Rhian Roberts in conversation with Jack Monroe, Greenbelt, August 2023 Bold = Rhian; normal = guest Hello everybody. It's lovely to be here. It's lovely to see you all. It's going to be great to have this conversation with Jack. I just want to start by saying that something quite interesting happened when this was announced that was going to be on the program. A whole load of really unpleasant people piled in on social media on you, on me. And I just wanted to say if any of those people have made the journey here then you are so welcome. You're [JACK CACKLE] you're really welcome. in this space I'm going to say, our gaffe our rules. Okay? Disrespectful questions, heckling unhelpful. We're not at home for that, so please, there'll be time at the end for you to ask you a question, but you will ask your question in the company of Greenbelters, and we will deal with your question in a way that will do. [JACKLE] I just wanted to get that out of the way. Thanks, you're really welcome. Jack! I'm so looking forward to talking and we will have time for questions later. So, I just wanted to ask you really how are you dealing with all that nonsense? How much of a part it plays in your day-to-day? Well, I mean for the most part I have to remember that I know who I am. I know my values. I know my role. I know my responsibilities. I know what my goal is and that's to eradicate food poverty in the UK, with the help of all the organizations and people that I work with. And I know that the fairy tales and fantasies that few obsessed maniacs on the internet tell about me about absolutely no relation whatsoever to the person that I am or the life that I live. So, how I deal with it is by surrounding myself with good people. By working a 12-step program, by having a faith, and by staying on that path, going 'Does this action help me towards my goal of eradicating food poverty in Britain, does answering this troll or answering this sea lion, or this bizarre query, does this benefit anybody who is in need of help right now?' The answer's usually no. So, I just kind of get on with what I need to be doing. I didn't always, I could get very sucked into all that stuff and needing to combat the negativity and needing to challenge the lies about me, and needing to prove who I am. I don't need to do that stuff anymore. I'm here, I've got a job to do and I'm going to do my job and that's it. [APPLAUSE] And is there a moment when you suddenly thought I'm going to pivot on this. I'm going to walk away from the drama. Yes, there was I couldn't tell you when it was because it wasn't like a decision that I made. I just kind of decided to not be on Twitter for a day and a day turned into a few days. A few days turned into living with a lightness of being around myself and a little bit more happiness. And some more free time and fewer gremlins in my head. And it just went from there really. And I just saw that actually, if I engage with that stuff too often, it turns me into somebody that I've worked very hard and had an awful lot of therapy to try not to be. So yeah, can I ask you a bit about that big interview that you? [JACKLE] The bathtub interview? You know, it was a big piece in the Guardian readers in this tent, full of the Daily Mail. But you know, that, interview. You raised and had conversations about some problematic stuff that you had done in parentheses. There was the story of, you know, you letting down your backers. Yep. Buying lots of expensive furniture online. [JACKLE] So, you know, I know a little bit about journalism and was that a fair representation of that encounter? So that interview with Simon Hattonstone in the Guardian, which is quoted, and requoted and blogged, and reblogged all over the internet was conducted at 11:00 at night in a noisy Thai restaurant in East London. I was exhausted. I'd been almost naked in a bathtub in a warehouse, and it's London, for hours beforehand, and of company of strangers, which is a slightly vulnerable position to find yourself in unawares. And we talked a bit about... And the interview jumped all over the place about various things. But what Simon did in that interview - and we're friends, we've spoken about it and we're still in touch, so this isn't a dig at him at all - was he basically puts me all of the questions that all of the trolls on the internet ask because they'd sent them to him, going 'We want answers to this stuff.' And so, to clear up the sideboards thing I had a partner who is the head of news and current affairs for channel 4. Louisa Compton Louisa Compton, lovely still in touch. Very good friends. And our combined income of which she had the Lion's Share meant, I could buy some really nice furniture when we were together. And when we split up, because she left my house, I kept it. And that's how that works. You're leaving, I get to keep the sideboard. And that's, I grew up. I gave her two of them in the end. It's fine. So, the representation (sic) that I have for Cotswolds Company sideboards in my living room is completely inaccurate. I only have two. And they're not in the living room, they're in the dining room. But basically, the way that that interview was written up made it sound like I had gone on the run with a load of people's money, spent on expensive furniture and was an asshole. And I should have corrected it and I should have rung Simon up and gone, 'This makes me look a little bit like a horrible human being. Do you mind if you just kind of edit the online version? ' Because it's in print, we can't do anything about that, but that gets thrown away. But can we edit it? And I didn't because actually, we had a laugh about it. I went, 'That makes me look like a horrible human being, but people know me. People know my values; people will realize that that's not quite true.' Probably one of the only regrets I have about my career is not making that phone call and going, 'Can you just tweak that slightly? So, we make it quite clear that that's not what happened.' But again, it's one sentence in a Guardian interview and if that can undo ten years of solid work and campaigning and you know, changing laws, changing the amount of Healthy Start voucher income that people receive, being part of all of the child food poverty campaigns and commission groups that I've been part of. And all of the work that I've done, that can't be undone by 'Got drunk and bought a sideboard.' Then those people probably weren't supporters of my work in the first place. So, I have done some things in my life that I'm not proud of, you know, I'm an alcoholic, you know? I was addicted to prescription drugs. I would not recommend overnight fame, and not quite fortune to anybody as a recipe for turning your life around, because it absolutely threw me sideways for years. I didn't know what to do with it. What to do with the attention, what to do with the people, what to do with the messages, what to do with the royalties, what to do with the fact that my former agent did a runner with the royalties, what to do with any of that stuff. So, I kind of threw myself into a really dark place. And didn't fulfil some commitments and did behave a bit badly. I'm out the other side of that now, and I'm going on, don't we all deserve a Redemption Arc and if the worst thing I've done is got drunk and persuaded my ex to buy some furniture, I'm probably doing all right. But the thing is, the thing I really liked about that interview. I can't quote it from memory, but you said something at the end like I'll probably be saying sorry forever. And I thought, 'She sounds like a Christian.' [JACKLE] I was born and raised in the Baptist church and then booted out of it at 15 because I was a lesbian and they thought that I would have some kind of impact on the children that I taught in my Sunday school class. They were all boys, I didn't have much of an impact on them, seven-year-old boys weren't really going to have their heads turned by short spiky haired, little me. I kind of looked exactly like this but thinner. And I left the church and for very long time, was very angry about all of that, very resentful. And I do remember my first greenbelt and doing an interview with the with the on-site magazine here, where I was absolutely adamant, I didn't have a faith, didn't have a God, sod God, sod everything. I was furious. I've been on a journey. [JACKLE] We love a journey. I love a journey, I'm always on one or the other, actually, I think Ed Sheeran was on about five at once. And then I've, I came into recovery about two and a half years ago, and one of the one of the core aspects of that is understanding that there is a power greater than yourself and that power greater than yourself can help to restore you to sanity and a new way of living. And I struggled with that initially because oh God word, there's a God word up there. This isn't for me. And then a close friend of mine, Tony said, are you the greatest power in the universe? No. Do you make the sun rise? No. Do you make the waves move? Was like, no. So, you accept there's a power greater than yourself. Yes. And over in the last two and a half years, I'm now very comfortable to call that God. I pray several times a day, on my knees. I've learned humility. I've learned to be open and accepting of the fact that everybody, I know on that journey and in that Fellowship has their own concept of God and that it's a really powerful thing. When we all come together, we all kind of bring our own Gods into the room with us. It's a really wow. I mean, whoa, what happens in that is, is incredible. So yeah, maybe I do sound a bit like a Christian, maybe I will find my way back through the doors of Shoeburyness and Thorpe Bay Baptist Church one day, still looking like a short spiky head lesbian, but maybe if I just stay away from the you know, influenceable young boys. I'm gonna be alright. Short spiky haired lesbians are always welcome at Greenbelt. And in quite a few churches. Actually, I'll give you a list afterwards. I'd love that. Excellent - you're welcome at mine. Anyway, let's not promote my own church but look, I wanted to ask you a little bit about class because one of the things I was watching all these trolls piling, I was thinking you are at that perfect intersection of what lights the touchpaper. There's gender politics in there. There's class in there and reading back about you, I can see you've got quite an interesting sort of I'm gonna say, confusion around class and what happens to you if you've grown up poor properly poor or you've experienced poverty in your life and then suddenly good things happen. And suddenly, you're surrounded by sideboards, and other middle-class accoutrements. And then you don't know what you're allowed to call yourself. Can you say a little bit about, you know, how you feel about class now? I was trying to take my shirt off, but I've done my sleeves up too tight. No, it's no, I can't actually get it off because I've done my sleeves up too tight around my biceps because I'm vain. So, I'm just going to sweat instead. Class. Back to that, shall we? So, I grew up under the impression that I lived in a nice, middle-class family and my parents were what my dad openly, now, describes them as the Working Poor but they did their best to ensure that neither me my brother or any of the children that they fostered had absolutely any idea about it. So we, you know, we went on holidays, but those holidays were the bronze caravans at the park resorts that you clip the coupons out of the paper for once a year, or we'd get the ferry over to Northern Ireland and all cramp into my Nan's two-bedroom house somewhere in the middle of Belfast, and that was a holiday, and kids holidays are fun, they're great. We always had dinner on the table, but my parents didn't always eat with us. We always had clothes, but those clothes came in bin bags from people from the local church. And so, in my head because the house was clean and tidy and we had a real emphasis on books and on reading, and my mum always made sure that we had books and that we sat at the table, the little table in the corner of the kitchen and did our homework, and she wanted me and my brother to have a chance in life. I was under the impression that we were loaded for some reason and so I went to an all-girls grammar school, and it quickly became apparent that my lifestyle was not the same as my peers. And that's why I didn't really have friends’ round to my house. And as an adult now who has raised a child and raised a child in poverty, I can look back and identify sacrifices that my parents made and my childhood, especially during the fire brigade strikes, when my dad was out on strike, when going out on strike meant going out and starting and staying out until you have achieved your objectives so that could be weeks or months on end with no income. Nothing coming in, standing on a picket line. I can identify the things that perhaps weren't usual about my childhood, but we were happy, and we had all our needs fulfilled and so I didn't think anything of it. So, I struggle to define myself class wise because I am to all intents and purposes working class with Hyacinth Buckets for parents [JACKLE] and they know this, I tell them this, I'm not saying anything ... My dad's a Marxist-Leninist socialist, my mum is a dyed-in-the-wool Tory and they've been married happily for like 36 years. So, it does work. My mom is also deaf. So that probably also helps. But the class thing has been really difficult for me to navigate because then I went to a grammar school. And I do now live in a nice house, but I don't own it, I rent it, and it does have some nice stuff in it, but I bought that as insurance policies. So, if I ever end up poor again, I can sell it. I'll give you an example as in the phone shop yesterday because of my phone had smashed to bits. And I was due an upgrade, because my contract was out and I was like, I'm due an upgrade, I might actually stop using this smashed up phone and get a new one. And the guy went Have you got insurance? So, I said no and he went why haven't you got insurance? And I went, I don't have insurance for anything. And I went away, and I sat with that, and I thought, I don't have insurance for anything. I don't have contents Insurance, home insurance, life Insurance, phone insurance, any insurance. Because, when you've been poor, paying 17 pounds a month for insurance for anything is a luxury. And even 10 years on from that, the idea of insurance to me, insurance is for rich people, insurance is a luxury. And that's just one example of how things like that can just stay with you and stay with me. And he's arguing with me until he's blue in the face. Your phone is trashed, you know, you should get insurance and I'm sitting there calculating, how much that insurance would have cost me every three years. And I went but if I'd paid you that 17 pounds a month insurance, I could have gone and bought second-hand non smashed phone from CX down the road. And you don't have the money for things like that and even in my head, now, I think that I don't have the money for things like that. So, I have a very weird attitude to class and money that, unfortunately, 10 years of therapy hasn't been able to unpick, but don't you think that only goes so far? I think if you've lived it with in poverty, but you've been poor, there's a kind of jeopardy and a precariousness that imprints itself on you. And you don't suddenly stop that feeling. If you don't stop that part of your personhood by suddenly being in a better position. And I was very annoyed with some people who are writing about you like they had a right to tell you your identity. Like now this has happened to you, now you're this, so you can no longer trade off that. Sorry, you should move on. And I thought that's interesting that people felt that they could put that on you. That's not a question. Oh, I've going to respond to your statement with a statement because I get this as well. I'm just checking to see if there are any very young children in the audience. I was very violently assaulted, shall we say, about 14 years ago in the grossest and most violating nature that can happen to a human being? I won't be any more explicit than that. And if I suddenly now decided to start campaigning for, you know Rape Crisis services, and women's refuges and access and information around those things, would anybody be able to legitimately criticize me? Because I wasn't being sexually assaulted on a daily basis? Would I be able to use those experiences in order to inform my campaign work around that subject? And that's the same with poverty, just because I no longer live on the absolute breadline although being a best-selling author is just a nice pair of words, it doesn't actually translate to anything when you get 12 Pence per book sold. And that really is what the person who writes the book gets off the back of the cover price, I get about 12p a copy. You've got to sell an awful lot of books in order to make the amount of money that people think my net worth is on Google and I haven't sold that many books. But it's why should the fact that I'm no longer living those experiences daily? Because it's not like I'm a million miles from them. I volunteer at food banks and work very closely with organizations, like, Child Poverty Action Group, Oxfam, the Trussell Trust, Christians against poverty. The forward trust, I work with several prisons. I work with schools, pupil referral units. I have got my ear to the ground on this, on a daily basis. I'm just a megaphone really for the people who don't have the recourse to and the access to the corridors of power and the television sets and the sofas and the people who can make those decisions and inform those policies. I'm just kind of a useful Bridge from one to the other. And if at any point I start to think I'm important in this debate on that I'm leading it or that I'm in charge of it or that I'm the figurehead of it, I need to back down and find myself a new job because that's not what I'm here to do. I'm here to not only tell my story to try and make a change, but to also the people who are gracious enough to allow me to tell their stories to make a change to communicate those to the people who are in a position to make a difference. And that's kind of why I'm still here. So, you did Question Time quite recently and that was a very valued appearance, I know by lots of people who are in that campaigning space. When you do something, how do you know you've made a difference? What makes you feel that oh I landed that? Oh no. I never feel like I've landed anything. I'll come away from this and think I should have answered it like that. Why after a decade, do I still go red every time I open my mouth? I mean I just I'm still a jangling bag of nerves and I still have crushingly low self-esteem and think that maybe what I do doesn't make a difference. After 10 years of the same handful of very simple asks to the UK government about resolving food poverty and they are very simple. You know, give people cash first so they can make their own decisions about what to spend it on. Make sure that, you know, that food n the supermarket's, the healthy options, are as cheap as the junk food options, things about secure accommodation, and decent, Living Spaces for people. Build some more Council housing, stop letting your mates buy them all. And they're really, they are really simple and they're the same answers that have come up in every single commission and report and inquiry and parliamentary inquiry and debate and discussion over the last 10 years. And this government and the previous one, and the one before that, and the one before that have had the answers for how to solve food poverty in the UK for a very long time. When I say food poverty, I just mean poverty, really? Because food is one of the very last things that you choose to cut from your budget. If you're at the point where you can't afford to feed yourself, you're probably not paying the gas bill, the electric bill, the council tax, and you probably behind on your rent and there's all sorts of other things going on in your life as well. So, they've had the answers for very long time, but it doesn't suit them politically. They don't have the political will to allow people to lift themselves out of poverty. It's the much easier for them to sit there and go, this is your fault. You must have done something wrong and we get all that fecklessness. We get that blame, we get the whole single mothers rhetoric. We get all of that absolute nonsense trotted out by the same old dinosaurs on the same old panel shows, who refused to actually do anything about it. [APPLAUSE] That can be quite disheartening as a campaigner to go, 'Oh, you'd like me to come in and speak to you all again. I'm just going to dig out my talk from 2013 and just repeat it and see if you listen this time.' I have done that and that can be quite disheartening. But what I realize is I can't change the world, and I'm probably not going to change the government and I'm probably not going to change very much about food policy and politics. But what I can do and what I do try to do, is encourage the individuals that I meet to go back into their communities and do one small action, or do something that can make a difference to people in their communities, that can help somebody who's living in food poverty. So that can be donating to your local food bank, or that can be putting some Sanitary products in the in the period boxes or that can be volunteering your time, or your effort or volunteering on a phone line, or packing up some boxes or doing any of the numerous myriad things because we no longer have a welfare state in this country. We have what used to be a safety net is now, just sort of a load of deliberate holes that have been hacked into it by successive governments who don't care if people fall through the gaps. So what we now have is we have this sort of subterranean patchwork quilt of volunteers and organizations and it's kind of like an underground welfare state. It's a bit of a postcode Lottery and a little bit pick and mix. But it's powered by people and people like me and, like, you and like, all of you and like everybody who I meet and talk to, and that's how I know that change is happening, is when those Food Bank box gets at the supermarket, have got some Tins in. And when my local food bank says, we're at risk of closure, because we're running out of donations. People flooding to fill those shelves back up again so people can get fed. So it's no longer about sort of overthrowing the government, although, that is still up there on the Blackboard. You know, the big Riot is there, it's in planning, the revolution is coming. I just need a few more, decent nights' sleep before, I can lead the charge on it because I'm in no fit state to March anywhere at the moment. Can I can I just say? It's just started to rain outside. If you're gonna move in and let other people come in under the covers, that would be so very greenbelt of you. I just want to talk a little bit about optimism as regards politicians is there anyone or any particular party that you think I'm slightly more optimistic about that? Or do you think the way the food policy is under the auspices of 20 different government departments, which makes it very hard to lobby the right people at the right time to actually make change happen. Do you think there's a Will to sort that out that's held anywhere in particular? I think our best chance and I'll thought this for quite some time it keeps getting expelled from the Labour party but I keep talking myself back into it and it's a Rainbow Coalition of sort of like labour greens, SMP, plaid and the lib Dems. I was like the other one, the yellow one. Like really my mind's gone blank. Lot of LibDems in the tent. No, no. I know I've dated a few time. They're all lovely. So you'll have a rainbow colours, a Rainbow Coalition of like a collective ideals because I think those are the groups that are the most likely to get anything done. But, but where we've got this two horse first-past-the-post system that really only seems to benefit the government in charge of the day that's unlikely to happen. Unless we, as people put significant pressure on it to happen. Individually, I've spoken to a lot of politicians who are very keen to discard all of the inquiries and put reports and commissions that they've commissioned and funded and go Jack. What do you think would work? And I go well let me tell you the same thing I've been saying for the last 10 years of my work. On an individual basis, there are politicians from all parties who are apart from the really far right weirdo ones but you know, up to the Tories and back to the left, there are politicians from all parties who are who have the will to make change, who are doing things in their own constituencies to make a difference, who are privately apologetic for the behaviour of their of their peers. And there's, you know, there is hope out there and when I do get tried Tory's sliding into my DM's at 11:00 at night on Twitter. Do they ask for a date? No, it's would you like to go for a coffee? And I'm like, depends, do you want to talk about eradicating child poverty or do you just think I'm hot? Because I can work with the latter to steer you to the former but I can't work with the former to steer you to the latter I'm afraid. And I've made some very unlikely friends in very unlikely places but sometimes also you have to go where the power is and that's terrifying. I've spoken at Tory Party Conference a few times and I don't know if they're just all a bunch of sadists and masochists but they seem to really like a bollocking because I just got on the stage for an hour and go. You did this, look what you've done and then they invite me back the next year. I don't think they've quite pay me enough for that service to be honest. Off the back of that, you know, all party, parliamentary group inquiries have been set up, the feeding Britain inquiry is set up you know several senior Tories kind of change their position, change their stances and that change has to happen from the inside. So I think that, while you know that a lot of them are terrible people, a few of them are, you know alright people that found themselves with terrible friends. And you have to have to start from where people are and meet them there sometimes and go. All right, you're in charge, you've got the money. You've got the power. Can I encourage you to spend some of it wisely? Please. Thank you very much. I want to move on this and just talk a little bit about food and you but I just wanted to check the greenbelters have got their action points from that bit. So we know what we're doing with our politicians and we know what we're doing locally. Because we do like an action point Build It Up. Burn it down but the other way around though. So I wanted to ask you about your relationship with food. Now, what's your reward situation around? What is a special kind of menu for you. Okay, so when I got here to greenbelt today, I got some the artist box office and there was a bowl of sweets sitting on the side boiled sweets and I said, can I have, can I have one please? And they said yes. And I was like I'm autistic though so I have to have one of every colour. So I did. Thankfully there were only four but that is my reward system. It's boiled sweets I've got 700 words to write for the guardian, I'll give myself a sweet every hundred words, that works really well for me. I'm basically a Labrador, but with better grooming, but I used to find it quite hard to feed myself when I was on my own. My son goes to his father's a couple of nights a week. And I used to have a pot noodle and I'm a best-selling cookery author and I was sitting there with my sad little Bombay Bad boy with a tablespoon of peanut butter in it being like I hope no one ever finds out thinking that might be the Scandal that ends my career. And I could have just got an endorsement deal out of it and bought another sideboard but there we are. I like that we can laugh about this stuff because you know what, when you're in the doldrums of Twitter and people are really like ragging on me, having a real go, it doesn't feel funny, but actually, it is quite funny objectively when you think about it. But yes, so when my son went to his dad's last night, I thought, you know what? I'm going to date myself for the evening and I went, and I got myself a steak from Tesco's and I cooked my steak, and I remade the anchovy hollandaise from the Hawksmoor cookbook and at a steak with anchovy Hollandaise and I did myself a vinaigrette dressing for my little gem lettuce with dill pickle vinaigrette and olive oil. And I was like, I would cook like this for a lover, and I am going to love myself and I did. And I tell you what, I sat at my dining table on my own with a book that I'm reading at the moment, very long book. It's brilliant, the wind-up bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, excellent book, very long, very good. Sat there with my book and my steak and my steak knife and my sense of satisfaction and went this feels good - no one to try and impress, I didn't have to put a low-cut top on or do my hair or anything, make polite conversation or turn down the wine. I was like, I might do this a bit more often so that's my new reward system. I like that because depending on how much money we earn or what paper you read, you do get told about what your relationship with food should be. So I know an awful lot of people here who are currently worried about ultra-processed food. And then they'll be some people who are worried about food banks but all the time, we're being told what our relationship is with food. And it feels like we're told, but we don't have a very healthy relationship with it ourselves. Do you have any tips with that? How to Feel better? I think that we all try to do the best we can with what we have available to us. I think that ethics around food are very much a privilege in today's society. I was vegan for two years. I know what I'm talking about. I could not as a food writer, cookery author and someone with knowledge and knowledge and knowledge about nutrition sustain an arthritic body on a vegan diet, I fell apart and but I could do it cheaply and I could do it easily and I could do it simply and I wrote a whole damn book about it, but it didn't work for me and I got a lot of abuse for that, like I get a lot of abuse for breathing and existing and all that. So, you know, turning my back on something that a lot of people feel very passionately about because it wasn't right for me, brought a lot of nonsense to my door and I get the thing about ultra- processed food. I'm friends with the van Tullekens. We knew each other through an ex- partner, we met. We've got on very, very well, and we stay in touch, they're brilliant boys. And both doctors both incredibly good-looking as pleasure to hang out with him. It really is. A curse on my lesbianism, both of them, sorry, but there is a story there but it's not for greenbelt. The ultra processed food thing, again, I get people say about oh it's the judgement on ready meals only ever seems to go in One Direction. No one's even looking at the dining for two for £12 Marks and Spencer’s market are they? Everybody's always on about the single mum with a 77 P. Sainsbury's Basics macaroni cheese, which is now £1.88, it's gone up. And you go well, actually people buy ready meals, and people buy ultra-processed food for a whole host of reasons. And if those reasons have never occurred to you then. Well, done you for your brilliant and blessed and beautiful life. You've never lived in a hostel. You've never escaped domestic violence. You've never been so profoundly disabled, all you can do is stab a fork into the top of something and chuck it into the microwave for two minutes. You've never had a carer come in who's only got 10 minutes to try to feed you in that period of time and can't rustle up a nice little Jamie Oliver recipe from scratch. Sorry, Jamie, didn't mean to name-drop you there, your recipes are great. But they take a bit too long for, you know, the average person coming in with a 10-minute time window to do. So do mine, come to that. So people eat processed food and ready meals from a variety of reasons. Mental health is a big part of it. I can go through a ready meal phase. I'm not ashamed of that. At least I'm eating something and these people are eating something. And I think, first, we feed people and we ensure that everybody is feeding themselves and having three meals a day and not getting rickets and malnutrition, and dying of starvation, which are things that are happening in this country, the sixth richest economy in the world, that nobody seems to talk or write about. And once we've made sure that everyone's fed, then we can look at what they're fed and then we can look at how we can improve that. But the first and most foremost thing is, you know, people not dying of starvation in Britain. And once we've got that ticked, we can go okay. Now, how about some leafy greens, you know? That's, that's, that's my stance on that stuff. Thanks Jack. [there's a weird cut in the audio here] So I remember saying, at the time, you were very positive about the Asda, just whatever it's called range, that was brought out and their amazing, cheap chickpeas. And so I was wondering, just, especially the moment, what do you think were the reasons that a corporation such Asda would bring out that, and how can we push other corporations to make similar decisions? [audio cuts again straight to Q&A] Audience member: So I've used food banks myself. Very, very similar past a member of 12- step, fellowships as well. And lucky enough, I know how to cope with her. So I could make the best out of the random and sometimes obscure foods that you get through food banks and organizations but what's lacking especially in my area is there's nowhere for the knowledge or education for people to get around that and to make the best use of it. And when you're using a food bank or somewhere like that, there's a lot of Shame and a lot of guilt and Enough courage is used to ask for that help. Why does it seem like there's not enough education going alongside resources? And so we've got Asda and we've got knowledge around unexpected items in food bank boxes. Okay, I'll answer those in reverse order. So I've done a lot of work with food banks, over the years with like recipe cards and with, with matching the contents of food bank boxes with what to do with them. So there's there has been intermittent, sort of bits of campaign work done around that, but we're a lot of food banks are independent and a lot of them are run on basically, fresh air and volunteers, it's quite hard for is quite hard to do anything sort of Nationwide around that that would be would be useful to everyone, if that makes sense. I am aware of it. It's something that is lacking. And when foodbanks come to me or any of the other organizations that I work with and say, can we print off a bundle of your recipes and put them in the boxes? I'm like yes, have some books, photocopy the books, hand them out. Do what you need to, borrow books from the library. Photocopy them too. I don't know a recipe writer out there that would have an issue and if they do, they're [bleep] having a page of their book, photocopied, and bunged in a food bank parcel. So that is something I have tried to do work on over the over the last few years, but I am aware that it is an area that is sort of a bit patchwork and lacking. So thank you for the reminder and I will pick it back up and get back in touch with my infinite network of food banks, and go what we doing about this. So I will stick it on the to do list. So thank you. With regards to answer and the Just Essentials range, I couldn't possibly comment on their motives for bringing that out at the time of the pressure campaign from me around the price of their Basics items, because I can't allow my head to go down that particular egotistical path. But it was a remarkable coincidence that just as I pointed out that their smart price range was disappearing, they brought it back in its entirety and then they launched the just Essentials range which was brilliant and I have been tracking it as part of the Vimes Boots Index which is a food inflation index I've been working on for the last, almost two years now, tracking the prices of Basic Foods across the four major supermarkets because I didn't want to just do a snapshot of the time, I wanted to kind of hold my nerve and see when the Limelight Fades, and the Press will turn their attention to something else, If those items disappear or jump up in price, and I am afraid to say that the just Essentials range has halved in the number of products that it has. Those that are in it have jumped up in price and they promised to hold the line on it for a year and they did almost to the day. I'm not saying anything to you guys I haven't said to Asda. I'm not paid by them. I haven't been since I roasted chickens for them at 17 on the rotisserie counter and that was quite some time ago, so I don't think it counts. But I did hope that at the time when Asda brought out the Just Essentials Range, when they brought back the smart price range and then changed that to the Just Essential range, knowing a little bit of what I know about market economics and business and having worked in a couple of supermarkets, I thought the others would all follow suit. And go, Oh, no, Asda's doing really cheap food, we need to really cheap food because their market share went up almost exponentially overnight because people flocked to Asda because we're in a cost-of-living crisis and Asda were doing something about it and Tesco and Morrison's and Sainsbury's, just all kind of went Oh well, sod em. Where's your rival range guys? You've got that basket of goods is supposed to chase the price of bananas within each other right down to the bottom line which screws over the banana producers, but keeps the people at home happy, you know, are you not supposed to do that? And apparently not, they all just kind of held their nerve and kept their prices where they were, and, and didn't do anything to help. And I engaged with them, with all the major supermarkets and the ones that came back and said, what can we do about this? Well, bizarrely, Waitrose and Asda. And the other three just didn't want to know. And so, I don't know what we can do about it. I mean, I think they kind of little bit mob mentality isn't it, it's kind of like what people need to eat, so we can charge what we like. And we see that with energy fuel petrol, they're all the same thing, really? Although I don't drive and I barely have any light bulbs. So don't know what I'm talking about, on that front, but we see the same thing with like fuel. I've been up since 5 a.m. okay to get here. We see it with all of our essential Services, we're all kind of over a barrel with it and we all have to just kind of pay for it because we don't have any choice and at what point do we turn from living in a democracy to kind of living in a kind of a whatever this is which isn't that great really. I was just going to make a flippant remark that you've made all the greenbelters who are still shopping at Waitrose feel slightly better. [JACKLE] My daughter has ADHD and is autistic. Could you talk a bit about kind of your experience from your diversity and the positives and negatives and ways you manage its impact on you? Any other questions? Oh, there's a young chap there. I'd love to hear your question. I'd love to hear everyone's question obviously. [child - maybe 10 or so