‘Bootstrap Cook’ Jack Monroe just shut down a Tory MP on food banks with a single blog post

Somehow, several right-wing commentators and politicians are yet to realise that arguing with food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe about food banks is only going to get you publicly owned – and no conservative likes that.

Yet Monroe was forced to pen a blog post on Thursday tackling inaccuracies about this very subject from this very group of people, who she branded “the darlings of the white wing”.

In the post, shared on their official website, the author known as The Bootstrap Cook wrote: “[They’re] falling over themselves in their haste to ask the burning question about food poverty.

“No, not ‘why on earth are seven and a half million people skipping meals in one of the richest economies in the world?’ But ‘how come when Jack Monroe writes about budget food ideas, everyone applauds her, but when a Conservative MP does it, they’re a villain?’

“If the ‘let them eat 30p meals’ brigade were really concerned for the welfare of people suffering - and I mean suffering - under the worst cost of living crisis this country has known for decades, they would take heed from the thousands of stories of people who have died at the hands of the callous DWP machine, and the people who enthusiastically grease its sharp and unforgiving cogs.”

We believe this is the part where we have to go and pick the microphone up off the floor.

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Monroe then went on to add the difference between them and “right-wingers desperate to prove that budget cooking is ‘so easy’” is that rather than saying to people “this is what you should be doing”, she “merely say[s] ‘here’s what helps me and I hope some part of it is a bit useful to you in circumstances that you really shouldn’t be suffering in the first place’.”

Sounds pretty clear to us, but it seems some people are still struggling with the difference.

The cook’s comments come just days after the Tory MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson, claimed “there’s not this massive use for food banks” during a debate on the Queen’s Speech.

“We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch, they cannot budget,” he said.

He also encouraged MPs to visit a food bank in his constituency where people have to “register for a budgeting and cooking course” in order to receive a food packet, and they can make a meal “for about 30p a day”.

Anderson’s remarks were widely condemned by commentators, politicians, budgeting experts and members of the general public – with Monroe writing in a Twitter thread that “the square root of f*** all is ALWAYS going to be f*** all, no matter how creatively you’re told to dice it”.

Two days later, the food campaigner’s blog post has since gone viral on Twitter, with users describing it as “a fantastically written slam-dunk” and “powerful” writing:

In conclusion, we must protect the brilliant Jack Monroe at all costs.

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