Commenting on statements from charities, church leaders and Just fair on the foodbanks crisis in the UK, Simon Barrow, co-director of the Christian think-tank Ekklesia, said:
“The growing gap between the UK government’s complacent rhetoric about positive economic indicators and the demonstrable reality of food poverty points towards the need for a change of heart as well as policy in Britain today.
“Faith and civic leaders are right to press for radical change. Welfare and public spending cuts, the lower income wage squeeze, underemployment, youth joblessness, child and family poverty, and a recovery built on consumption and benefiting mostly the more prosperous – all this is leaving many people in dire straights.
“The answer is not top-down decisions made by millionaire cabinet members and remote Whitehall departments, but the practical engagement of people living at the sharp end in remaking social and economic policy for the benefit of the majority.”
* More on End Hunger Fast from Ekklesia: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/endhungerfast