How would you tackle child poverty and improve outcomes?

Yeah! It must be a huge culture shock! People would leave their laptops on their tables in cafes, go to the toilet, and they'd still be there when they came back

I did like it. I lived there for nearly 3 years and learnt enough to get by, order from restaurants, ask for directions, small talk, that sort of thing.

@Hubblebubble thank you for your interesting posts. That is sad about the childless elderly people.
People from law abiding East Asian countries must get a shock if they come to UK cities with phone snatching and so on.
Did you like living in Korea? Did you learn Korean?

I still feel that high-rise should be an active choice though- people shouldn’t be forced into them. I know that personally it would be my idea of hell.

@CoffeeCantata I agree.
I think brutalist architecture is ugly but I’ve read plenty of posts on forums praising Trellick Tower and the Barbican and so on so each to their own, I suppose. As you say, if people make the active choice to live in a high-rise building then great.

There is so much packaging on stuff but we try to take it back to Tescos or Waitrose.

I dislike littering and fly tipping so much

Oh and there was very little litter because the social security situation is so bad that elderly people are out picking up everything they can to exchange for money at recycling centers. Basically, it's expected that you look after your elderly, so the state pension isn't enough to support them, it's more like pocket money. Which means those without children, grandchildren, extended family end up on the streets collecting cardboard

There was a janitor and I often saw the communal places being swept and mopped. Part of our rent.

@38thparallel I didn't have much to do with my neighbours except a hello in the lift or if we were putting bins out at the same time. So i can't say it had much of a community feel. I think it's more that there really is zero tolerance for antisocial crimes of that sort. One sad example is that if we heard domestic violence (which I did) the police would come if you called and said it was a noise complaint distrupting your sleep (awful, antisocial behaviour), but not if you said it was domestic violence (private family matter)

That’s really interesting. I wonder if the Korean blocks are perhaps well-maintained and serviced? If this had been the case, with a caretaker and resident concierge for each block, things might have been different in this country. I still feel that high-rise should be an active choice though- people shouldn’t be forced into them. I know that personally it would be my idea of hell - I have vertigo and I’d be stressing that the people below me might fall asleep with a cigarette on their flammable sofa.

It could also be cultural. It’s a cliche, but the British do seem to think of their homes as their castle! I do think we are a very individualistic nation for better or worse. Other cultures such as some Scandinavian countries and maybe oriental people have a more collectivist character and can perhaps make tower block living work for them.

I’m interested in architecture and architects and believe me, I’ve read a few articles and interviews with Brutalist architects over the years and have a special grudge against those who live in Georgian rectories.

Personally I think they should be hunted down like dogs!😀

HubbleBubble, that is interesting.
Would I also be right in saying that Koreans and Japanese feel the community is important and it makes for a nicer life for everyone if citizens don’t mug people, burgle houses, pee in lifts, chuck litter everywhere etc.?

@38thparallel I lived in Korea for years, in the less fancy of the high rise apartments too. The answer is a lot of cctv evrrywhere and harsh consequences for crime.

@CoffeeCantata I agree with everything you say about tower blocks. (Also, not sure how many of the architects who designed them actually lived in them).
Alice Coleman wrote a fascinating book about the effects of tower blocks on their inhabitants called ‘Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in Planned Housing’.

However they seem to work in some countries. For example in Korean cities the majority of people live in them and there isn’t the crime and antisocial behaviour that has often been the case in UK.
I don’t know why this is the case.

I do actually agree with you. They killed interaction.

I could list my gripes with Le Cor Bloody Busier, but I’ll pick out 2 ways in which his misguided ideas have damaged society.

• huge windswept areas between the blocks instead of small individual gardens/ yards. These often became intimidating hang-outs for bored and disaffected youngsters with nothing to do. And what belongs to everyone belongs to no one, so they weren’t cared for properly either by the community or the council.
• if you’re a multi millionaire and choose to live in a luxurious serviced tower block - fine. If you’re almost anyone else (but particularly families (esp single parents) with young children, they must have been a nightmare. If you had a small terraced house and yard you could let the kids outside on a nice day and they’d be safe and under your supervision. If you live on the 10th floor you either have to decamp with the entire family to go down to the playground, tell the kids they can’t go out (cue frustration all round) or just turn them out to go down on their own, running the risk of them getting into all kinds of trouble. And that’s if the lifts are working.

I think these estates damaged families and communities and encouraged the development of gang culture.

I wasn't advocating for a return to the 70's, how did you get that from the point I was making? I was explaining the very worrying distribution of wealth of the 1% of richest people in the UK that was 22% in 1975 and is now 70% why wonder why everyone is poorer, the writing is on the wall!!

yes and no. Those estates are grim. But they were meant to be a break from the grim terraces which were grim because of overcrowding, poverty etc. It is the poverty both financial and of imagination, that makes places hideous. If your neighbours dump broken furniture outside the front door, break windows when drunk and locked out and piss in the lifts, no amount of beauty in the architecture will stop a place looking like a shithole.

@Cinaferna UK does not have infinite space so tower blocks make more sense.
Nonetheless as you said dumping furniture etc. does not make for a nice neighbourhood and tower blocks are seen as less desirable places to live.
For example in the World’s End estate which is in Chelsea, flats of around 800 sq ft with 2 beds & 1 bathroom in the tower blocks fetch £500 - £600,000, whereas flats in neighbouring terraces or Victorian mansion blocks of same size and bedrooms etc fetch between £1000,000 - £1200,000.
The terraced houses were grim when they were overcrowded and without santition but nowadays former slums in London are valuable properties.

“We need a massive campaign to remind people that making money is neither the only nor the ultimate life goal and that making way more money than you need is a serious character defect if you don't use it to benefit society.”

What exactly classifies as making way more money than you “need”?
Most people are making a bit more than necessary and paying shedloads of tax in this country. A very lucky few have millions and millions. But most very wealthy families do put legacy first eventually once they realise their own mortality. That has always been a thing.
We need people to work hard and be ambitious and keep the fruits of their labour somewhat. Otherwise there is no incentive to be productive whatsoever. I personally have stopped working more because of taxes and I cannot be the only one. I do not have a greedy mindset as to worldly goods but it would probably be better for society if I did!

We also need to radically shift the collective mindset,

Thatcher said 'There is no such thing as society' and (paraphrase) 'if you see someone over 26 taking the bus, you can safely assume they are losers'.

This attitude dug its claws into our society.

But group mindsets can change. It used to be oh so cool to drink and drive. Then it became uncool. Then it became the sign of a bad friend if you allowed a drunk mate to get behind a wheel. Ditto with seatbelts. Used to be only for fusspots. Then a bit cheeky to flout the law. Now it's a character defect if you don't strap your kids in, in the backseat.

We need a massive campaign to remind people that making money is neither the only nor the ultimate life goal and that making way more money than you need is a serious character defect if you don't use it to benefit society. because there IS such a thing as society. We need to campaign for legal policies that support restructuring the shareholders before safety and welfare of staff and customers. We need to promote a general attitude that sharing and spreading your wealth is a sign of outstanding and admirable character. Not hoarding it Bezos style. We should all mock the sad wankers who keep clawing away at their moneypots like scrooge pre-ghosting. I don't care if they still need to show off a bit, splashing the cash by putting their names to well-built, affordable social housing schemes, new hospital wings, libraries, parks. But the 'I have such big bollocks - look at my rocket to Mars' machismo of gathering wealth needs to move towards 'Look how I share my wealth. Look how far it goes.'

It should be SO cool to run a major company that pays all its staff living wage and double for overtime. To run a major company that ploughs its profits into building creches and having on-site medical surgeries, gyms etc, instead of squeezing everyone at the bottom of the pile to boast about profits for shareholders, when the buildings are crumbling and the staff working unpaid overtime to prove their great work ethic in the hop of a title only, no-pay-rise promotion.

And to those who say the very richest are the business owners, the ones who create jobs. yes, true. But where does the wealth come from? Poorer people buying their products, workers claiming universal credit because the wages they pay are not enough to live on. The rich would not stay rich if they relied for their wealth on their own tiny coterie. They need oiks like us to keep buying their coffee/chocolate/booze/perfume/cereal/sofas/teeshirts.

yes and no. Those estates are grim. But they were meant to be a break from the grim terraces which were grim because of overcrowding, poverty etc. It is the poverty both financial and of imagination, that makes places hideous. If your neighbours dump broken furniture outside the front door, break windows when drunk and locked out and piss in the lifts, no amount of beauty in the architecture will stop a place looking like a shithole.

Can you really lift yourself up off the boot straps?

And yes poor people and poor children are everyone’s problem! When we do not try and deal with it, our own kids just end up paying for it eventually. So whether you approach the question from a selfish or unselfish point of view, the outcome is the same.
We need businesses to do more to life children out of poverty by offering job training schemes too. This is starting to take off more and more now. I do have some hopes. If tax incentives need to be offered, offer them. Kids from certain backgrounds need to be shown there is an alternative out there.

@Goldenbear - most of us are clearly not in the 1% but we understand that when you tax the 1% more than in comparable countries (which there are plenty now), then we end up the ones paying even more tax! So no thanks with regard to a return to the 70s. As you point out, we are all feeling the pinch and cost of living. The MN demographic especially, a lot of us are handing over 60% plus of our income already. There comes a point where you start draining talent at the middle class level and I hate to break it to you, but we are there already!

The focus on benefits exclusively is wrong, the fact is being 'poorer' is being felt by all classes or sections of society as the concentration of wealth 70 % is owned by 1%. In the mid- 70s, 22% was owned by the richest 1%. You don't have to be a Socialist to see why things have gone wrong!

We need economic growth to lift people out of poverty and raise everyone's standard of living, it is harder to achieve this if wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. We should reform the tax system to something like the Entrepreneurial tax system that was introduced in Denmark this year, it gives tax breaks to start ups and encourages innovation by initiatives like, dividend tax exemption for unlisted portfolio shares under 10%, an increased R&D tax‑credit cap, and relaxation of the researcher tax scheme salary requirement. It is talking action that is productive rather than succumbing to political pressure from those with the most influence spinning stories about benefit scroungers.

I agree I see people say meals should be free for everyone to reduce the stigma but most schools have an online booking system and there’s no way anyone knows who is paying and who isn’t. Not even the actual child needs to know, I’ve told my 7 year old I pay for his meals just in case he ever blurts something out and embarrasses himself.

Even when I was at secondary school nobody knew who had free lunches because lunch was paid for through a finger print system. It’s been a very long time since there was a stigma

Stoneblock · 01/10/2025 12:40
I've spent a lot of time working with children in poverty and my honest opinion is that you're barking completely up the wrong tree in your points, except Sure Start which made a real difference until it was mostly scrapped under austerity.
Universal fsm and childcare is very expensive and mostly benefits people who aren't in poverty.

You highlight another persistent problem for governments: balancing the need to focus limited resources on the genuinely needy and the wish to avoid stigmatisation. Lots of money is (I think) wasted on making all kinds of things universal when they don't need to be.

In the schools I worked in fsms were very discreetly managed. Some parents might have hazarded a guess at which children had fsm, but no-one ever breathed a word to either the children or other adults. There's no need for it to be universal just to avoid the risk of stigmatisation.

We're not a thriving economy any more and resources ARE limited. I think we need to stop being squeamish about targeting money where it's needed.