There is a major cost-of-living crisis among the citizens of the United Kingdom. What have other countries been doing? What could we take away from countries such as Scotland? ‘This is Rigged’ a campaign targeting the Scottish government for their ignorance of both the cost-of-living and climate crisis, set their demands straight in mid-April against big chain supermarkets and their grasp on the current household dinner table with a peaceful protest. These activists displace modern day living essentials from store shelves into the same store’s donation basket. 

For the past several years, there has been an increase in the cost of living as we know it. This has caused many households to rely on food banks. The Trussel Trust, a network of food banks from across the United Kingdom, has reported that there is a “37% increase from the same period in 2021/22” in terms of food bank usage under their name. Whilst they have shipped out “2,986,203 emergency food parcels” of that “1 million emergency food parcels provided for children.”. If children are humans that are unable to make a profit, they should not be raised in unstable conditions. Yet major grocery stores such as Aldi, Sainsbury's, and Tesco have been making more profit than ever in recent years despite the cost-of-living crisis.   

Robin Hood, a branch of ‘This is Rigged’ which is a self-described “direct action campaign targeting the Scottish government's lack of action on both the climate and cost-of-living crisis” has taken action over the last couple of months. Their most recent demonstrations this year, on the 14th of April in Glasgow at 11:00 AM across a ton of supermarkets (some of which being Tesco, Aldi, and Waitrose) protestors displaced in-store items from the shelves into the supermarkets’ food donation checkpoints.  These items range from nappies to canned corn. ‘This is Rigged’ states, “Donate the essential items we delivered to the food bank collection points or return them to the shelves and expose that you only care about money,” in their testimony against the unethical greed of chain grocery stores.   

This only makes us ask where our English campaigns are. Or even where our government holds its values.