AN organiser of an impromptu foodbank which took thousands of donations in the wake of the referendum result has challenged Falkirk MP Eric Joyce to a public debate after the politician branded the spectacle "poverty porn".
In an online blog, Mr Joyce, a former Labour politician who was expelled from the party after he committed an assault in the House of Commons bar in 2012, criticised the huge response to the foodbank in Glasgow's George Square, which was given around 2,000 bags of groceries at the weekend by members of the public.
The former Army major, who was also fined in February following a booze-fuelled rant at Edinburgh Airport last year, wrote that the foodbank "is being fetishized by people who helped Glasgow vote Yes to Scottish independence".
He added: "The George Square jamboree seeks to reduce Glasgow to a city of poverty porn."
Darren Carnegie, who runs the Glasgow's Needy project alongside his father Andrew, accused Mr Joyce of attention-seeking following his fall from grace.
"This is something for Glasgow to be proud of...," he said. "I want a public debate. He's all talk on Twitter, but I want him to go head to head with me in a debate..."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article