To ask Scameron and Osborne to hang their heads in shame?

[MiniTheMinx]

Within two years, almost 7.1m of the nation's 13m youngsters will be in homes with incomes judged to be less than the minimum necessary for a decent standard of living, according to a new report.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/majority-of-british-children-will-soon-be-growing-up-in-families-struggling-below-the-breadline-government-warned-8531584.html

Some key facts about child poverty

Nearly 4 million children are living in poverty in the UK (after housing costs)

The proportion of children living in poverty grew from 1 in 10 in 1979 to 1 in 3 in 1998. Today, 30 per cent of children in Britain are living in poverty.

The UK has one of the worst rates of child poverty in the industrialised world

The majority (59 per cent) of poor children live in a household where at least one adult works.

40 per cent of poor children live in a household headed by a lone parent. The majority of poor children (57 per cent) live in a household headed by a couple.

Note that child poverty boomed after that witch Thatcher took office 1979 !

This is what you get when politics is no longer democratic, when politicians, media and education dumbs people down so that even the working classes trumpet how bloody wonderful neo-liberalism is. How the free market should dictate everything from health and welfare to the price of crisps, your wages and even how valued you are are a human being.

I think The Tories should all hang their heads in shame, IABU ?

[KateShrub]

One of the main reasons why working people are on low wages is that the last government, headed by war criminal Blair, increased immigration levels to the highest in history. This benefited Blair and his ilk, by providing cheaper labour (Polish builders etc.) to extend his children's property, and low-cost cleaners to scrub his toilets, but it reduced wages for the existing population, bringing them into poverty.

In addition, the previous government created rampant house price inflation, so that scumbag war criminals like Blair could make huge profits buying multiple homes at the expense of working people, who could no longer afford a place to live.

The so-called bedroom tax is a distraction from the fact that the real issue is the unaffordability of housing for everyone.

Unfortunately the damage wreaked by the last Labour government, like many before it, may not be reversed for many years, if ever.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

Unfortunately the damage wreaked by the last Labour government, like many before it, may not be reversed for many years, if ever.

The tories arent trying to reverse it. They brought in workfare. Further undermining our NMW and creating FREE labour for companies.

They are allowing Zero hour contracts that erode away employee rights and give companies an easy way of keeping staff without having to pay them or even worry about sacking them.

[Darkesteyes]

VERY interesting article on workfare.

www.redpepper.org.uk/workfare-a-policy-on-the-brink/

[Darkesteyes]

From the above article.


At the end of 2012, stores such as Argos, Asda, Superdrug and Shoezone made use of the government?s workfare schemes to meet their seasonal demand, instead of hiring extra staff or offering overtime. This is part of an increasing trend to replace paid employees with workfare participants. In September the 2 Sisters Food Group sacked 350 workers at its plant in Leicester. It moved the production of its pizza toppings to Nottingham, claiming that the move was ?as a result of several recent strikes?. However, instead of employing people, the company has taken on 100 workfare placements, ?to give them an idea of what it?s like to work in the food sector?.

It?s not just companies using workfare. It has an increasing presence in the public sector too, plugging the gaps left by redundancies and cuts. Hospitals, public transport and councils have all used workfare participants to provide services. Halton Council has shed 10 per cent of jobs since 2010, and is now using workfare placements. Lewisham has closed some of its libraries. It has now emerged that its new, outsourced ?community libraries? use people mandated onto workfare for free labour

[Darkesteyes]

100 workfare placements in one company!!!!
And STILL there are people saying that workfare doesnt replace paid work.

[TheCrackFox]

Work Fare is an utter disgrace.

[survivingwinter]

Yanbu op but then you are asking this question on MN and not to Daily Mail readers who believe these families all deserve to live in poverty because they have too many kids/can't budget/scrounging lone parents etc.

Workfare/The work programme is an utter disgrace I agree and lots of decent services and charity budgets have been cut to fund it

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

From that article

"Universal credit looms on the horizon and with it will come a new deluge of conditionality. Low paid and part-time workers will be drawn into the same boat as jobseekers ? forced to do jobsearch and workfare until they are earning the equivalent of full-time work at minimum wage. Whitehall intends to make using the disastrous Universal Jobmatch website compulsory, sentencing those claiming social security to hours of demoralising searching on an ineffective database, while also making surveillance of every click possible."

Working isnt enough for the tories. If you are poor you deserve to be treated like a child whether you work or not.

[LadyPessaryPam]

YADBU, whatever the issue, because you are expecting any politician to understand the concept of 'Shame'.

[MiniTheMinx]

wannabedomesticgoddess forcing people to spend hours pointing and clicking, it sounds positively Orwellian.

Nice find Darkesteyes does anyone know if 2 Sisters are still using free labour? Looking at the website all of their recent vacancies are for supervisory and management staff, which suggests they probably are.

The chairman of 2 sisters " has been Chief Advisor to the British Government at the Home Office and is a Senior Advisor to Goldman Sachs Private Equity. Mr Allen is also a Non-executive Director of the London Olympic Committee Non-executive Director of Tesco" wiki

[Bodicea]

Headfairy you can't tax the superrich at hight tates as they just bugger off taking all their money with them. It's happening in france now. They have been taxed to the hilt and are jumping across the channel to London - which is welcoming their money with open arms!


I do agree that we need to look after those in low paid jobs and encourage them to stay there rather than sack it off and sit on their arses. It is just not right that you can be worse off going to work than sitting at home on benefits. But the tories have an uphill struggle because of the massive benefit culture that labour has created. It's a lot harder to take something away than to give something.

[Bodicea]

sorry typo - higher rates

[MiniTheMinx]

Bodicea

No but our politicians (labour included) can play the national pride card and send working class men out to fight illegal wars. So yeah, the rich can have no national loyalty whilst we either sit tight and wait for crumbs from their table or get our legs shot off.

[MiniTheMinx]

I do agree that we need to look after those in low paid jobs and encourage them to stay there rather than sack it off and sit on their arses

Have you been asleep? we are now entering a triple dip recession.

[Bodicea]

I would love us to be able to tax the superrich - but globalisation as is it - it is not a viable option anymore. No point winging about it. There needs to be a balance to keep the money in the country and not on other shores.

[Bodicea]

Yes I am aware there is a recession but you can't blame that for everything.
I am also aware of plenty of people who work the benefit system to the max - i.e I know someone that makes sure she doesn't work more than 16 hours a week so she can still get all her benefits.
I know someone else who was on a good salary - £30,000 - when consulting some governmet body about her difficult divorce issues - can't remember which - they told her the best thing for her to do would be to quit her job so she could get legal aid as well as benefits. No joke!
Why kind of system is this?

[JuliaScurr]

Bodicea what you say seems reasonable until you see how the benefits system works - if you earn 50p over the meanstest limit you lose the lot - free school meals, prescriptions, tax credits , school bus pass etc, so you end up unable to manage in spite of earning a bit more.
But you cannot get enough hours or childcare to make up th difference

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

I know someone that makes sure she doesn't work more than 16 hours a week so she can still get all her benefits.^

Its very easy to blame the benefits in this scenario. But the true problem is the pittance that we call NMW and the lack of hours available. Usually because of the workfare schemes.

[JuliaScurr]

yy wannabe nmw is the real prob - benefits subsidise bad employers

[LittleChickpea]

Before i get lambasted I have used some of this information on another post but it's relevant here too.  

 OP YABU to blame the current government for this.  Every government that's been in power since 1915 should be blamed.   After all, the public net debt has been growing since 1910/1915.  But the vast majority of this debt has come within the last 30 years.  Why? Money become cheaper and cheaper to borrow.. In the early 1980s government could borrow at 15% for a few years and now it's about 2% for 10 years.  Last year Britain spent £120 billion more than it collected in taxes.  The majority of this went into welfare and public spending.

 I mean let's think about what is happening in the country and why future employment may/will prove to be much more difficult which will impact on prosperity.  Let's use Spain as a comparison.  Spanish unemployment is 25%, and for the youth it's 50%.  The debt situation in Britain is far worse than it is in Spain. Our economic position is far worse than it is in Spain. Britain's debt equals 900% of the economy.  When you listen to well respected economists, in all recorded history no country has ever recovered from the position Britain is currently in, financially (thank you very much Gorden for carrying on spending for 13 years).  This level of debt has never been reversed and it has inevitably resulted in financial collapse.  Currently British unemployment is just under 8% but bearing in mind the debt/number of companies going into administration etc. it's only a matter of time before Britain starts seeing up to 30% unemployment. Or maybe, I am talking a load of balls!!

This is just one issue in amongst lots other issues.  So how do we resolve it?  We can all kick off and point the finger at the current establishment but all this was happening in the 13 years that Tony / Flash Gorden were in power.  I haven't heard anything from Eddie the Red or Crazy Balls that demonstrates how they can resolve this.  If anyone here has please can you share it with me.  I am really interested in hearing it.  

[LahleeMooloo]

What's the answer though? If you raised all wages, there'd be far fewer jobs than there are already and more people on benefits, with less money in the pot to pay the benefits... I'm not saying you shouldn't raise wages, I am genuinely asking what the solution is because it seems to me that there isn't one.

[SickOfWinter]

Why is it these people HAVE children, if they can't afford to provide for them? Contraception is free after all... Oh yes, because our ridiculous welfare system PAYS them to have children, and they obviously spend this money on themselves.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

if they can't afford to provide for them?

See my point about NMW.

[Orwellian]

LahleeMooloo, there is no way out. It will be a decline in living standards, rampant inflation, the sun setting on Western economies as Asia (which is far more competitive, isn't burdened by a huge welfare state or high taxes to pay for it) is on the ascendant. We are going to have millions unemployed and unemployable expecting to have the same standards of living as those working 70+ hours and any government who imposes punitive tax on the few remaining tax payers are going to see them vanish from the UK (which is already experiencing a significant brain drain) quicker than you can say "Labour spent squandered all the cash". The future isn't rosy for the UK, we no longer have an empire and there is nothing we make or do that can't now be done elsewhere cheaper and better.

[TheRealFellatio]

>The proportion of children living in poverty grew from 1 in 10 in 1979 to 1 in 3 in 1998. Today, 30 per cent of children in Britain are living in poverty.

Er...1998. How is that David Cameron' fault? I've heard of him being blamed for things that happened during Gordon Brown's term of office, but trying to blame him for things that happened before Tony Blair even arrived is a bit much, even for the most enthusiastic Tory hater.