 25 per cent the past year to £91.1m.”

We can’t feed people, so they have to rely on food banks to survive. We can’t provide families with the homes they need, so they’re rammed into one room at a Travelodge. This should be our national shame, but for the Tories, it seems that a miserable existence for those hit hardest by their economic reforms are just, to coin a phrase, the price worth paying.