The British child-poverty scandal.....

[John]

You forgot the 50" plus Plasma TV and at least 2 dogs (normally pit-bull types)...

[Hugh]

You forgot the 50" plus Plasma TV and at least 2 dogs (normally pit-bull types)...

To true

[Papaumau]

I have seen with my own eyes this child in poverty, but in many cases the parents still manage to have a packet of fags a day and a pint down the pub. and moan about lack of funds. 

That argument ALWAYS rears it's ugly head in cases like these !

Anyone who knows anything about living life at the bottom end of society should also know that almost all people that are struggling to subsist deliberately overspend in ways that are seen as extravagant to some who are better off.

This is known as the  - "I am not really poor syndrome" - and I can prove it by wearing the most expensive clothes, kitting out my kids in the most expensive designer gear and all of the electronic bits and pieces that everybody else seems to have; not to mention that I can afford to go to the bookies every day and the pub every day and smoke like a chimney !

I think that you will find that almost all of these misguided people will also be right up to their necks and beyond in the worst kind of debt so that they can finance such extravagance.

There is nothing worse on this earth than being looked down on by your peers as being poverty-stricken as nothing destroys self-worth more than that does.

It's a vicious and downwards spiral - believe me !

I KNOW...as I WAS that soldier !

[Hugh]

That argument ALWAYS rears it's ugly head in cases like these !

I guess it always will. They do get enough money to support them selves and their children if spent wisely. When a couple spend £100 or more a week on fags and drugs which could be put to better use makes my blood boil. When I left the forces I had to take the first job going and had to work 60 to 70 hours a week to make ends meet. The first things I gave up was fags(40 a day) and an evening at the pub. Yet watched these dole wallers drinking and puffing away and their children out side the pub. Yes many time I did a 14 hour night shift and then climb into the back of a cash wagon for the day shift. Yes I got my mortgage paid through bloody hard work. These loafers have created the child poverty scandal because they have no will power and waste hand outs which I have had to help pay for through taxes.

[Papaumau]

Yeah Hugh, but the thing is that people on benefit DON'T get enough to live a reasonable life on; that is why the benefit levels are set just barely above the poverty trap level.

When the poorest of people are struggling just to subsist they often get into drugs or booze or anything else that raises them temporarily out of the hole that they are stuck in. Those who choose drugs usually have to either take to crime or take to prostitution to pay for their habit and the rest just spend what meagre amount of cash they have on booze or gambling until they are  immersed in a haze that they think makes their miserable lives somehow better. Of course it doesn't and as I said before; following this line can finish up in a downward spiral that is completely destructive if help cannot be found to try to get out.

It is easy to stereotype this class of society all as wasters and drunks and addicts but as you have shown above many of them just simply struggle along at the bottom as best they can WITHOUT trying to find a crutch of some kind.

The main problem for the poor is to try to find self-respect and if they cannot easily find this within their own strata of society then they often try to buy their way out of trouble. As they simply cannot afford to buy their way out of this hole they find themselves in they often try to look as if they are not poor at all by spending money they simply don't have.

Yes, this is a foolish thing to do, but being stuck in poverty means that they have to try or simply allow themselves to go under.

[Hugh]

What do say is the answer to this problem? No use giving them more money because that will only encourage them not to find work. Under this title child poverty comes the unmarried girls who have a baby not by accident but so they will come to the top of housing list and live on the welfare state.
Child poverty scandal will all ways be until this problem is addressed.

I have also lived through very hard times my father was on a very low income and we all had to work to make ends meet. I had to do a paper round each morning before going to school. Greens for our dinner was cooked stinging nettles at times or outer cabbage leaves which had been thrown away. Stale bread which was unable to be sold was soak in milk to be eaten that way. Every thing we had to wear in those days was second hand. For tooth paste we had to use salt. To have money for Christmas we went potatoes picking it, wasn't done by machine in those days it was bloody hard work and back braking. Times were very hard but it did me a world of good.
Holidays that was a day trip to Skegness when times were good. Hugh   

[Papaumau]

I know what you mean Hugh, as it would appear that both you and me came from nothing. While it is good for all people to feel a touch of poverty now and again - as this makes them appreciate what they get when they eventually get it - it is soul destroying to feel that you are immersed in this strata without any hope of getting out of it.

Poverty breeds poverty and once you are satisfied that that is your lot in life the ability to climb out seems to get further and further away.

It is from this disadvantaged area that most of the criminals and benefit cheats originate and as the rich get richer and the poor continue to get poorer this trap gets more and more miserable and depressing to the ones that see no way out of it.

Every government that have ever been in opposition have promised that poverty in this rich country would be addressed and that a "fairer society" would only be arrived at if you vote for them. Of course once they get into power the people at the bottom end are forgotten about and "child poverty" - to get back to the thread-start - is again pushed to the bottom of the agenda.

"The answer to the problem" ?

I don't really know WHAT that might be as it certainly seems that the ones that could do something about it lose all interest once they have their backsides nicely settled into the comfy seats in Westminster.

Maybe the only way for the plebs to get a fair crack of the whip in this increasingly divisive society would be the threat of a revolution ?

[Hugh]

If it was left to me they would be forced to report to the job center every morning at 0730 or even better to a fitness center  to get use to idea of getting out of bed in the morning and at least getting some exercise to get fit for work. At the moment a lot of them NOT ALL are just plain lazy and unemployable. Sorry to say a lot of their children will follow in their foot steps. The British child poverty scandal will just continue.

PS Bring back national service
 

[Papaumau]

You could get a job with the Tory propagandists if you wanted Hugh !

While I will agree with you that being unemployed can become a way of life for some and that after you have been kicked in the teeth a dozen or so times it becomes very hard to stand up again and try to fight on against poverty.

That is why the term "the poverty trap" was coined: once people are down there in that trap they often find that even while the benefits payments are poor, working - if you can find a decent job - pays even less.

Many of them would rather take to crime than go to work for 40 or more hours a week for a minimum wage and then lose all of their extra benefits and start having to pay tax and national insurance on that pittance.

Oh and BTW... National Service was only two years long and once complete most of these servicemen were back where they started.

[Hugh]

When I left the forces after serving 22 years there wasn't much work around. But I made sure that I wouldn't join a dole queue If I could help it. Minimum wage wasn't in at the time so I took a job at just over £2 hour and worked 70 odd hours a week to get a wage. I stuck at it until a new opening came about. It took 5 years before I found a job I was happy with. The forces gave me a back bone which some of these full time benefit claimers will never have. My Son who as worked all his life so far and put money a side for when he retires as now become unemployed but he cannot claim any unemployment benefits until he's used up his saving. Some of them are just milking the welfare state dry and workers who have put into pot get nothing.   

[Hugh]

While I having a good moan at these people living the good life on benefits, this morning on the bus, me a 70 year old, gave up my seat for a less abled person while some unemployed youngsters just sat glued to their seat. Even when more elderly foke got on they just sat on their lazy back sides.

[Papaumau]

When I left the forces after serving 22 years there wasn't much work around. But I made sure that I wouldn't join a dole queue If I could help it. Minimum wage wasn't in at the time so I took a job at just over £2 hour and worked 70 odd hours a week to get a wage. I stuck at it until a new opening came about. It took 5 years before I found a job I was happy with. The forces gave me a back bone which some of these full time benefit claimers will never have. My Son who as worked all his life so far and put money a side for when he retires as now become unemployed but he cannot claim any unemployment benefits until he's used up his saving. Some of them are just milking the welfare state dry and workers who have put into pot get nothing.   

And I say good for you Hugh !

The trouble is that many people who are trapped in poverty often lose their reserves of strength because it has been all squeezed out of them. Once a person has lost all hope of recovery they often give up and just take what hits them afterwards. This is the most insidious side to abject poverty: it is a soul destroyer.

I do not agree that national service "gave you a backbone" as I am sure that was always there; the service just brought it out.

I DO agree that the "savings" racket should be stopped as anyone who has tried to save a little when times are good should not be penalised for having those savings when things turn bad.

I guess that before we can criticise EVERY benefits claimant we have to  travel a way in their individual shoes to find out their special circumstances. Once this is done the people who snipe from the outside might think a bit more before tarring everybody with the same brush.