Crouch End's David Winskill on the poverty in Haringey

Knowing that war was imminent, the London County Council developed a network of rest centres to provide shelter and support for the families whose homes would be destroyed in the anticipated bombing.  

By May 1940, more than 500 churches and municipal buildings had been identified and, with government funding and voluntary effort, were ready to shelter up to 100,000 people. 

Eighty years later, in common with councils across the UK, Haringey is busy supporting the Warm Welcome Network. 

Designed to provide a refuge for individuals and families who are finding it “hard to keep their homes warm due to rising energy costs” the hubs will “offer a warm, safe place for residents to go.” 

Second World War rationing has also gone into folklore. Although no-one was pampered, rationing assured that food was distributed fairly and that everyone had a well-balanced diet and enough to eat. 

David Winskill wonders whether we are living under rationing (Image: David Winskill)

Some will wonder whether rationing really ended in 1954. Haringey’s food banks (three in the more affluent west, 30 in the poorer east) provide a lifeline for some of the most vulnerable families in the country, who are struggling with long term loss of resilience, inflation and unaffordable utility bills. 

Volunteers are providing not just food but clothes, sanitary products, toiletries – just like in the good old days of the Blitz. For the hardcore nostalgic, there is evidence that destitution levels are starting to match those of Dicken’s London. 

It is not just the excluded who are in trouble. Almost one third of hospital trusts have set-up food banks to support their low-paid staff and this number is growing.  

The truth is that world’s sixth richest economy is still rationing food but now, instead of distribution being guided by fairness, we are imposing the brutality of price and ability to pay. 

In a report launched last week, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and ex-prime minister Gordon Brown say that food banks are now under threat of closure, victims of the same economic forces that they were created to tackle. 

They write: "Compassion, of course, is not running out but cash is."

I think the last vestige of compassion ran out of the Downing Street door years ago, probably while we were clapping for carers. 

David Winskill is a Crouch End resident and campaigner.