Food Banks in England

England has transformed from a rich country to one where poverty is real and frightening, in the space of two years.

A Christian Charity based in 'affluent' Salisbury is proclaiming that 12m people in the UK need help to put food on the table. It lists "food banks" all over the UK to help the neediest to survive. See:
http://www.trusselltrust.org/content/foodbank/foodbank.htm
TV coverage is filming people living in poverty, whose only food is supermarket sandwiches that cannot be sold, left in bin liners at the door at closing time. Under the cover of night, people depending on this "charity" for survival, move almost invisibly to claim the daily bread which provides for their children and for their wives, some of whom are pregnant.

This is the England, today. Students are no longer able to rely on the State (as I did) to highly educate them. Taxpayers funded my education, which I regard as a priceless gift. I heartily thank them. Those taxpayers still alive are now in their late 70s, 80s and 90s.

Parents, many of whom received a free higher education are being told that their children "will pay for their own education". But they will now carry a huge debt, that I, personally, and many of my contemporaries would never have been able to pay off, in my case due to a long term illness. Except for the lucky children of sensible, generous and wealthy parents, young people will be unable to raise the capital for a mortgage, or pay in for proper pensions and retire. What kind of future is this?

My concern is that unless one is given a free education, what feelings of service does one have towards society? Surely receiving a free education is what gives one a feeling of wanting to put something back? Personally, today, given the prospect of a lifetime of substantial debt, I would only do an Open University degree from home. But what a loss of experience....

At what point the young British really grasp the seriousness of this creeping desert in a land, once flowing with milk and honey? At what point do the half starving, isolated, alone and weak, cry out for help for a real Saviour? My fear is that due to aggressive secularism and this failed "gospel of self reliance", they never will.

But let us still hope and pray they do.