A Christmas Blogpost

Posted by Heather Yoeli

And so, it’s That Season again. The time of year to do everything with alcohol and food which Public Health Guidelines say you shouldn’t, the time of year to tie-dye six multi-packs of Primark socks as Christmas and/or Hannukah presents for your ever-burgeoning brood of nephews and nieces, the time of year to argue with one’s partner about whose should come to fix your perennially inept combi-boiler. Happy times. Well, maybe; maybe not. This year, things do feel different.

The time of year to think about Those Less Fortunate Than Ourselves

This year does feel very different. It’s the first time – within my lifetime, at least – that such austerity and hardship and poverty in Britain have been so widespread. Certainly, this country has always had its marginalised and disadvantaged and poor... but the food banks, and the stories of people walking ten miles on foot to reach one because they cannot afford the bus fare, and the talk of “nutritional recession”: that’s new. It’s new, and it’s frightening. It reminds us that we live in one of the most unequal countries in the developed world and that, whereas that inequality is getting worse, we are most of us just one job loss, one relationship breakdown or one investment disaster away from destitution.

And so, it’s That Season again. The time of the year to think about Those Less Fortunate Than Ourselves, the time of year to try and decide whether to donate to That Charity or to get angry about the need for That Charity even to exist, the time of year to give an extra few quid to the Big Issue seller and to awkwardly wish him a merrier Christmas than he’ll probably be having. And so, I’m now going to propose that we in Public Health research do need to invest some more thought about what we’re doing to address this new sort of poverty and hunger we’re seeing across Britain. Do we organise collections and donations for our local homeless charity, or do we set up evaluations of cookery classes for vulnerable families, do we invite Osborne round to tea for a chat about the bankers and their bonuses, or do we set up a protest camp and get radical?

I don’t know what the answer is, I really don’t. But let’s talk about it, anyway...