But you come from Jon's ideal perfect heaven. A country where they don't do austerity; they tax the rich lots (so much that a communist presidential candidate complained they went too far); the government spends 53 out of every 100 Euros spent in the entire country (compared to our 40); where the mighty treasure trove that is the post office still belongs to the public...

France is a mighty beast of a nation that controls most of its major companies through state owned golden shares. Where the government won't let foreigners buy their bottled water brands, or their yoghurt companies because these are all so very 'strategic'. They have a much smaller financial services sector to make them poor than we do, but they still have two large car companies, and they make lots more handbags than we do.

They have excellent labour laws that make high unemployment impossible because it is much harder to lay workers off than it is here. And to keep their small businesses (where we all know all the jobs are created) vibrant they have excellent regulations to keep them all below 50 staff (because as soon as you hire the 50th worker to make or do stuff, you have to hire 5 others to fill out all the compliance paperwork you now qualify for). They don't have housing bubbles, and they don't have nasty little double-dip recessions (the dirty show offs are going for the triple this year!). All of these enlightened things guarantee prosperity.

Therefore France has no poverty, it can't, because they don't have the things that are destroying us and reducing us to poverty. The internet has spoken, stop fighting it.

Well, it is, just not for the reason she's claiming.

Surely the fundamental point though is that in what is, allegedly one of the top ten world economies, in a country where there is vast resources and wealth and where we have an established precedent of things like the NHS and the welfare state that, fundamentally, say 'we as a nation are prepared to work together to ensure the minimum possible number of us have to live in pain or misery' the fact we have a growing number of food banks and a growing number of people who need them should be a fact that is a national shame. We should be pissed off about it. We should be clamouring for it to be sorted out. We should, to put it bluntly, feel [LIFTED] guilty. The fact that the people who we appoint to run our country feel the appropriate reaction to this being pointed out - be it with an incorrect example - is to jeer and shout and act like schoolchildren is equally something we should feel ashamed of in front of the civilised world.

To barrack someone for pointing out there is misery around us which it is within our power to cure is a deeply crass and frankly revolting spectacle. If your reaction to poverty and distress is to laugh, you could do those of us who have some sense of decency a favour and go walk off a cliff. Whether the woman used as an example broke her arm fighting over a TV or loaf of bread doesn't change that at all.

The use of soup kitchens and food banks has reached an all time high, here in Germany.

While I fully accept that there is some genuine poverty I will always take what an opposition politician says in the parliament, which let’s be honest is generally because all they want is to embarrass the government in power / raise their profile / get re-elected, with a very large pinch of salt. I would also say that pointing out a similar situation over a TV is not “barracking”


Also looking for the story from a source other than the Daily Fail


http://money.uk.msn.com/news/supermarket-fights-over-cheap-veg
which is a bit less sensational than

and Slough is hardly the impoverished north - it has one of the lowest unemployment levels in the country in and around the area

I have in the past had to “fight” at the discount isle when they have put out ribs of beef / steaks because they are reaching their sell by date