‘Living hand to mouth’: Record number of police officers turning to food banks

17 comments

1. Leadership will still wonder why they are getting recruits. 23k for dealing with the worst of society has to offer. Great deal.

2. I love watching capitalism implode. Miserable though it may be for all. 

3. The only question I have at this point is just how bad does this get? Surely at some point we won’t have any functional public services left at all

4. That’s how you get corruption. Just saying. And the Tories are just a failure. Not a right wing or a left wing failure. Just a failure.

5. The less police we have and the less motivated police we have the higher the crime rate.

6. police already can’t deal with bike theft, shoplifting, car theft, burglary etc

7. “One in five police officers is missing meals to get by”

   To be fair, I’ll end up missing a meal most days because I’m tied up with work. Lunch breaks are a luxury that disappeared along with canteens, subsided housing and morale.

8. Isn’t their like max wage at £33-35K?

   Goodness I achieve that and thats because i’m disabled.

   Fucking hell, £33 is the wage I would need just to cover essentials. No bloody wonder.

9. The real issue is they aren’t allowed a union, and industrial rights. Then this situation wouldn’t exist. Unions are the great force of the working man.

10. This isn’t really about the police , wages are generally just not keeping up with the costs. Nobody wants to have to use food banks , wages need to rise.

11. I was reading the Oxford Policing journal on accountability and with that on top of pay, stress, and the blame culture surrounding the police it really makes me wonder why anyone would pick it up.

12. > More than half his monthly salary is spent on rent, he said

    Once again, a problem that could be solved by building large numbers of council homes and keeping them under council control.

    Every time you see a story like this where police/nurses/etc, are having to use food banks, it’s because most of their wages are going on rent.

    The Tories have spent the past 40 years selling off as many council homes as possible, and preventing councils from building new homes, and this is the result.

    They want limited supply to increase demand and increase house and rent prices, because that’s what their voters want.

13. Bollocks, everybody that says this their money is going somewhere, usually credit cards / loans / lease cars / overstretched mortgages / holidays etc etc

    They aren’t really on their arses and needing tins of beans from foodbank, that they probably drive to in their 2023 plate leased car

14. After 35 years in HMRC as an AO ( next to bottom grade,) I was on £22400 pa which is just over National Minimum Wage.
    I got promoted last year to EO and now I am earning £28000.
    The question is will I be on NMW again before I retire ?(I am 57 now).
    Do I realistically think things will significantly change after the next General election? No I don’t but this country desperately needs a change as the Tories have run out of ideas and don’t have a clue on how normal people exist.

15. I remember visiting the UK for a bit around 2010 or so and being super impressed with the level of general development. It seemed like a pretty prosperous little place. I’m an Eastern European so at that time I was still relatively easily impressed.

    14 years later and I have no idea how you all survive, day-to-day, with your cost of living and absolutely pathetic salaries.

    I look at how much nurses and doctors and cops get paid over there and honest to god, I can’t believe there isn’t a typo somewhere.

16. Who’s gonna kettle them when they strike because my heart weeps for them

17. the worst people you are ever likely to meet are underpaid? my heart bleeds