Food parcels for the poor in Britain...

[Gusset Sniffer]

Toaster!!!! Such decadence.

I suggest the unemployed huddle around a 60 watt light bulb this winter. If it goes below -10 Celsius switch it on !idea!

[frankthring]

Max - am so sorry if times are tough right now. I sincerely hope things get
better. I have been self-employed and in this porn industry almost my
entire adult life, so I know too how tough it is to survive, especially if self-
employed.
Mr Johnson - please give me a complete list of the EEC countries you consider
better-paying than the UK as I may move there. You use the term "many";
well, I grant you Norway, Denmark and Sweden. You can throw in Germany,
France and Austria if you like. Thats just 6. Please tell a worker in Czech
Republic, Hungary, Portugal, Greece, Slovakia, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and
Spain - just for starters - that they are paid better than in the UK. Full details
please, David.

[Sam Slater]

I was going to be all satirical and quip we could loot a toaster but I'd likely get 4 years!

[David Johnson]

"Full details please, David."

Well now, you produced a sensible list of your own.

"I grant you Norway, Denmark and Sweden. You can throw in Germany,
France and Austria if you like."

You may want to peruse the "full details" of this report in the link below in particular, Table 1 the Incidence of Low Pay in the EU and Norway. Look at the right hand column entitled Eurostat which attempts to standardise the data and produce the percentage of workers that have a monthly wage less than 60% of the median national salary.

http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/200 ... 08101s.htm

According to the definitions used in this report, the UK appears to have the highest percentage of low pay workers in the list of European workers used.

Given this country is the sixth largest economy in the world you might expect it to do better in terms of looking after its workers at the bottom of the heap. Or cynics might argue that is how the UK became the sixth largest economy.

Cheers
D

[David Johnson]

Well said, Mr Slater.

[David Johnson]

I also think that it is clearly not just about Fred gets x pounds an hour in the UK and Ceauscecu gets x whatever in Rumania.

Here's another report which admittedly is more subjective but has some important factual content.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpres ... 205776363A

"The UK is the worst place to live in Europe, with people getting a "raw deal" on quality of life and high cost of living, a study has revealed. The UK also came bottom of another table based on the cost of energy, petrol, food, alcohol, cigarettes, and life expectancy. Households in the UK struggled with a high cost of living, with food and diesel prices the highest in Europe, while unleaded petrol, alcohol and cigarettes all cost more than the European average, said the report."

Cheers
D

[max_tranmere]

I was at the supermarket this evening and thought I would write a list of things one can buy that will come to a total of ?15.00 for the week. I happen to quite like chicken stakes, you know those chicken in breadcrumb numbers you do in the oven. Or alternatively you can buy packs of chicken kiev's, turkey and bacon kiev's, etc. So you have something like that a few nights a week with some salad that you make. The other few nights it's pasta time. Pasta with tuna, coleslaw, or similar. For lunch one can have a cheese, tomato and lettuce sandwich. As most of us eat fruit, or should do, I've included that.

2 loaves of medium sliced bread - ?1.10 (55p each)
2 4pts of milk - ?2.50 (?1.25 each)
4 breaded chicken steaks - ?2.00
cheese - ?2.00
pasta (1kg) (ten meals worth) - ?0.98
6 oranges - ?1.90
5 apples - ?1.50
2 cans of tuna - ?1.58 (79p each)
6 tomato's - 95p
lettuce - 50p
coleslaw tub - 66p
2 orange cordial - ?1.48 bottle (1 free)

This is from a medium sized Tesco's in London, if someone went to one of those aircraft-hanger sized Tesco's or Sainsbury's it would be even cheaper. I'm having major difficulty getting my stupid calculator to work (there appears to be not enough light in here to enable it to work) but the figure comes to ?17-something. So a bit over ?15.00.

[max_tranmere]

For breakfast 2 toast and peanut butter, I forgot to include that. Peanut butter is about ?1.00 I think.

[Sam Slater]

I can get 3-4 sandwich lunches out of that lot and 4 chicken & pasta dinners (though you missed out the sauce). There are 7 days in a week my friend.

You get an E for only managing half a week's food but a C for the effort. Overall I give you get a D.

[Gusset Sniffer]

This is a good diet to lose weight. You would soon be skin and bones. Prisoners get more food.

Not too bad I agree for a short while. But you need to spend a little more. You didn't allow for tea coffee sugar eggs potatoes vegetables meat salt pepper margarine etc Most important bog roll which needs to be bought regularly.