Category Archives: Poverty

The Budget won’t affect the geographic influences on your prosperity. Here’s Gary Stevenson

Poverty map: if you look at a map of the UK showing GDP per head of population in each region, you can see where the rich people live – and the huge swathes of land where they don’t.

Jeremy Hunt’s Budget speech – and most political announcements – made many references to the well-being of the United Kingdom as a whole.

One of the reasons for this is that, region by region, the economic picture – the well-being of the people – is not as rosy as he’d like to suggest.

Bitty little funding announcements for projects in far-flung parts of the country won’t help those areas as a whole, for the simple reason that the people with all the money don’t live there and don’t care what happens there.

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Here’s Gary Stevenson to explain why the Tories’ big mistake is concentrating all the cash among a very few people, who all live in the southeast of England [WARNING: if you can’t tolerate swearing, you won’t like this]:


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Why does the LABOUR Party want to put families – children – into poverty?

Child poverty: both the Tories and Labour want to put families with three or more children into poverty, so what could possibly make you think voting for them is a good idea?

It seems some of you are still clinging to the belief that the Labour Party is the answer to the Tory insanity that has been running the United Kingdom into the ground since 2010.

Let’s put everybody straight about that – starting with Labour’s clearly-expressed intention to put families with at least three children into poverty and keep them there.

Here’s the Resolution Foundation:

As Gavin Kelly posted on ‘X’: “A decade ago 1 in 3 children in large families (3+ children) were in poverty. Now it’s more than 4 in 10, heading to more than 1 in 2 (51%) by 2028-29.

“Completely policy-driven. Fixable.”

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Tom Pollard posted – also on ‘X’, “The two-child limit will condemn an increasing number of children to grow up in poverty – permanently scarring them, reducing their life chances & costing us all in the long term.”

Here’s Jonathan Bradshaw, Professor Emeritus of Social Policy at the University of York:

He’s saying that the economic benefits of lifting the two-child limit far outweigh the annual cost to the public purse – words echoed by Dr Katy Jones, Associate Professor in Employment at Manchester Metropolitan University:

The benefits of lifting children out of poverty would be huge, but obviously the Conservatives won’t do it because it’s their policy and they want to make you poor.

And Labour won’t do it either because Keir Starmer clearly wants you to be poor too.

He and his party would rather give huge bungs to fat bankers, as we can see from Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds’s squirming response when challenged on both subjects by Kay Burley on Sky News:

Labour is now the party of the bankers, not the workers. And if Starmer is happy to screw over families with more than two children, he’ll merrily do worse to you.

So you simply cannot vote tribally – for the party you think represents you (none of them do; they’re all about enriching their MPs and nothing else) – at the next general election.

Instead – and I cannot stress this strongly enough – if you want your vote to mean anything, you have to actually find out what the candidates in your constituency are planning to do, if they are lucky enough to be elected.

That is what party manifestos are for. Independent candidates also have policy documents and they will all be online for you to find and read.

You need to find and read these policy documents, and then you need to make a dispassionate choice, based on what you have read.

Which of the candidates offers the most policies that fit what you need? And, by that, I mean: who will improve your own life the most?

Do not consider how other people will vote, either in your constituency or the other 649 around the UK. That is not your concern.

It is not for you to worry about which party will get enough votes to actually enact its policies. This will lead you down the usual garden path to voting in a government that won’t do anything at all for the good of the country, like the one we’ve had since 2010.

BE SELFISH. Bizarrely, it might be the only way to get the kind of government that all of us need.


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As election looms, Tories have no answer to the ‘Reagan question’

Ronald Reagan: it is ironic that the most important question of the forthcoming UK general election was originally asked by a politician who had dementia for much of his time in office.

“How do you answer the Reagan question?” asked John Rentoul (yes, I know), Chief Political Commentator for The Independent, in a recent emailed newsletter.

“He asked in the 1980 US presidential election campaign: ‘Are you better off today than you were four years ago?’ The equivalent question at the coming British election would be: ‘Are you better off today than you were 14 years ago?’”

Rentoul reckons he compiled a list of ways in which people think they are better off – but admitted that few of them were to do with Tory government decisions. He suggested sending any good answers to Conservative HQ, where they’ll be needed.

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The short answer to the question is simple: unless you’re a billionaire, you are much worse off now than in 2010 – and this is by design.

The Tories came into office saying they would get the national debt down and they tried to do this by changing it from being public debt to private debt – in other words, by transferring the burden onto private citizens, whether we deserved to shoulder it or not.

In addition, though, idiots like David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak went on a spending spree that actually tripled the national debt anyway.

The aim here was to pass huge amounts of wealth to the super-rich, making it possible for them to buy what we call assets (whether businesses, houses or even groceries) at super-inflated costs because that ensures that the rest of us can’t afford these things.

It was all part of the plan. This way, they could say the tax burden on us was too high and we needed to have that money put back in our pockets so we could pay for the basics – meaning the public services we need and love would have to go (including, ultimately, the National Health Service).

This would impoverish most of us even further because the cost of buying services individually, from private suppliers, is always far higher than that of paying for them via taxes; without contributions from rich people or those who don’t need those services at the time, the cost goes through the roof – and don’t forget to add on the profit that greedy owners/shareholders demand!

I mention this because the Mirror has published an article explaining that we are – on average – £10,000 worse-off today than a decade ago. That was 2014, four years into the devastation that the Tories had been wreaking on us all.

But the figures go back all the way to 2010, which is handy for us:

The report by Centre for Cities shows the average person in the city has missed out on a total of £45,240 over the last 14 years, as a result of lower levels of growth. Aberdeen has been hardest hit of the UK’s 63 largest cities and towns included in the analysis, while Burnley was named worse off in England, where the average person was £28,090 worse off since 2010.

In London, gross disposable income is £13,590 lower than if it had grown in line with 1998-2010 trends. Middlesbrough and Sunderland experienced similar average shortfalls of £13,200 and £12,730 per head. People in Cardiff were £13,080 worse off on average.

The report says the amount we pay on housing has also worsened and eaten into people’s disposable incomes. The proportion of children living in relative poverty has risen in almost every city since 2014, with a particular increase in in-work poverty. In 2021 there were six cities, all in the North and the Midlands, where over a third of children are from households in relative poverty – as recently as 2014, there were none. In Birmingham, there was an increase of 60,000 children living in relative poverty over that period.

Only seven places – Aldershot, Bristol, Derby, Northampton, Slough, Telford and York – are now better off, which has been explained by underwhelming growth in the 1998-2010 period.

So the places that are better-off are those that didn’t do well under Labour. That’s not an endorsement of the Tories, of course.

None of the solutions offered for this increased poverty address the main issues, which are the intentional over-pricing of goods and services and the removal of public services.

This is because the rich – who include every single human being in Parliament along with all of their advisers, doners and friends – are absolutely set on cutting taxes so they can fill their own pockets.

In fact, the only plan that makes sense would be to increase taxation of the super-rich, to claw back some of the money that was handed to them on a plate, and to use it to restore public services.

This would take a huge load off of working and working-class people, making it possible for us all to get on with our lives.

With none of the so-called “main” political parties offering this, though, the question must be asked:

What are you going to do about it?

Source: Interactive map shows UK is worse off now than a decade ago – with Brits £10k poorer – Mirror Online


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Here’s why you think you’re getting richer when in fact you’re getting poorer

Relative values: older people think the young are richer than them because they’re paid in pounds rather than pennies – but inflation means those pounds don’t pay for as much as the pennies did and, in real terms, younger people are paid less than their senior counterparts were at the same age.

Here’s why you think you’re getting richer when in fact you’re getting poorer – as laid out in simple terms by Gary Stevenson.

He has released a video clip explaining why older generations are mistaken in claiming younger people “never had it so good”, to quote Harold Macmillan.

While it is true that young people may start their working lives earning more money – in pounds and pence – than older people did, the simple fact of inflation means the pounds they are paid simply doesn’t go as far as the pennies their elders received.

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But the fact that – on paper – they are receiving more means employers can pay them less in real terms and claim they’re being over-generous – and get away with it because people look at the simple numbers rather than the real-terms value.

Here’s Gary:

The theory Gary puts forward is proved by the fact that, after World War II, a single earner was able to buy the mortgage on a house and pay the living costs of everybody living in it – no matter how big the family, and now everybody of working age has to be slaving away all the hours they can work, and still can’t make ends meet.

But the UK as a nation is not getting poorer – either in money terms or real terms.

This means the cash that would have gone to working people in the post-war era is now going somewhere else. Gary says it’s going to the rich and that makes perfect sense because rich people own the companies that employ working people and can therefore dictate how their firms’ profits are divided.

It is these rich people who are impoverishing the vast majority of us in the UK – and getting away with it by lying that we are actually getting richer, generation by generation, when in fact the action of inflation and the wage stagnation they inflict on us mean that we are actually getting poorer.

The answer is for government to tax the rich so that these pay policies make them no better-off, or to impose laws that demand a maximum ratio between the highest-paid and lowest-paid in any business.

Neither of the main political parties seem interested in this. We may speculate about the reasons for this – is big business holding politicians to ransom: “Keep our salaries high and wages low or there’ll be no cushy job waiting for you after you get voted out”? – but it won’t make any real difference. It is what it is.

We see that in Labour’s new ‘campaigning bible’, that is full of soundbites and empty of initiative.

From what This Writer has seen, it contains nothing that could possibly induce a member of the voting public to conclude that a Labour government will improve their standard of living.

The reason for that is simple: it doesn’t address the issues facing us – like the illusion of improvement that Gary has identified.


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Benefit cap means CUT, not rise, in benefits from April [Tory lie of the day]

A new level of cruelty: failing to increase the benefit cap in line with inflation forces more households into poverty. It doesn’t help them.

What a great example of Tories giving with one hand while taking with the other.

In April this year, the Conservative government is claiming that it will give benefit claimants an inflation-matching 6.7 per cent increase in payments.

But this will not count for people whose entitlement will exceed the benefit cap – or already does.

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This is because Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has not raised the threshold of the cap in line with entitlements.

The cap itself is simply a limit on the maximum amount of benefit payments a household is allowed to receive – regardless of whether it is enough for those households to make ends meet.

More than 85,000 households already affected by the benefit cap will not receive a single penny more in benefit, despite continuing steep rises in the cost of living. Who knows how many more will be affected from April onwards?

According to the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG),

“The benefit cap severs the link between need and entitlement in our social security system: a household will have their total need for support assessed, and if this comes out above the level of the cap (currently £22,020 per year for families with children, or £25,323 for families in London) they will simply receive less than they need.

“There are wide variations in the amounts that households are capped, but the average is £53 a week, a loss keenly felt by those already struggling to survive below the poverty line.”

The DWP has provided this line to The Independent:

“We are supporting the most vulnerable with a record £94bn cost of living support package – worth around £3,700 per household – and have halved inflation to make everyone’s money go further.

“On top of this we’ve raised benefits by 10.1 per cent and are investing £3.5bn to help thousands into jobs – the best way to help people secure long term financial security.”

None of these points mean anything.

The £3,700 per household is actually spread over the four years between 2022 and 2025 – so it doesn’t come close to covering the £2,756 that households whose benefits are capped will lose.

Halving inflation doesn’t make anybody’s money go further; it means their money won’t go as far as it used to. If inflation is halved, it just means the speed at which prices rise has slowed down. Nobody’s money is going further because inflation is halved.

Raised benefits don’t matter to households that are already capped.

And “helping” (forcing?) people into jobs won’t do any good if the jobs are so low-paid that they have to claim Universal Credit anyway – like the 40 per cent of people in work who already do. Jobs are not the best way to help people secure long-term financial security and haven’t been for decades.

What, then, is the result of this decision to keep benefits capped at the same level, despite price rises across the board?

Simple.

It will impoverish thousands upon thousands of families across the UK. As intended by Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak.
Source: DWP benefit claimants face payments cut next year | The Independent


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UK has worst child poverty among world’s richest countries. Sunak’s comment is vile

Poverty: Destitution among children has spiralled out of control due to Tory decisions to starve parents of cash. But that’s what we all voted for – right?

Here’s the headline:

A 20 per cent rise in child poverty while the Tories have been in government? But they said they were doing so well in bringing it down! Were they… fibbing?

The article states:

The relative child income poverty rate for the UK before housing costs was 20.8 per cent for 2019-21, Unicef said.

During the period from 2012-14 and 2019-21, the UK saw a 20 per cent rise in relative child income poverty rates before housing costs, the humanitarian organisation added.

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The report said that during the period it focused on, UK expenditure on family cash benefits per child, as a proportion of GDP (gross domestic product) per capita, decreased from 18 per cent to 11 per cent.

It said several changes to targeted financial support had contributed to this, including the benefit cap, limiting the benefits a household earning below a set threshold can receive, and the two-child limit for child tax credits and the child element of Universal Credit, meaning families cannot claim support for more children.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “There are 400,000 fewer children and 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty when compared to 2010.

The DWP comment is because the UK measures poverty as a percentage of median income. Median income has plummeted (in real terms) under the Tories while costs have rocketed. The United Nations Children’s Fund may record it differently.

Rishi Sunak talked nonsense about this during Prime Minister’s Questions – and knew it. Here’s Peter Stefanovic with the facts:

The facts are an indictment against Sunak, his forerunners as prime minister, and the Tory governments we’ve had since 2010.

No wonder he’s so dishonest about them.


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Jonathan Pie on rising destitution, and rising bankers’ bonuses. It’s harsh!

Where is all the money going? Into the pockets of bankers, apparently.

You will of course recall This Site’s article on research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, showing the shocking rise in destitution in the UK.

Jonathan Pie has linked it to the government’s decision to un-cap bankers’ bonuses – and the result is hard-hitting.

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Is it funny? Probably not.

But it is true.


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Israel isn’t the only home of fake news – is it, Victoria Atkins?

Tory fake news: yes, they’re talking about child poverty.

Following up on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s research showing the number of people in the UK who are destitute has doubled since 2018… it seems to have triggered Tory MP Victoria Atkins.

Check out this video clip:

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Economist Richard Murphy takes issue with the claim that 3.8 million more people being in work is any use in combating destitution:

To This Writer, it suggests that being in work is not the way out of poverty that the Tories keep parroting it is.

But they keep saying it. Isn’t it time someone debunked this falsehood?


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Destitution has more than doubled in the UK – in just the last five years

Need a miracle: but people in poverty won’t get it from the Tories.

That’s right – according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, destitution has more than doubled in the UK, in the last five years alone.

Channel 4 has reported on this, as follows:

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Here are the headline findings of the report:

The full report may be downloaded here.


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‘Judge us by our record’, says Tory MP. We did – and the verdict is not good!

Laura Trott: does she spend a lot of time with her foot in her mouth?

Conservative Pensions Minister Laura Trott made a bit of a blunder on the morning media round: she asked the public to judge the Conservative Party on its “track record” since 2010.

Here she is, saying it:

Peter Stefanovic took her at her word, and did just that. Here’s the result:

Social mobility is at its worst in more than 50 years.

Untreated sewage dumped in our rivers.

Crumbling schools and hospitals.

Thousands dying every year on NHS waiting lists.

Let’s add a little more to the list, from an article published earlier today (September 18, 2023):

14 million people in the UK are in poverty – that is a little more than one-fifth of the population.

A million adults can’t afford to eat every day.

Nine million, while eating every day, are skipping meals and cutting back on food. There is a consequent effect on the nation’s health that will impact the NHS, of course – with thousands of people being hospitalised with malnutrition. Then the Tories say they don’t understand why the health service can’t cope after they have put so much (ha ha!) extra funding into it.

A record 2.1 million people are now using food banks. Remember David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ policy? This is its only success – forcing more wealthy people to subsidise those who cannot afford to feed themselves, including lower-paid working people and nurses, let’s not forget, with charity.

The number of children in food poverty has doubled in the last year alone.

Seven million households aren’t being heated properly.

Rishi Sunak has also mentioned inequality, claiming – again, falsely – that this is also lower. In fact:

In 2022, incomes for the poorest 14 million people fell by 7.5 per cent while those for the richest fifth saw a 7.8 per cent increase.

Could that be partly because Sunak has uncapped bankers’ bonuses while imposing real-terms pay cuts on public sector workers?

Sunak reckons 200,000 fewer pensioners are in poverty today – but the number of pensioners in relative poverty has actually increased by more than 200,000. In 2021/22, more than two million pensioners were living in poverty in the UK.

Sunak’s comment about 100,000 new homes needs no response because the House of Lords rightly rejected the arguments in favour of building on land likely to be flooded with water that had been polluted, not only by developers but also by greedy privatised water firms.

Sunak reckons he’s delivered 4,000 prison officers – so why are there fewer now than in 2010? Does it have something to do with the privatisation – and profitisation – of our prisons?

Put it all together and you’d have to be demented to deny the comments in the following ‘X’ post:


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