Lanah P

I AM not a nepo baby, I did not arrive on this spinning rock in space with any sort of privilege.

I am an unapologetic product of a borderline impoverished proletariat background. Me mam was a cleaning woman and me dad was an engineer on the trawlers in Grimsby where I was born.

I am the youngest, the baby of the family, there where five of us and I had to shout above all of them just to be heard.

Hence I was born into a culture and system of second-hand, hand-me-downs, recycling before it became the trend.

And it’s another reason why I am so loud regarding the injustices of homelessness, austerity, poverty, and the evils underpinning the causes that lead us to need charity.

Like most people I love a good rummage around a charity shop.

My favourites are The Rock And Roll charity next door to the iconic Dublin Castle pub on Parkway, Camden, run by the wonderful Scarlett, or Shelter and Mary’s Living and Giving Shop, both in Primrose Hill, where gems are always found.

I am happy for these shops to exist and, of course, for somewhere to donate items we have no more use for. But the real issue is why do they have to exist at all?

Are they, like food banks just another symbol of the inequality imposed via a generational feudal system by those at the top and leaders who want to eat all the pies for themselves, and protect the top earners and richest in society from paying their proper taxes, in order to keep the weakest and poorest away from accessing the best of everything that’s untarnished by usage, wear, and tear?

Why can’t everyone who wishes to wear brand new gear afford it? I think once you become obsessed with labels you then become trash. But the choice should be yours.

We know that charity shops such as British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research, Scope, etc directly deal with medical research, training or specific objectives.

But the government seems to take advantage of people’s generosity and kindness of heart by shifting their duty to ensure citizens have a basic standard of living and all the human basics of homes health care, food, and job.

Instead people in need are referred by government not to taxpayer-funded services but to underfunded, overworked, and understaffed, small-scale charities. Charities that shouldn’t need to exist!

These charities hardly have the money to pay their own rent, let alone anyone else’s, and are only able to take a few people off our streets for good.

A common theme from government agencies is that they don’t have the resources to help everyone; and that is a lie.

We have a chronic shortage of housing or means to buy basic provisions, energy, or medical care.

This is a right-wing government shirking its responsibility.

If governments don’t have the political will to build houses and to support those in dire need then how on Earth will a handwritten telephone number for a charity and a list of local food banks given by a government officer solve the smallest of problems?

This current government is the architect of this massive problem.

Please don’t me wrong, my mantra is “do whatever you can from wherever you are with whatever you’ve got”.

However we can’t kid ourselves that donating our grandchild’s puzzle or broken Barbie doll to the charity shop is going to pay for the work we elect a government to do on our behalf.

And to quote one commentator: “Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.

“No social system will bring us happiness, health and prosperity unless it is inspired by something greater than materialism”.

I also believe we should ask another salient point at this time of imposed austerity. Where is the £700billion that went missing during Covid?

• Lanah P is a recording artist who appeared in the movie Eat the Rich. Her latest chart release, Human Race, is available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.