To think if you've always lived in an affluent place you have no real idea about inequality in the UK?

[Pipsquiggle]

To give a bit of context, I grew up in one of the poorest boroughs in the country and now live in one of the richest.

Had a chat with a colleague today, saying I had randomly bumped into Wes Streeting yesterday and had a chat with him and wished him well. She said I could never vote for Labour, they are terrible with money.

I then said well at least they closed the inequality gap which had been completely undone and made worse by the Tories.
She asked what did I mean so I outlined the following:
Underfunding of councils in poor area which were already under the kosh
Underfunding of schools and SEN
Lack of transport infrastructure so if you don't have a car in many towns you are fucked, which in turn can lead to wage suppression
Closure of Sure start centres
Only being able to afford UP foods and the knock effects on the NHS and behaviour at schools............

I made a few more points and she admitted she just said she had no idea. I told her that if I had lived where I had live now all my life that I probably would be a Tory too but I can't ignore the poverty in my home town.

So AIBU to think that if you have only lived in an affluent area, you don't really understand how bad it is in the wider country?

It isn't only successful people who don't believe Labour will fix those problems.
Many people believe they've made poverty worse in Wales.

Well yeah, I went to university with an astonishing number of old Etonians, an astonishing number of whom went on to be Tory ministers or in one case, to be the principle author of the last Tory manifesto.

Not all of them had actual manor houses but they all lived in London and the Cotswolds. When I go to the Cotswolds all I can think is how clean it is, the houses, the streets. It's like the Disney kingdom.

My father joined the armed forces after an engineering apprenticeship. He and my mother are now comfortable in their old age thanks to his hard work. Ditto DH, joined up as a junior then was later commissioned. When he left he had a second career in healthcare. We are well off due to his hard work. Look back a couple of generations and most families have farmhands, miners, foundry workers in their background.

Probably if you are very privileged, but most people aren’t like that, many of us move up and down on the spectrum of how financially comfortable we are.

I’ve been everywhere from losing my job with zero money and debts and living on 5 packs of noodles for £1 to never ever worrying about money and DD in a private school.

You are letting them of the hook. Both these events were entirely in the governments control
Labour stripped house prices from CPI inflation data, thus enabling bank of England to keep interest rates low as house prices sky rocketed and without capital adequacy controls - ultimately leading to large bank indebtedness and sub-prime lending crisis.
And it was entirely the Tory government's decision to lock down and furlough people during covid. It certainly was not in the "pandemic plan" drafted previously. Quite the opposite.

People who've always lived in affluent areas have absolutely no clue what it's like to live in deliberately underfunded areas, especially if they've had relatively charmed lives.

I ended a friendship a while back with someone in that category as I couldn't, in all conscience, be friends with someone who kept voting Tory without understanding what they were voting for or the effect on the poor. Their usual excuse was, oh, I'm a Southerner so I vote Tory. Uh huh. Never having lived anywhere else and crucially not mixing with anyone from outside your background is in there too.

Ironically in almost all other ways they were progressive and very green, the disconnect was spectacular.

I've lived in rich and poor areas but grew up in one of if not the most deprived wards in Newcastle and I hope I never forget where I come from.

Mind you, when it comes to voting preferences I'm still trying to get my head around parts of the impoverished north voting Tory because "labour never gave us any food banks" and the naive belief in HS2 north of Birmingham....

I agree that most privileged people have no comprehension of the lives of poor people, and often think it’s a simple case of needing to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

I was a teen Mum, a care leaver in a very abusive relationship. When I eventually got away in my early twenties I went back to college. I was able to claim benefits while I studied full-time. My rent was paid in full via housing benefit. My two DCs got free places in the college crèche. My courses (of which I could choose from a huge range of subjects) were fully funded. After two years I went into work and I’ve never claimed benefits since (25 years). I bought a house and have been a high rate taxpayer for decades, which has repaid the government’s investment in me tenfold.

This was under a new Labour government. Under the Tories, I wouldn’t be allowed to study full-time and claim benefits, and the subject I chose wouldn’t be funded. There are no college crèches. I’d be forced into a minimum wage unskilled job and never have had the opportunity to get out of poverty. Tories want to keep poor people in poverty, because they don’t see them as worthy human beings.

We were poor. Lived in rented accommodation with no bathroom for the first 18 years of my life. The biggest driver of my life: I was NOT going to put up with that when I could make my own decisions. We heated one room. We had ice on the inside of the windows in the winter. The desire to improve your life is everything. I didn’t get a job where I lived. I was determined to do better. As soon as I could go, I did.

That's OP's point!

I live in what I guess would be described as an affluent area but have always worked in areas of high deprivation so am keenly aware of the impact of structural inequality on the lives and prospects of many in our country. Even I didn't, I am able to read, so could have seen all these things in the newspaper, on the news, television etc.

I do think there is some truth though to some people becoming closeted by their wealth and own comfort and the individualised society we have now has many people focused on policies that affect them not thinking about others.

I also think it's sad we don't have critical thinking properly embedded within our education system.

Did you miss record investments in the NHS, schools and the police under Labour? Its there in the figures if you don't believe me.

The first 2 terms under Labour with Tony Blair saw many improvements. His 3rd term not so.

I believe we need change in government from time to time.

I think it basically comes down to:

There's a lot of people in the country that live a sheltered life.

Some by choice.

I lived for a while near Grimsby. I've helped people claim benefits. I've volunteered at food banks and I've helped deliver food parcels to the old / disabled etc.

I could share stories, and have.

There's people that will listen and 'get it'
But there's a lot of people that will listen and hand waved it away as it doesn't fit their experience and notions.

But, you can't really expect some living behind their gates, earning £80k + to really understand what life with nothing is like. They'd have to step out and look for themselves, but they won't because it makes their preconceptions of types of people less defined and shakes their sanctimonious attitudes.

Even I didn't, I am able to read, so could have seen all these things in the newspaper, on the news, television etc.

Unfortunately many people don’t believe it. They genuinely believe that people in poor areas are all feckless layabouts who are paid a fortune by the taxpayer to spend on drink and huge TVs. They hear of people getting £3k a month in UC and think every claimant gets that. They don’t see that all of that won’t even cover rent and childcare, and that person will be running a home on a few hundred quid a month once rent is paid.

They don’t want to understand.

You can advertise your intention to vote labour op, fine

my dh is a great example of social mobility. Parents cleaner/manual worker. Assisted place to private school. Life changed.

Family were labour voters - until they abolished assisted places in the late 90s and no child would ever have the opportunity that dh had ever again

if labour = utopia and tories = cunts, labour would be permanently in power. They aren’t. You can hope for change, but labour are just going to fuck things up differently. As would Tories continue to fuck things up

the entire political system needs a major overhaul. The divorce of nhs from politics etc.

it’s very concerning how many people think labour is the answer to their prayers. Rather than the least bad of a rotten bunch.

It depends. Living somewhere affluent doesn't stop someone from travelling and using their eyes.

And don't imagine that there aren't pockets of deprivation in every city and borough.

Poverty isn't a secret. It's just some people choose to ignore it.

This is also my experience with many many people.

"There's millions that have never worked..."
Actually less than 400000 that have been unemployed longer than 12 months..

"Well they still get too much cash for doing nothing..."
Actually unemployment is about £340 a month, could you live on that?

"Well they get their rent paid..."
Actually they get LHA rate towards their rent, which is often £100s shorter than their actual rent and if they're unemployed they have to make up the rest from the £340.

"Well they get their childcare paid..."
Actually they get UP TO 85% paid, not all of it.

"Well they keep having kids to get more money."
Actually there's a cap on benefits 2 kids maximum.

"Well they still get too much..."
Actually there's a benefit cap which means they can only get up to a certain amount anyway.

Eventually I have to give up trying and that makes them think they've won and they were right all along, when in fact, I'm just sick of responding and it's obvious their hate for the poorest of society won't change.

This.

They don't want to understand.

They believe everyone on benefits is lazy and feckless.

They think if they just 'worked harder' they would be fine.

They ate very ignorant to poverty and many don't want to find out the reality. Its better for them to ignore and repeat the mantras (see above).

This, there are lots of different reasons and the well if you are this then of course you will vote or think this is weird

Why do people need to keep putting people in 'labelled boxes'

I think it's as much to do with the ability to open your eyes and whether you are ever in a position to need actual help.
Where I live now, East Sussex, it is truly have and have not.
Beautiful rural and coastal. But chuff all large employers, chronic lack of services/public transport. Street homeless a real issue. Coastal deprivation an absolute issue.
But you don't see any of that unless you look properly. As long as you are a "have", you can buy a house in the right school catchment, subsidise your kids into careers by paying their trainfares to decent jobs etc etc or get them mobile by getting a licence and car.

I think you would have to have a pretty blinkered, incurious mind to not get it op.

Mind you, this article sets out how austerity measures were applied unevenly in a totally deliberate manner to have this very effect, which was an incredibly cynical strategy if you think about it:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/01/what-have-fourteen-years-of-conservative-rule-done-to-britain

I think you're right op. I live in suburban/inner London. I was on a thread a while ago about similar issues and said how despite not living in a particularly affluent area I didn't see many signs of a cost of living crisis. Another poster pulled me up and said even dreary unposh London suburbs are quite affluent compared to other areas of the country. I accept she was correct. I think I probably have no idea

I will be tactically voting which probably means I will be voting Lib Dem.
I hope others do the same

It is the same for us. I don't know why it would be like to grow up here in the affluent place. My children are growing up here. They are exposed to other family members who still live in the old places though. I hope they won't grow up ignorant and entitled, but that is down to us. I do think they are aware of the importance of education and the need to work hard.

Absolutely. To make it worse, we’re immigrants, who moved as adults from our own quite nice respective countries to a very nice part of this country, and while there is definitely poverty in parts of our large town it’s nothing compared to the inescapable deprivation in other parts of the country - but we’ve simply never encountered or even seen it.

I am quite conscious of living, however modestly, in a bubble of privilege though because I am reasonable alert and engaged.

Education offered a route out and I live in a different world to the one I was brought up in. I try to ensure my DC know that there’s a lot of inequality in society and I hope they will have compassion for that and somehow appreciate what it means. I don’t think some people in our affluent area even realise that we’re the lucky ones - they don’t have a flash car or a second home so they don’t consider themselves to be well off.