Britain needs you. Not, as during war, to fight for our freedoms.
This winter, Britain needs each of us to fight for our neighbours and our communities, to combat a different kind of enemy – the threat of real and grinding poverty.
With Universal Credit too low to cover rising gas and electricity charges and soaring food bills, the safety net for millions of families is not now our welfare state but food banks and charity.
The last line of defence is no longer Universal Credit but charity.
As winter approaches millions already cannot afford to heat their homes and are now struggling to heat themselves and their children – they need blankets, warm clothes, sleeping bags and hot water bottles.
One church charity which used to send 75% of its food donations overseas is now re-routing 80% of what it receives to families in the UK.
So desperate is the plight of many, that over 3,500 church halls, mosques, temples, libraries and other public buildings are this week transforming themselves into winter heating hubs.
Backed by the Daily Mirror, this “Warm Welcome” is led by the Bishop of Durham involving charities from ChurchWorks Stewardship to Christians Against Poverty.
Some 1700 heating hubs are already up and running and Warm Welcome is now inviting those unable to turn up their heating at home to come to the nearest hall . Pensioners and others will not only be offered a warm space but the warm hand of friendship.
“Warm Welcome” is just the latest brilliant innovation dreamed up by community champions to help us through one of the toughest winters yet.
It joins the 3,000 food banks, the community pantries and swap shops springing up across Britain - alongside fuel banks, bedding banks, clothes banks and toiletries banks.
Charities and the people of our country – like readers of the Daily Mirror – are becoming Britain’s last line of defence in the war on destitution.
For a rich nation like ours, it is a national shame.
Christmas is already being cancelled for millions. 80% of families are slashing their Christmas spending, and more than 40% expect their homes to be cold through the festive season.
But we cannot despair. Today, I ask all of you who can, to act. Your communities and local charities, already stepping up heroically, need you.
In my home area of Fife, the Cottage Family Centre has piloted the multi-bank – a food, clothing, bedding, toiletries, furnishings, and baby bank rolled into one - and it is now helping 40,000 families with goods from Amazon, Scotmid Fishers laundry and 12 local companies in a £5m project that will soon expand into new areas.
But, impressive as charity creativity and innovation is, none of it will be enough to take us through a bleak autumn and hard winter.
Charities are so stretched, we now need a government as compassionate as they are.
Because we can’t compensate entirely for a government that simply doesn’t understand the struggle people will face this winter.
So, we must press for Monday’s Budget to link benefits to inflation and rise next April by 10.1 % - the rate of inflation.
But even that will not be sufficient if the current help with council tax and heating bills is removed.
There has to be special help to those at greatest risk - from the disabled to children in large families - and we have to join Marcus Rashford in demanding nutritious meals daily for every school child in need.
In every crisis Mirror readers are noted for their generosity and respond to calls for help.
I thank you for your kindness.
It is often those who have little who give most to those who have nothing. And I ask that this winter we do so again.
But all of us must also all come together to demand the Government step up to help those in need.
