anniesdad wrote:It’s been mentioned that everyone should want to help hungry children. And I’m sure that is the case with all of us including the No voters. However there is already a wealth of benefits in place to ensure this some very very complicated.
The problem is that this ‘help’ being given doesn’t actually make it through to the hungry child. But it does make a middle class do guider or millionaire footballer feel good especially now when they can virtue signal to everyone.
A bit like Bob Geldorf’s food aid for Africa actually prolonging the conflict and the starvation. It was well intentioned and it made people feel good to contribute but it wasn’t very helpful.
Maybe it was very helpful in a micro sense, but the problem was and is enormous. It's a structural one, way beyond the solving by an passing moment of fund raising. We have endemic poverty not owing to a lack of wealth, but a system which does not facilitate solving it. There is wealth in abundance in this country.
BTW, what isn't fair to my mind, is that when people try to raise the profile of the problem or attempt to get off their backsides and
do something, another set of cynics complains of virtue signalling or do gooding.
That's what I would characterise as not helpful. I believe that Rashford's motivation is simple humanity - even if it
isn't, he is making a positive move to stimulate a debate with a government which does not seem particularly moved to help this section of the community.
That the rich and famous use their wealth and celebrity to raise profiles or support the arts or community activities is to be applauded, not denigrated. But we will always have to contend with cynics: those who can, do, those who can't, criticise.
Arb.