I think Jack Monroe is ace

[pigamus]

Seems to me that Jack Monroe makes a lot of noise, tells a lot of lies,

Such as?

[Huxleys Babkins]

I love that giving people tips to survive on fuck-all money is now seen as helping maintain Tory myths that it's possible to survive on fuck-all money.

We can only break the cycle by letting the poor starve.

[Icehaven]

Seems to me that Jack Monroe makes a lot of noise, tells a lot of lies,

And gets down tonight.

[The Ombudsman]

Seems to me that Jack Monroe makes a lot of noise, tells a lot of lies, misrepresents herself and perpetuates dangerous and pernicious Tory myths about how easy it is to survive on £20 a week - apparently OK when she does it, but not this Anderson prick.

Hopkins apart (and even then she didn't come out of that trial looking especially good) I am genuinely baffled as to why she is held in high regard. I also struggle to see what she has achieved on a practical level to help anyone other than herself. Seriously - what? Marcus Rashford got more done in his lunch hour than she has ever done and he isn't a cunt about it either.

I don't understand how you came to this opinion.

She doesn't at all say how easy it is to live off £20 a week, far from it. She talks about how hard it is when you only options for things is the value range and when that's not available you have to readjust your plans at the supermarket to something that can work. As well as carrying all that shopping back when you can't afford he bus etc. As well as seeing the prices for things increase to the point you can't get them any more. List goes on. As well as ensuring you are eating a balanced diet and not surviving on some Tories suggestion of plain pasta every meal.

Recently she worked with ASDA and resulted in them stocking their Smart Price range in more stores and stocking a fuller range at that.

[Johnny Yesno]

I love that giving people tips to survive on fuck-all money is now seen as helping maintain Tory myths that it's possible to survive on fuck-all money.

We can only break the cycle by letting the poor starve.

That Martin Lewis cunt is the worst!

[Kankurette]

What lies has Monroe told?

[Harry Badger]

I don't understand how you came to this opinion.

She doesn't at all say how easy it is to live off £20 a week, far from it. She talks about how hard it is when you only options for things is the value range and when that's not available you have to readjust your plans at the supermarket to something that can work. As well as carrying all that shopping back when you can't afford he bus etc. As well as seeing the prices for things increase to the point you can't get them any more. List goes on. As well as ensuring you are eating a balanced diet and not surviving on some Tories suggestion of plain pasta every meal.

Recently she worked with ASDA and resulted in them stocking their Smart Price range in more stores and stocking a fuller range at that.

She does say it can be done though(the £20 thing). She used to make a big thing of it. Manifestly it cannot without a massive existing cupboard of food, something she conveniently fails to mention.

The ASDA thing was total bollocks - she said they had discontinued their value range and that the price of the cheapest pasta had gone up 400% or something. The claim was alarmist and provably false. Naturally ASDA jumped at he chance to promote their value range.

Her recipes are badly costed, unappetising and lacking in nutrition. No struggling person would come home from work and want to make this shit. George Orwell had the likes of her nailed nearly a century ago:

"Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you."

As I said - she does exactly what Tories say - saying you can eat well for 30p a meal. It's bullshit and she knows it. The sad thing is there is a genuine conversation to be had here about teaching cookery as standard in schools, about food subsidies for those struggling, about the underlying reasons for the rocketing inflation. These can all neatly be avoided though by wheeling Monroe out to say 'Tories bad, lots of people are struggling'. Yes...and now what?

What lies has Monroe told?

Claiming to be working class and poor would be the most obvious one (she is neither). Repeatedly claiming to have set up Healthy Start vouchers would be another. That's before you look at her extremely questionable use of things like Kickstarter and Patreon and tax avoidance.

There is a good reason the likes of the Guardian and the BBC rush to the likes of Monroe as a mouthpiece of the poor. There is no way on Earth they would do so if she were capable of genuinely changing things for the poor. God help them if she is the best known poverty campaigner. Fascinating case though.

[The Ombudsman]

I'm not going to the bother of searching her tweets to counter your points above, but anyone interested can have a look and see most (if not all) of the statements Harry Badger makes aren't true. Can't speak about the vouchers bit as it's the first I've heard of it, otherwise I'd say all was bollocks.

[Gurke and Hare]

It certainly has the smell of bollocks - the wild, non-specific allegations with no actual citations of anything beyond an unsubstantiated assertion that a recipe is "shit".

[Johnny Yesno]

That tory apologist Ray Mears will have us all living in the woods next.

[The Ombudsman]

[Neville Chamberlain]

I think a salad-based pesto sounds pretty good actually. Thanks, Harry Badger! :-)

[bgmnts]

You can definitely eat for as cheap as you day because how on earth would restaurants make a profit otherwise? Buying ingredients cheap and cooking them.

[Johnny Yesno]

You can definitely eat for as cheap as you day because how on earth would restaurants make a profit otherwise?

By selling booze.

Also, economies of scale.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Blah blah shut up woman

[mjwilson]

The ASDA thing was total bollocks - she said they had discontinued their value range and that the price of the cheapest pasta had gone up 400% or something. The claim was alarmist and provably false. Naturally ASDA jumped at he chance to promote their value range.

She said that products from the range were not widely available in stores.

https://twitter.com/BootstrapCook/status/1487033090040115210

[pigamus]

It's hardly surprising they'd be withdrawing a lot of their value range with inflation as bad is it is, there can't be much profit margin on it, so it's hardly a thing you'd need to lie about

[dissolute ocelot]

She said that products from the range were not widely available in stores.

https://twitter.com/BootstrapCook/status/1487033090040115210

Asda agreed to carry the full value range in all their stores rather than 51% of their stores (and it's not clear if that 51% carried the entire range before). Doubtless they saw the PR value, but there wouldn't have been a PR value if Monroe hadn't raised it.

I wouldn't eat all their recipes. But in recent weeks I've seen people/Tories claiming you can live for a week on a 500 g bag of pasta, or can feed a family on nothing but lentils and "mixed veg", or mince, bread, and potatoes with no onion, spices, or green veg. In contrast Monroe's recipes resemble actual food and are fully costed, so you can see if they're lying.

[Gurke and Hare]

In contrast Monroe's recipes resemble actual food and are fully costed, so you can see if they're lying.

That's the thing - they document everything so assiduously any actual charges that might stick would be a piece of piss to prove. But it's always just general allegations.

[Emma Raducanu]

Does she have a decent recipe for gruel? That'll keep me going.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

gruel

does anyone else think gruel is an inherently funny word

[Pink Gregory]

does anyone else think gruel is an inherently funny word

it's at least as good as grits

[confettiinmyhair]

I think the suggestion is that Monroe's patreon takes advantage of people's generosity, but there's a grifter vibe to most influencers so it is unfair to criticise someone for making a living through social media platforms in this day and age.

I also think anyone who struggles, but breaks out of that struggle and finds any degree of success is seen as a 'sell out'. Almost like in the punk rock sense. People begrudge anyone 'making it'.

[Sebastian Cobb]

She's clearly doing good. Her main problem seems to be taking on too many things at once then having a bit of a breakdown when the stress gets too much, which only emboldens the people that love to pile on.

[pigamus]

She's going to sue the arse off Lee Anderson

Good

[Johnny Yesno]

Wow!



https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2022/05/12/jack-monroes-no-comment-response-to-30p-a-meal-tory-mp-lee-anderson-spoke-volumes/

[Pink Gregory]

good, shouldn't be giving the cunt any attention

[prelektric]

NVM - I was being an idiot.

[katzenjammer]

Wow!



https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2022/05/12/jack-monroes-no-comment-response-to-30p-a-meal-tory-mp-lee-anderson-spoke-volumes/

Harry Badger's right, clearly a wrongun

[bgmnts]

I'm confused though, if major supermarkets dropped the price of pasta to match lower wages, how will some cunts in suits make millions a year in profit?

She hasn't thought this through.