‘It’s not cost of living, it’s a cost of Conservatives crisis,’ Jack Monroe tells Question Time

Anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe has slammed the Tory government over the cost-of-living crisis.

The food writer appeared on BBC’s Question Time on Thursday (1 June) and said that the cost-of-living crisis is nothing new – the UK’s soaring inflation, heating costs and rising rents stem from Conservative austerity measures. 

She added that the crisis has been given a “fancy title” now that it is “affecting the chattering classes, the middle classes, the media classes”. 

Answering an audience question, Monroe said: “We’ve been hearing a lot over the [past] year-and-a-half about the cost-of-living crisis, as though it’s fallen out of a clear blue sky.

“It’s not a cost of living crisis…it’s a cost of Conservatives crisis”

Anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe says the cost of living crisis hasn't "fallen out of a clear blue sky" but is the result of stripping back on public services#bbcqt https://t.co/x3u55OA8o6 pic.twitter.com/bvkxkdcV0Z

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) June 1, 2023

“It’s not a cost-of-living crisis – let’s be absolutely clear – although it is for everybody at the sharp end of it and that’s millions and millions of people… It’s a cost-of-Conservatives crisis.

“It’s a cost-of-austerity crisis. It’s a cost of 13 years of pulverising all social support and all of those safety nets we used to have that propped up the fundamentals of a decent society.

“It’s the cost of stripping out the NHS and social care and refuges and welfare and all the support that many, many people and voters might have thought [they would never need.”]

Monroe added that she has been working with food banks for more than 10 years, and has “never known anything like the sheer scale of desperation and crisis that we’re facing at the moment as a country”. 

She went on: “The only thing that is going to change it is investment into all of those services that have been stripped away.”

Monroe has consistently campaigned against poverty and spoken out about the cost-of-living crisis, in 2022 branding the government’s response as tone-deaf and privileged.

“How can you justify millions and billions of pounds in bonuses and profit margins, when those millions and billions of pounds are literally paid for out of the pockets of people who are struggling to put food on the table, struggling to have any quality of life. It’s unconscionable,” she said.