Food Poverty and The Arts
The ever-benevolent Lord Sainsbury bestows a gift to Cambridge Arts Theatre
I’ve said it time and time again, almost to the point where the words are imprinted on my tongue: Cambridge is the UK’s most unequal city. The tech eco-system is valued at $191 billion alone yet we have rising food poverty, record rent increases, a housing crisis, and a city council hell-bent on gentrification.
Cambridge City Foodbank recently announced record levels of demand for food parcels in Cambridge and that they're having to now purchase 25% of food supply themselves due to a drop in donations. This is clearly not sustainable. The East of England Young Communist League and the Cambridge branch of The Communist Party has run regular food collection stalls in the city, which I've assisted with, but even our joint efforts have only scratched the surface of what the foodbank needs to meet demand.
What a kick in the teeth it is then for all those in food poverty in Cambridge when on the same day it is announced that Lord David Sainsbury, famed for his eponymous supermarket chain, donates £16m to the Arts Theatre.
Sainsbury's underlying profit before tax for 2023/24 was £701 million, according to their own figures, and according to Which? magazine, Sainsbury's had the highest level of food price inflation of all supermarkets at 8.2%, year on year to February. It doesn't take a brain of Einsteinian proportions to recognise the link between food poverty, record inflation, and its outcome - profit.
It is of course important to support arts and culture, especially since the last government had started to inflict vicious cuts upon the aforementioned. I personally welcome the investment in the Arts Theatre, but consider this for a second: Before we can all enjoy the arts, or indeed pursue any activity, we must all eat.
I wonder if Lord Sainsbury recognises that essential truth?
The Arts Theatre often suffers from a lack of patrons, perhaps due to the fact that there are an increasing number of people in Cambridge who cannot afford to eat, let alone pay their rent. That is if they’re not already fighting to keep their house off the gentrification list.
Any incoming government and local MPs should be looking into freezing basic food prices, breaking up supermarket monopolies and creating "Right to Food" laws as proposed by the trade unions BFAWU, Unite and RMT, to name a few. It’s these basic demands that the Communist Party also campaigns for.
Failing that, a generous donation to the Cambridge City Foodbank from Lord Sainsbury wouldn't go amiss.
Will he, though? Fat chance.