Cameron’s delight: school pupils suffering ‘Victorian conditions’
Don’t you just hate it when politicians rig the statistics to show ‘facts’ that are demonstrably untrue?
According to the Conservative Party, the number of children in poverty has fallen by 300,000 under the Coalition Government – but poverty is measured as a percentage of average income; when the nation’s average income drops, poverty is said to have dropped as well, even though this is clearly untrue.
According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, “Those with less than 60 per cent of median income are classified as poor. This ‘poverty line’ is the agreed international measure used throughout the European Union.”
Here in the UK, wages have suffered their longest-sustained fall for no less than 150 years.
Average incomes in the years up to 2012. This is the most up-to-date graph I have. Source: ONS.
So no wonder the BBC and the Mirror are reporting that children are arriving at school in “Victorian squalor”. This is what the Coalition Government wants.
The BBC reported: “Claims about poverty in the school-age population will be heard at the NASUWT teachers’ union annual conference in Cardiff. The union asked members for their experiences and received almost 2,500 responses. It was not a representative sample of teachers, but among those replying more than two in three reported seeing pupils come to school hungry.
“Almost one in four of the teachers who responded said they had brought in food for pupils who were hungry, and an even higher proportion had seen the school feeding pupils.
“More than three in four had seen pupils arriving at school with “inappropriate clothing” such as no socks or coats in bad weather.
“Similar numbers claimed that a bad diet meant that pupils were unable to concentrate on their work.”
The Liberal Democrats said they had helped families by introducing free school meals for all infant children. That’s the caring side of the Coalition Government for you. Rather than sort out the underlying problems – that they created – they put a patch on it and say it’s solved.
Meanwhile, a Tory spokesman said – get this: “Because of our policies, there are more jobs than ever before, wages are rising faster than prices and with the lowest inflation on record, family budgets are starting to go further. The NASUWT should recognise how the Conservatives have rescued the economy, and through that, delivering the jobs that secure a better future for families.”
Jobs that pay far too little to make any real difference – 28 per cent of them are on insecure zero-hours contracts.
Who do these selfish toffs think they’re fooling?
We must get rid of them before they cause any more harm to our children.
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I was beyond incensed when I read this article today
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3025899/The-strain-looking-Ivan-brought-breaking-point-marriages-don-t-survive-stronger-SamCam-gives-profoundly-candid-unique-insight-life-Downing-Street.html?offset=0&max=100&jumpTo=comment-81899720#comment-81899720
Mr & Mrs Cameron MAKE MY BLOOD BOIL ESPECIALLY when she said she was at breaking point! HASN’T HER HUSBAND’S GOVT DRIVEN PEOPLE TO BREAKING POINT?
She’s rich and still claimed DLA, the same DLA her husband has denied millions of disabled people, even a profoundly disabled eight-year-old recently.
*caps not meant for you, it just reflects my anger.
I saw a similar article in the Torygraph and responded as follows:
What a nerve.
Every time we see one of the Camerons mentioning their late son, either in his own right or in connection with the NHS, let’s all just remember that – every day – the government that Mr Cameron leads attacks thousands of people and penalises them for the crime of having bodies that don’t work properly.
David Cameron happily took state benefits to pay for his son’s care – and now he is happily removing those benefits from people who need the money more than he ever did.
As someone who has had to defend a partner against the mercilessness of the Cameron government, articles like this sicken me.
There are definately underlying causes, a good teaching assistant friend of mine asked the class she was with to write down what they had for tea the night before, one boy said “crisps and a chocolate bar” and then asked what his Mum had, “fish and chips” was the reply, the poor lad wasn’t even offered any.
Social Services went round to find no bedding on the kids beds (there was on the mothers) the place stank of cannabis and the kids were being ignored.
What do you do in those circumstances?
Those are not the circumstances described in this article; you are discussing a different matter entirely.
It is relevant, if this lad hadn’t been asked what he had for his tea, his hunger could’ve been put down to his parents not being able to afford it.
Only by further investigation can things be found out.
I was walking through a certain town early last week and 70 percent of the mothers were swearing at their offspring and being rough with them, along with a smartphone in the other hand.
Also, as a campaigner I have worked with the NSPCC and these sort of cases are far more than you imagine.
Don’t forget, these kids are our future, do we want them growing up in an environment like that?
And as you know I am as far from right-wing as you can get and despise the Sky TV, cigs and booze meme.
Neglect is a big cause for concern and it needs addressing.
Sure – but poverty is a big cause for concern too – and that’s what these teachers are seeing.
Child neglect is not a function of poverty, it happens across the social bands and across the income groups – like domestic violence. That is not the issue here. It is the grinding poverty when really good, caring parents are driven to the limit, skipping meals to feed their children. Poverty may force families to live in circumstances that we would find shocking, or should find shocking. No heat no hot water, no money to replace items lost through accident or simple wear & tear. No money. None. Just think about that.
I saw cases of child neglect in the 60’s & 70’s onward. One family I encountered in the 60’s were reduced to one meal a day, consisting of a sliced loaf dumped on the table. The father earned enough, he just drank it away and beat his wife to a pulp, actually throwing her on the open fire in front of the kids. She was deeply depressed, unsurprisingly. But that wasn’t the sort of poverty we’re talking about that is politically driven in the UK today, and even caring parents can’t magic food & money & heating out of thin air.
Food prices gone down???? When??? Where???
I have only noticed sugar down by nearly half, as I am diabetic, it is poison to me!!!
I hope and pray Camerooon and his lying cronies are brought to some kind of justice for what they have forced on this nation.
And yet again is a sickening display he, and even worse “samcam,” have used their late child for politicking.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3026918/Our-crisis-Ivan-Dave-Sam-Marriage-pushed-breaking-point-strain-coping-disabled-son.html
Only problem is that when this story was published on sunday as the main/top story on the font page of the website, over 500 people commented… the vast majority were disgusted at this use of a dead child to gain votes.
First they relegated the story to half way down the page…
When that didn’t work they deleted all the comments…
Only problem is that the 85 comments since the mass deletion of comments happened are still disgusted and outraged.
The solution to this huge Lynton Crosby screw up? Show Camoron feeding a lamb.
Seriously WTAF!
Meanwhile this blog’s article on how sickening it is that Cameron uses his late son to get votes is being read thousands of times every hour.
I remember reading about it at the time.
The DM has now removed both stories (one was from the mail on sunday, which uses the same site) from the front “news” section and dropped it from the list of “news>headlines.”
Obviously it went so bad, in fact so bad both the left and the right were united in their disgust, that they have had to hide it and stopped further comments on the articles for people who have direct links.
I would love to have seen Camoron’s face as he watched what should have been a nice puff piece descend into outright condemnation of his politicking and while I feel sorry for his loss his use of his dead son as an election gimmick was beyond the pale.
One of the articles were “our struggles raising a disabled child” What F*****g struggles? They had the best assistance money could buy and I don’t believe for a minute that they ever used the NHS, except to pay their medical bills, they would have definitely used private, there is no way they would have mixed with who they would think of, the riff raff of the country.
I personally don’t think Cameron and Clegg, got over the humiliation of being told off by a surgeon for not washing their hands on a surgical ward, that is one reason why they have consistently punished the NHS and in turn the people!!!