Ok, so we are in a recession that may turn into a depression but hey, those folks who work so hard in the Poverty Industry only see that as a sign that we need to spend £££ Billions chasing the phantasm of “child poverty.” The Rowntree Foundation is a BBC favourite and each time they produce liberal tosh it is treated as if it were the received wisdom of Solomon. As we have discussed here before, it is the political invention of relative poverty that is being retailed by the bleeding hearts at Rowntree and as ever, only one side of this faux argument is permitted on the BBC.
POVERTY INDUSTRY UPDATE.
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Using the relative poverty measure keeps many people employed in the Poverty industry and provides a stick with which to beat the less than totally caring.
But this is critical of the government. I thought the bbc were pro. Why then haven’t the ignored the report?
There is anyway a broad political concensus on the problem, if not the solution.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1581192/David-Cameron-My-pledge-on-child-poverty.html
@MWL
attacking the govt…. from the left
public teat | 18.02.09 – 9:30 am
Sure, but it’s axiomatic for b-bbc that the bbc is pro-government. difficult to have it both ways.
@MWL …
pro-govt, when the govt are on message.
anti-govt, when the govt not quite liberal-left enough
thats not so contradictory, is it?
Sometimes it is a bit of a struggle between the government, the BBC, and the Poverty Industry to see who can be most liberal-left. The BBC and the Poverty Industry have an unfair advantage over the government as the government has to take some responsibilityfor the consequesnces of implementing ludicrous ideas which the other two can safely and smugly talk about without any comeback.
The povert industry denotes poverty as living on 60 percent of the usual family wage, so in reality the only two ways the poverty index can be improved are;
1) if the average wages declines relative to benefits payments; ie the country sinks into wage depression.
2) benefit payments(gathered through tax) exceed average wage inflation.
Any other ideas?
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is linked to the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust which is one of the biggest financial backers of the Liberal Democrat party. Can’t imagine any Conservative donor getting away with a press statement like this one without the BBC highlighting their party political links. Its the same when it comes to the unions who pontificate while being the major backers (70-80%) of the Labour party.
Good first comment at the top.
Poverty is defined as less than 60% of the median, the median being the income of the person in the middle of the queue, if you think of a queue of all the people arranged in order of income.
All this means is that a distribution graph which is tall and thin=less poverty (which you tend to get in communist countries – everyone clustered together in income terms) whereas a graph which is much wider = more poverty (which you tend to get in capitalist economies – everyone spread apart)
So really, the measure of poverty is just a measure of how socialist you are.
In fact in Zimbabwe, it could well be that more people are closer to the median, albeit a low one, therefore by this definition it could well prove that we have more poverty than Zimbabwe.
Here are some more examples to show this is a misuse of stastistics.
On those rich tax-haven islands where there are loads of millionaires, a teacher on 40,000 will be in poverty, becasue, say the median is 2 million,
the teacher is well below 60% of 2 million. (the median, ie middle person, earns 2 million in this example – half earn more, half less – and that is EXACTLY half, as that point defines the median).
However, if the millionaires leave, the teacher, on the same income, will suddenly be in the top 5% and be ‘filthy rich’
Then the millionaires return, plus Bill Gates.
Oh no! Now the millionaires are far below the median now that they have to compare themselves with Bill Gates, so they are ‘in poverty’
MWL clearly hasn’t been paying attention. Either that or it’s straw man time again.
That the BBC either supports the government or attacks it from the Left has been the main criticism here for several years.
No MWL has a point; BBC are often accused here of just letting Labour do what they want,not questioning it. This is critical of the government, so whats the nature of the bias?
Is child poverty a fantasy, as David Vance claims? I take it you meant to say that the government has redefined child poverty so that more people get handouts/help? In which case, is this really a thinly veiled rant against benefits…?
Gus Haynes
Whilst I would love to hug all the poverty stricken people in the UK and discuss their bad luck, I am unfortunately closely related to several benefit claimers who have the following characteristics;
1) they had children whilst not being married and not having jobs
2) they have no real qualifications (why bother under this government)
3) all have worked for cash whilst claiming benefits and they pay no tax
4) are able to indentify each and every available benefit, whilst not being able to resist HD TVs mobiles cars etc
5) will “borrow” money on a long term basis
6) their ambition is to do as little as possible whilst screwing the state and other tax payers for all they are worth
why not encourage them by giving them even more of our taxes?
Child poverty is by no means a fantasy, but the BBC do indeed serve this government’s interests by their consistent failure to expose the legerdemain NuLab routinely displays in this area.
Ever since they were elected, the NuLab cheats have bent every sinew to push those households just under the poverty threshold to a position just over it.
Meanwhile, those in real distress – the ones very far below the poverty line have been left to stew.
NuLab use this issue to parade their social consciences and imply they are more caring than everyone else. The BBC colludes with this con trick.
If the BBC weren’t so biased, they would expose the fraud of a policy that kust tweaks the stats for political effect rather than really addresses the needs of the most unfortunate.
Yeah, so you know that people cheat the system, we all know that. But not everyone does. Do you therefore think the entire benefit system should end? Thus depriving people who need the welfare state because some people cheat the system?
And my point is about child poverty, not Charlene and Wayne living in a council house using their benefits to buy Stella and bet on the horses.
Tom:
what are you saying? They are only helping the slightly poor but neglecting the really poor?
Okay, so show me some evidence of this, It sounds like it could be true enough but it smacks of a generalisation.
Gus
You miss the point. For a whole generation of people benefits have become a way of life. They don’t SEE why they should work.
A better way to use tax payers money is to take low earners totally out of paying income tax.
Surely even YOU admit it’s pointless someone on low pay being taxed then having to fill out endless forms to claim ‘something’ back?
Also the benefits system doesn’t help low paid single people, which of course was why fatty one eye messed up over the 10p tax.
And yes Gus darling if people can’t afford kids they shouldn’t breed.
The benefits system encourages fat females to get themselves pregnant and then get priority on housing. They see it as a right.
Do you really think that is OK? Honestly?
Why is there no PMQs this week on Bbc?
The unremarked essence of the BBC’s position is that it questions Labour from the liberal/left and the Conservatives, not from the right, but also from the liberal/left.
In fact it would probobly be psychologically distressing if not impossible for a BBC journalist to question from the right.
Gus Haynes | 18.02.09 – 11:54 am
Fraser Nelson of the Spectator has written about this quite a lot. Here’s one article –
Instead of fighting poverty, Mr Brown switched the focus to a different battle: income equality. An arbitrary poverty line was drawn up – 60 per cent of the average income, today about £185 a week – and people would be lifted from just below it to just above it with tax credits. When this happened, the earner (and, crucially, their children) would be deemed ‘lifted out of poverty’, even if their income was up by just £10 a week.
This was the declared mission after Mr Blair’s March 1999 speech at Toynbee Hall: to ‘abolish child poverty within a generation’ as defined by Mr Brown’s carefully chosen statistical targets. Those at the bottom of the pile, who have no chance of crossing this threshold, have been forgotten about.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_20070512/ai_n19163032
Martin, I don’t know where you get the impression that I missed the point. I was objecting only to
1. the claim that child poverty does not exist
2. the entire benefit system should not be scrapped because of those who cheat the system. there are people out there who still depend on the welfare state. thats the same anywhere on earth.
so please don’t try to pigeonhole me, i wasn’t going on a left wing ‘benefits are good’ rant.
but on your point, yes of course they should tax the lower earners less. it provides no incentive to work if you are taxed to the moon when youre already on 10 grand a year.
poor people will always breed martin, it has always been that way. the government now is offered more help than before, which is a good thing, that we should be able to agree on. the problem is, like you said, some people (who knows how many) interpret the help as a means to exploit the system. and yes some people do plan our families based on benefits, but the truth is no one knows how many, and i feel it is unfair to paint them all with one brush. there is a vast difference between poor people who need and deserve state help, and those who realise they can owt for nowt and exploit the loopholes.
These arguments about child poverty and its measurement would be much more interesting if held on the BBC.
The real and most damaging poverty is the poverty of education. The spiral of lower expectations / standards.
tom, its agood article, but where does it say that the government is targeting those right below the poverty line, yet ignoring the even poorer?
”Those at the bottom of the pile, who have no chance of crossing this threshold, have been forgotten about. The ‘workless class’ are instead treated as villains to be locked up in sin bins or given Asbos – rather than as the tragic but logical consequences of an unreformed welfare system.
The poorest are, admittedly, the hardest political problem to deal with. The easiest option is to write a welfare cheque and pay such people to live in council estates, away from the rest of working society, and rely on immigrants to do the jobs which 17 per cent of working-age Brits are now paid not to do. ”
He even admits that he has no solutions himself.
Thats my problem with articles like that; quick to point out the problems, but it’s the government who have to come up with solutions. which they then don’t…
Dave 12:01
No PMQs today, because the MPs are skiving yet again, and they are just back from their 28-day Christmas holiday.
Gus Haynes | 18.02.09 – 12:22 pm
But there are plenty of Tory politicians saying that help should be targeted at those who need it most.
It ain’t rocket science.
PS it is their half-term break 12-23 Feb, poor diddums.
These institutions, reports and politicians keep bleating about missing child poverty eradication targets and so on, but as far as I can see, they keep importing poverty so why wouldn’t they miss the targets? And what they don’t import, well,the benefits system does its bit, and as has been said, there is the statistical definition of poverty as well.
We have had 15 years of growth and importing immigrants to do jobs our underclasses won’t.
Now we are stuck with 2 million + unemployed people as well as 2.7m invalidity benefit claimants (many are bogus)and this is rising.
We have allowed people to refuse work and sit on their arses refusing to skill themselves at Adult Colleges or work in supermarkets etc.
Offer them 2 jobs and if they refuse cut off their benefits, and if they have kids take them away.
In the past respectable working class people did try + get some kind of money behind them before having kids
This is off-topic for this thread, but I’m unsurprised to see that the Times is leading with its “Sweary Mandelson” story, while the BBC website seems to have no mention of it.
By way of contrast IIRC the “Sweary Boris” spin from Keith Vaz appeared on the Beeb’s homepage for several hours…
There is no real child poverty in the UK, unless it is in individual cases caused by neglect or abuse. Go to India, for example, to see some real child poverty. “Relative poverty” is just another way of saying that everyone deserves to get what everyone else gets, a standard socialist construct. No wonder the B-BBC loves reports such as this.
There is poverty, but caused by useless parenting rather than lack of money.
Many of them live an expensive lifestyle and incur debt due to their inability to budget.
The elderly are more of a concern to me than these useless families
2.7m invalidity benefit claimants (many are bogus)and this is rising.
frankos | 18.02.09 – 12:35 pm |
i know three people who do this for various reasons,and not one of them in my view would have a problem healthwise picking up a phone in a call centre or working on a till in asda.
Having visited the Philippines a few times when I lived in Taiwan, I can assure you that there is no *real* child poverty in the UK.
I saw whole families living beneath motorway flyovers. I saw rickshaw drivers sleeping in their ‘vehicles’ at night (I have never seen such an uncomfortable sleeping position). I saw shanty towns on the coast that were grindingly poor.
If there is a roof over your head, food on the table, running water/sanitation, etc, then you aren’t poor – you’re bloody lucky!
the types that frankos refers to, and martin, ie benefits as a lifestyle choice, are not highlighted on the BBC, although like many others, I know lots of young girls who got pregnant so they can get a free house and not have to work. In a way, can you blame them, when the government offers to marry them, and tempts them with gifts, for better or for worse, for richer, for the rest of their lives?
As part of the deal, they have to churn out more Labour voters.
Occasionally, an example slips through in a programme. Although Wife Swap is not BBC, it illustrates the point: There were 2 couples on one episode, each with children. In one family, both parents worked. In the other, neither one worked. The family that did not work received the higher income.
I was talking to a boy whose family would be defined as ‘in poverty’. He told me he got £100 for his birthday. I don’t think I ever received more than £5 as a child, but we never would have said we suffered from poverty.
One thing most children do suffer from is an excess of crisps, chocolate, computer games and expensive trainers.
I know of several people who moved to Rhyll in N Wales deliberately as it is easier to claim benefits there. This is because employment is very seasonal, so most of the year they have a good excuse not to work. Also, in areas of high unemployment you can more easily claim there is no work available.
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc11/chicogarcia_bucket/pedicab.jpg
Imagine spending your life living in a ‘pedicab’. Homeless, with nowhere else to sleep. Scratching out an existence. You can get a ‘jeepnee’ (bit like an open air minibus) for 3 pesos (2 pence), so these guys probably earn a similar amount per journey.
That is poverty.
>I know of several people who moved to Rhyll in N Wales deliberately as it is easier to claim benefits there.
I was in Wales, the mechanic said he couldn’t look at my car for a week.
I asked him why, as they had around 20% unemployment in that town.
He said that he couild’nt find anyone to work, they all made more money on the dole.
Socialism at work!
45 years ago I worked in a labour exchange – a “JobCentre” – at the Elephant and Castle. My supervisor had a very simple rule. No-one under 40 was allowed to keep signing for more than a week ot two, unless they were disabled. He would run them ragged, make them sign the register every day or sometimes twice a day, strike them off the books at the slightest sign of reluctance to work or go to interviews, and face down all their aggression. But if they wanted to cooperate, there would be all the support they needed, endless phone-calls round London to help them find work (when most folk did not have phones).
Or rather – WE did those things on his instruction, knowing he would back us up totally in any dispute with truculent wasters.
I would make him Sec of State for Employment in a flash. “We are here to help the workers – not the shirkers”
ref the comments above:
This is the difference between real life experience and the socialist world model–
The welfare state is abused beyond belief, to the point that the deserving poor get less because of the scrounging many–the 1945 Labour gvt would roll in their graves
There is no such thing as child poverty in the UK, but for people like Gus haynes and the ruling classes there HAS to be child poverty. Without it, their thirst for moral superiority, compounded by the guilt of their own social priviledges can never be quenched.
Gus, I find your attitude patronizing. Suggest you get out of your detached house in the home counties and go trawl a few council estates and see if you can find one example of child poverty, rather than just plain bad parenting.
You won’t find it, but nor would you ever admit to it either.
By the way Gus, I don’t think the ‘underclass’ bet on the old gee-gees any more. Bit too Guy Ritchie pork pie hat that one. Lottery cards tend to be the modern betting equivilant these days. So people like yourselves can have more opera houses and modern art galleries. Stay in touch.
Grimer 1:22
Having lived in Turkey, Malaysia and Gambia and travelled widely in really poor countries, it makes me sick to hear some British whining about “poverty” !
Grant, Grimer etc,
Who here, or on the BBC, claimed that we have poverty in the UK equal to or anywhere near the poverty in Turkey, Gambia or god knows where? Who claimed that?
We are talking about poverty relative to British wealth, relative to the norm in the UK. And yes we have relative poverty in the UK. Of course we do. No one here (myself included) claimed it was somehow worse or equal to third world poverty. Don’t make things up, and don’t try and avoid the issue.
Gus,
The problem is that the BBC and government never bother to explain to the general population what ‘relative poverty’ actually means. Neither do they bother to investigate what life is actually like for those people living in ‘relative poverty’.
Why not?
Personally, I think it is because they want to pull on our heart strings and soften us up for more socialist intervention. I could be wrong, but that is what it seems like.
If you actually bothered to read my earlier post:
“Having visited the Philippines a few times when I lived in Taiwan, I can assure you that there is no *real* child poverty in the UK.” – please note the use of the word ‘real’ (already hightlighted), as opposed to ‘relative’.
also:
If there is a roof over your head, food on the table, running water/sanitation, etc, then you aren’t poor – you’re bloody lucky!
Again, the BBC/Government/Rowntree/whoever, may consider this to be ‘relative’ poverty (i.e. the family only has a CRT TV and a PS2). However, I do not consider it to be poverty. Therefore, I do not think further government intervention is required.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Beeb allow an opposing view when reporting the views of a left wing think tank. Every time I see one of these stories I think of it as a BBC editorial. They just use the think tanks as a voice to express their own biased views.
A utopianist view of the poorest in society coupled with an adherence to party dogma and a welfare state that makes it incredibly difficult for people to move upward and drag themselves out of poverty, all this is known isnt it?
Just throwing money at the uneducated, uncivilised non working poor will never work, a generation has grown up with welfarism as a lifestyle choice, its easier than working and its easier than struggling, the system makes it easy to fail and not even try in the first place, tax credits will be frittered away on plasma TVs and booze.
The solution is tough love, hard work, discipline, sacrifice and a tough welfare to work policy and a crystal clear message to the backsliders and bone idle that everyone who claims benefits works, the only exceptions would be the tiny minority of those unable to even push a broom, couple this to an entitlemnet limit and very soon the tide would turn!
The socialists have made it so very easy for those looking for an excuse to enjoy an easy ride courtesy of the working majority, the socialists have created their own client serfs.
Jobs and social discipline create a better society, real work is created through ultra low taxes and a government that encourages business, the socialists hate wealth creators/industrialists/business types who create real wealth.
The remedy is as simple as it is radical and it works, the socialists have encouraged everyone to think of themselves as victims, they have enabled many people to fail and rewarded them for failing.
The socialists and their fellow travellers have created a disaster with their utopianist dogma and everything they do makes it worse!
We are talking about poverty relative to British wealth, relative to the norm in the UK. And yes we have relative poverty in the UK. Of course we do. No one here (myself included) claimed it was somehow worse or equal to third world poverty. Don’t make things up, and don’t try and avoid the issue.
By that logic if I earned 100k a year and hung around people who earned 200k I would be poor. Or if I had an IQ of 140 and had mates with ones of 180 I would be stupid (which I must be anyway to live in this fekking country!!)
I lived in RSA and have seen real grinding poverty, difference is the poor in real poverty don’t waste their money on trainers, sattellite dishes for TVs etc.
Lets just face it we have made an industry of poverty and charity which has a vested interest to expand!!