Today (Monday 8 March 2014) an All Party Parliamentary Inquiry has published an extensive report into causes of food poverty in the UK and has suggested some responses. Campaigners from End Hunger Fast were invited to the initial launch of this report so here are some reflections on where it has ended up and what that means for the rest of us.
Ebola, war, terrorism, injustice, inequality, squalid government, torture. Sometimes the inventory of cruelty and suffering seems overwhelming. The temptation to spiral into despair and the cynicism born of helplessness can assail us all. But sometimes a glimmer comes in the darkness and smallness no longer seems to equal futility.
The gap between very high incomes and low salaries has been widening for several years, says Laurent Schlumberger, president of the national council of the Reformed Church of France. Where governments and consumers are reluctant to act, there is still a moral imperative on high earners to refuse grossly unequal remuneration, he argues.
“Even the burial of his body in the Abbey was a species of theft when you come to think of it”. George Orwell's words came into my mind as I watched the ceremonies surrounding today's 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens.