Edwina Currie attacks food banks – says they “support the black economy” and damage local economies

Edwina Currie has written a blog for the Spectator on food banks. Brace yourselves – because it’s extreme even by her standards.

Currie seeks to ramp up the Tory line that food banks don’t mean greater poverty – and that people are just using them because they want free food. But she goes even further – claiming that food banks help the black economy and force food shops to close:

“Free food subsidises low wages; it helps support the black economy. It pauperises those it seeks to help. Like giving money to ‘homeless’ beggars on London streets, it encourages more of what it seeks to relieve.

The food banks can have pernicious effects on the local economy. Some Liverpool streets where I grew up have betting shops and pawnbrokers, but no food store. There’s no need for one, if enough local residents get their groceries free.”

Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to Edwina that food shops close because no-one can afford to buy anything? Here’s the full piece, if you can stomach it. It includes the usual tropes about “wide-screen TVs, the satellite dishes, the manicures and mobiles”. Nasty, but not original…