The first food bank in the United Kingdom opened in 2000 in Salisbury during a Tony Blair led Labour government. Twenty-two years later there are now over 1,500 food banks throughout the country. In that time a succession of governments, Labour, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition, and the following Conservative administrations, have simply failed to deal with the problem of growing poverty.

It is not just the politicians of all persuasions however, society has proven just as apathetic. The fact that over 2.5 million people are forced to use food banks in order to eat does not seem to cause outrage in the larger population. The UK is supposed to be the fifth richest country in the world and the fact that it has a massive poverty problem is something that it shares in general with other wealthy nations. In the UK the poverty rate for all people is currently measured at 22%.

Earlier this year, Tory Councillors unwittingly provoked public anger after being pictured eating a buffet prepared for them in celebration of opening a food bank in Dartford. I say unwittingly but the fact is that they probably did not stop to think about either the need for the food bank or what would be considered acceptable behaviour when visiting one. Why should they? Society has been quite blasé about the growth of these symptoms of growing distress. It has comfortably accepted them. Supermarkets replete with foodstuffs even encourage their customers to buy extra items and drop them in convenient boxes intended for delivery to the nearest food bank. Labour MP’s visit food banks and extol the virtues of the volunteer staff and what great work they do!

No one ever seems to stop and ask the question, why do they even exist?

Eating is not a human right, it is a human necessity. Starvation ends in death. However, we live in a country that has made money its universal god. Profit over people. To paraphrase the Tesco supermarket motto, every little helps them get richer. The concept of charity, of doing your little bit, acts as a salve on people’s conscience, at least those who believe that they have one. Many people feel better about themselves by giving a little something to charity or even buying from charity shops. It has become accepted as a good thing to do, but again, it seems as if no one asks the question, why do charities exist in the first place?

The truth is, as I have written previously, charity is also a big business with an annual income of over £48 billion. Charity exists to fill the gaps in care that society does not cover, but why does society choose to allow charities to continue to exist and not deal directly with the problems that have been identified? I doubt that there is any single reason to explain this, but I am pretty sure that it is not cost related; after all, the estimated wealth of the UK as a country is £14.6 trillion. It is probably more to do with a question of priorities, those issues covered by charitable organisations rating very low I expect.

I believe that it is a mix of general social and political apathy that not only allows poverty to continue to exist, but to exploit it in various ways as well. The individual gets to feel good by either volunteering or donating or raising monies. Charity is also seen a religious virtue so churches are often going to support it as well. Most people accept charitable endeavours as good causes. Politicians can visit not only food banks but other charitable organisations and be seen in an almost guaranteed good light by potential voters, unless they are Tory councillors from Dartford, obviously. It does not matter that no charity has ever solved the problem that they originally came into existence to address because they make too much money for that to be a concern. Indeed, most charities maintain rather vague objectives, such as to offer support only, as anything more definite could measure their effectiveness.

The truth is that continued existence and growth of charitable organisations in Britain is a symptom of the social disinclination to do anything constructive about the many various ills that they appear to seek to address, be that disease, homelessness, medical research, or victim support; everything that a truly caring society should care about in respect of its members. The German comedian, Henning Wehn said ‘We don’t do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of government’s responsibilities’.  In response to this, Kimberley Ferguson wrote in Charity Comms, a membership network for professionals working in UK charities, ‘Putting the accuracy of this statement aside, it is widely recognised that in the UK, charities support the most vulnerable who would have otherwise fallen through the gaps’. The gaps exist for the vulnerable to fall through because society allows government to avoid meeting its responsibilities. As long as charities exist so will all of the problems that they supposedly address, including poverty, which has now become normal and socially acceptable.