Any UK person that has lived through Lockdown and used Twitter knows who Jack Monroe is. Maybe sheās most famously known for suing
Katie Hopkins for half a million pounds, forcing Katie to sell her Devon home and to move into a rental north of Barnstaple. Maybe you know of her cheap meals where she proudly shouts about feeding her family with Smart Price pasta (as if this is a triumph, when in reality most of us do it), or maybe you know her for her tireless work in helping people, that is posting inaccurate links, recipes that are free (free recipes, sheās so kind), or donating to charities that have never heard from her.
Letās make this clear. This is an opinion piece. Itās not based on absolute fact but
this article is. @AwfullyMolly has spent countless hours (not 100 per week like Jack) piecing together every tweet, every piece of misinformation and every lie ever told by Jack Monroe and we love them for it. Why did she do it? Well, thatās the best bit. Jack Monroe could see a complete end, could be completely cancelled, all because @AwfullyMolly became annoyed when Jack promoted a book about Georgia that was NOT about Georgia. This recommendation made AM suspicious and got her digging deep into Jack Monroeās twitter account to see what else was duplicitous. The results are incredible. Iām invested and you will be too as soon as you read the article.
Why Are People So Angry At Jack Monroe?
Jack Monroe has now cancelled Twitter, she claims itās over the posting of her motherās Aunt Bessieās insipid roast potatoes and the insults she received as a result, however this may just be one more of her lies, as sheās facing a lot of questions she canāt answer, a lot of people asking for refunds and a lot of suspicion as people realise that sheās the not so poor girl who cried wolf.
People are angry as sheās exploited those in real poverty. Her followers are on the breadline, due to the content she posts such as Feed a Family for Ā£20 a week and rants about the injustice of heating tariffs. She claims to help all those who need to use food banks while feigning a bond with them by retelling the story of how she was so poor she sold her sonās toy dinosaur.
This would all be fine-ish, as by indulging in Twitter rants and posting free recipes (theyāre FREE) sheās not really harming anyone, some could even say sheās helping, however, in her eyes thereās one person thatās worse off than any of her followers, one who deserves money and help more than anyone else, one that doesnāt care if you raid your childās piggy bank to shout her a strong black espresso, her. This is why sheās so fond of splashing the donate button (to her personal PayPal) on every single FREE recipe page.
Jack Loves Labels
Jack loves a label, so much so she attaches many to herself. From memory only, sheās a heavily tattooed, working class, autistic, disabled, poor single mum in recovery, not quite sure if sheās pulled out the gender neutral or metoo tag yet. Itās coming. The labels grow every time she feels sheās losing public sympathy with the autistic one being a more recent addition.
Now, this is why Iām so angry and feel free to skip to the next drop cap. I hate labels. I hate defining people by class, status or wealth yet I thought about this and I can be defined as a heavily tattooed, bipolar (officially diagnosed), single mum who is the carer of my 22 year old autistic son. Yet itās taken me ten minutes to write that sentence as it makes me nauseous to reveal those details as itās not your problem.
Donāt get me wrong, I think itās incredible that Jack has brought a spotlight to poverty and to food banks and the work they do, I just donāt believe sheās done this selflessly and I donāt believe sheās ever known real poverty.
I remember times as a child when my dad sold our sofa, we spent Christmas sat on Banana crates (as he got a temporary job at the factory) and ate crackers, with no cheese. It was one of the best Christmasās of my life. (Probably because my parents were skint, so sober! Sorry, mum!) We had chicken one day, a rare treat. Yet Jenny and Jemima were missing from the garden. When I asked where they were my mum told me theyād gone to heaven. I replied, āif theyāve gone to heaven, why did they leave their heads in the bin.ā The dog ate the rest of the chicken. It was back to bread and dripping (which I still love today).
I remember my early twenties, when I fled an abusive marriage, changed my name and moved to obscurity with my two children under 5. Iād clean caravans on a weekend with both beside me, Iād write and study for my degree as they slept. Weād clean the car to find pennies for a bottle of milk. We tried to grow fruit and veg then realised itās so much more expensive than buying from the shops. Weād find hedgerows a treat with fat juicy blackberries and blackcurrants and weād forage for mushrooms. Weād make two meals last a week and when I visited Citizenās Advice, they told me, you need a council house. You canāt sustain your living, your outgoings are way more than your incomings but I wouldnāt budge, I couldnāt budge, the council would not provide, and I saw an end in sight.
If I just got my degree, if I just got my articles published, if I just got paid for one piece of writing, weād be ok.
I took on a contract for writing a health and safety manual about garage doors. It took forever and the children watched Disney over and over as I snuggled up with the laptop. Then I got paid. A lump sum of Ā£2000. It was the most money Iād ever had at once. I should have paid the rent in advance, I should have paid the council tax, instead I took the children to Asda and told them to pick a TV, ours was heavy and chunky and had a big black bar down the middle.
We chose a flat screen, it was luxury, we carried it to the little Yaris, then realised, it would not fit in the boot. We had to put it on the back seat, where would the children sit? They sat on each other the whole drive home and I panicked every time I saw a police car.
We had no network, we still donāt.
I then sold an article for 80pence and we danced until we hurt. I was finally being paid for writing about what I loved. Life improved financially after that but those days are some of my best.
Recently weāve struggled again, which is why I despise what Jack is doing. Iām a single mum again, (Iām hard to live with, ok?) with three now. Iāve had cancer scare after cancer scare, biopsy after biopsy, infection after infection, anaemia, fibroids, brain tumour (non malignant) you name it and Iāve been unable to work. My mind has been in the clouds, this is actually my first foray back after a very long time.
If I donāt work, we donāt have money. Itās that simple. So weāve bought the bright yellow items from Asda, weāve tightened our belts, dug up last yearās potatoes and sold the Lego.
Weāve also donated to Jack Monroe. Just like many others too. Why?
Well, she tells such a tale of the 100 hour weeks sheās working to help us all, working with the government no less to make a change, that when she pleaded poverty and said she couldnāt afford the rent, I felt she needed our help. Yet when you scroll up from those begging tweets you see she boasts about Ā£30,000 in savings and being ready to buy a half a million pound house. (Thanks again AwfullyMolly for pointing that out).
She also talks of a partner, but is still a single mum and then goes on to describe her childhood summers in the back of mummyās Landrover, have you seen how much a Defender costs? This is not the origin of someone who is working class.
Minor Celebrities Use Their Offspring for Clout
Now this is something thatās been grinding my gears of late, minor celebrities, authors and the Twitter famous using their offspring for clout. From those who parade their gender neutral kids, to Jack Monroe telling us tales of her son being upset at not having bread and jam. STOP.
Itās not fair on the child, they didnāt ask for the spotlight, and itās not fair on the audience either, as only a few cold hearts could ignore the plea of the very young. Itās exploitation and quite frankly, disgusting especially when it discusses the childās mental health. They are not toys, they have their own voice and, when theyāre old enough, that story is theirs to tell. Not yours.
Disclaimer, or something: I'm not a TERF. However, I do not agree with forcing an alternative gender onto a child before they've hit puberty. I wanted to be a boy until I turned 12. I would HATE my parents now if they'd given me puberty blockers and made me see it through. Let them live as the opposite sex but leave their small developing bodies alone.
Why Has Jack Monroe Lied?
When you pull together every tweet, every claim and every beg itās quite easy to see whatās happened and the type of person Jack Monroe is. I donāt think she set out to scam, far from it, I do think she genuinely wanted to help people but sheās lying again if she says she didnāt want to profit from that help.
Iām not sure how many of Jackās tweets are drunken tweets, many if us spout a lot of bull when under the influence (thereās
help here if you are struggling with any addiction), and this, combined with a Twitter profile could account for a lot of the nonsense however I think sheās got her diagnosis wrong.
I donāt think sheās autistic. I think she has ADHD. Sheās bitten off more than she can chew. Sheās so desperate for a regular hefty income that sheās started multiple projects, put her fingers in many pies, and not really seen any (bar her book) to completion as she struggles with knowing which one will produce the highest profit margin.
This hyperactivity is laced with constant inconsistencies, with her 100 hour week leaving her with no time at all to tell her son sheās sold his toy dinosaur. (Which is probably why she used fewer words and told him sheād had a clear out instead).
Sheās backed herself into a corner, and now the only way out is to hide or tell the truth.
How Can Jack Monroe Recover From This?
Sheās lost the trust of many people but there are a lot that will still back her, and she could begin to rebuild that trust by focusing on one project at a time and telling the absolute truth. She got overwhelmed, she became scatty, she got lazy with customer service, she didnāt want to disappoint, so kept going, and lying.
However I fear, if she does try to recover it will be through other means. I hope Iām wrong, yet she seems to be the type of person who lives off sympathy, she loves to be pitied (I despise it), and wants people to feel sorry for her while smashing that donate button. The devil on my shoulder is telling me sheāll recover by using a new excuse, one we havenāt heard before, a new label to add to the list, and that would be a real shame, but the very woke will fall for it!
at this sentence:
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Surely, now, the big media outlets have to say something!
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