Norman Tebbit has admitted people are being forced to use food banks because they are wrongly being denied benefits.
The Tory grandee, 83, recently sparked anger by suggesting claimants took emergency handouts to save money which they then spent on junk food.
But he said he was eating “humble pie” after seeing a food bank in action.
Writing on his blog, he went on: “I was impressed with the quality and dedication of the people working there.
There was a systematic approach to uncovering the deeper problems which had brought people to the point where they simply did not have enough money to buy adequate food.
Some had fallen foul of the bureaucratic processes of welfare support, leaving them waiting for, or even denied, the cash support to which they were entitled.”
Lord Tebbit, who once urged the jobless to get on their bikes and find work, had previously attacked the huge growth in food banks which handed out more than a million parcels last year.
They cannot really be looking into the needs of people in the UK because nobody has helped the Hamaz family get supplies from a foodbank, at least it has not been reported that they get any food from the local food bank, this could be that the area they live in doesn't have one, it being so upmarket.
If anybody deserved such help they must be high on the list of "needy"
quote .....
GROWING ANGER AS HAMZA'S FAMILY ARE STILL LIVING OFF STATE
There was growing anger last night that Abu Hamza’s family are continuing to be bankrolled by the British public.
As the hate preacher was convicted of 11 terror offences in the U.S., it emerged his wife and children are still being housed at an extortionate cost in one of the most upmarket areas of the country.
It is thought the family have cost taxpayers more than £3million in benefits and social housing, as well as legal fees for Hamza and his sons.
Hamza’s second wife Najat Mostafa, 55, with whom he has seven children, lives in a five-bedroom council house in Shepherd’s Bush, West London – an area popular with bankers and City lawyers.
Last night, neighbours said they were ‘sickened’ the family were continuing to benefit from state handouts.
Hamza, 58, has nine children – seven sons and two daughters.
His eldest son Mohamed Mostafa, 32, was jailed for his part in planning to blow up churches in Yemen on Christmas Day 1998.
He was jailed again in 2008, along with his brother Hamza Kamel, now 27, for their part in a £1?million luxury car scam.
Hamza’s fifth son Imran Mostafa, 20, was jailed for 11 years in 2012 for armed robbery.
Another son, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was jailed in February for 12 years for conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.
Maybe it is time we returned to our earlier system of law where lawbreakers were declared Outlaws, as in living outside the law, being outside the law meant that not only did they disregard the laws of the Nation but that they were not protected by the same laws, if you assaulted an outlaw nobody cared, the authorities did nothing because you were an outlaw.
Perhaps a little extreme but elements of that made sense, these days with prisoners sueing the authorities because they couldn't go outside during a hurricane or because the heating system failed in their cell you have to wonder who is being helped by the law and who is the victim of it.
With law abiding families being penalised for having an extra bedroom because their Son died and being encouraged to move into a smaller house would it be so wrong to move this family into cheaper accommodation up North ? we cannot afford the bill of trying to get them kicked out of the UK that is for sure.
A good idea, house rents in Stoke on Trent are amongst the cheapest in the UK and there is adequate housing meaning that local people would not be put out by the allocation to them, I am sure you could probably get someone here who is more deserving of a nicer property to voluntarily re-locate to London in a house swap too.
please tell me that some of these comments are not for real!
Relocating? At whose cost? Why should families leave their neighbourhood, families and friends?
And as for foodbanks. Oh come on. What sort of society do we have that they are needed? As for vouchers, well they were used for refugees and they were a rip off. No change given, generally expensive corner shops only, and what a social stigma 'look at me, I'm poor and needy'.
If we all said 'raise taxes' and shot the tories (or sent them to australia) we could have a decent society again.
read my tongue in cheek comment further up about the Hamaz family needing our foodbanks, since they get every other benefit we have to offer, keep up man, keep up.
Anyone who thinks that cuts to public services will be over any time soon is somewhat deluded. The tax take in this country is already well above where it should be and it is inconceivable that the majority of working people would countenance yet more tax take from their income. Labour has done a great job of spinning the doom and gloom mantra of depressingly negative stories and brainwashing their natural voting base.
The reality however is different. Many low paid workers now don't pay any tax at all. Britains Economy is the strongest in Europe and we have more people in full time work than at any time in history - despite (or because of?) the influx of a huge number of Eastern European immigrants.
The reality of the new world that we now live in is that we are no longer sheltered from the global economy and an unskilled worker in England is only worth the same as an unskilled worker anywhere else in the world. Our country is in a mess because we spend far too much money supporting people who can't or won't look after themselves.
My opinion is that in our lifetime the state pension, NHS and social housing support will change beyond recognition because the country will not be able to afford it.
I second that view TH.
The UK is f*cked. Huge amounts of tax receipts but yet, as reported today, an 87 year old, married for 60 years is banged up by Manchester Police for 7 hours without food for doing no more than supplying a patch to assist his severely disabled wife suffering considerable pain from arthritis.
It then takes them 2 months to tell him that he will face no charges!!!
What a despicable country.
What despicable people treat their elderly in such a way? Courts that sit in secret and the criminal who beats old ladies about the head with a pistol is allowed to walk free from a Prison to be unlawfully at large and the Police can't be bothered to post their details because it might 'harm his human rights'.
People ask me when I will be returning to live in the UK. The answer is NEVER. I cannot think right now of a single reason which draws me to the land where I was born. Indeed, I am ashamed to admit that I am English (oh shit, I can't say that now can I).
'We're all in it together' except of course if you are politician, social services worker, banker, policier and so on and so on.
but the ordinary hard working people of England are shat on time and time again. It's time for the revolution but sadly, no-one listens.
Rant over.
Can't disagree with anything you said there MidsCouple ...
the other side to benefit street....but this wouldn't make good television would it....poor man ( ex army ) dying of starvation in a flat with no electricity
