http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk/2010/01/30-years-of-market-knows-best-have-damaged-fairness/
It would be wrong to suggest that no real progress has been made on poverty. The national minimum wage, sure-start and a host of ‘initiatives’ have led to targeted improvements – but these are amongst the ‘reachable poor’. In-work tax credits do what they say on the tin but don’t help those without work. But when we catch a glimpse of the sink estates created by Thatcher’s legacy of neglect on post industrial Britain it is as if there is an underclass, disenfranchised through poverty, cut off from what most would regard to be the ‘norm’ in today’s society.
When some horrific event turns the media attention to such areas it is cringe-worthy. Remember the scenes in Dewsbury when a child feared kidnapped was found by police? It turned out that her mother had arranged the kidnapping for money. As the TV cameras rolled a patronising voiceover from the presenter declared the celebration of the ‘community’ in Dewsbury whilst the rest of us supping a glass of Shiraz privately cringed at the random splashing of cheap strong cider in the streets and the plethora of nylon tracksuits. We have sat back whilst middle class comedians have labelled people who are extremely poor ‘chavs’. It has become the last bastion of acceptable discrimination – attack the working class poor because no-one will mind.
‘Chavs’ is a convenient label to disguise the fact that the rest of Britain has adopted an ‘I’m all right Jack’ approach to social need.
Cameron’s platitudes of ‘Broken Britain’ are of course opportunistic and what would you expect from any establishment politician? What is frightening is that all main political parties are devoid of any real commitment to tackling the disenfranchisement of the poorest in Britain. Cameron has warm words about the warmth of parenting rather than the wealth of the parent – this latest report proves that to be very wrong. But equally the labour party needs to be determined to address this group who have been failed by successive governments of all persuasions. Harman harping on about equality is about as much use to this group of people as a chocolate fireguard – they don’t need more talk, more policy, more reports, more one-off initiatives. They need sustained and sustainable investment. They need jobs that given them a purpose in life not a nice plastic yellow bench in a carefully planned open space to ‘improve the local community space’. Their kids need access to the internet at home and decent warm homes – like most others. They need accessible public services. Violent behaviour to women and children needs to be stopped. The two children found guilty of the horrific attack on the other little boys were known to police, the council and a host of other agencies. Their neighbours lived in fear and yet unable to articulate their misery the neighbours that suffered were disregarded. Would the same treatment have been meted out in a nice middle class neighbourhood? It is very unlikely. The neighbours of these children were excluded by their poverty form decent treatment by the police.
The right wing press are lining up to say that poverty is no excuse for the way in which some people live their lives. UNSION Active would beg to differ. Poverty is the reason that people live their lives in this way.
It is time to stop the sneering and demand money and action to tackle the economic, political and social changes needed.
