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?

@Pipsquiggle Im wondering why they should do. Nearly everyone votes for their own position and beliefs. I don’t really need to visit other areas as I’m not voting there.Poorer people vote for whst they want and the better off vote what they want. It evens out!

Im totally aware of poverty but I’m also aware that some don’t want to work. Ask yourself why London has the best educational outcomes? It’s because immigrants want to do well. And they do. They take advantage of what’s on offer. That’s key.

Er yes, or I do we look at the statistics it may be because pupils in inner London have almost £9000 a year spent on them as opposed to £6100 in the south east region, the North East had 6500 but still along way from those in London so I wouldn’t throw out your offensive lazy stereotyping Willy nilly!

And why do they have more? does this have anything to do with London weighting for teachers salaries and cost of running premises? Or do you believe that it's more teachers & resources they have?

What the friend meant was "Labour is terrible with my money and the money of people like me".

It's a way to say she despises those lacking resources and sees no good reason for a government to spend her money on distressed or disadvantaged areas.

A good number of people would agree with Margaret Thatcher's statement that there is no such thing as 'society'.

Let’s be clear that the impact of ignorance falls more greatly on those at the bottom of society. It’s not an equivalent sin, is it?

I think yabu- I live in an affluent pocket of a very mixed area
i know exactly how difficult people have it .
needless to say I won’t be voting Tory.

Clearly you’ve never been anywhere other than your leafy affluent suburban home.

Do you know the stats about government investment in the North ?
The way that affluent Conservative constituencies get more money relatively than poor northern ones ?
The woeful record on levelling up ?
So the town I live in is poor because we’re all work-shy fops ?
Funnily enough we have a substantial number of immigrants here who don’t work because they cannot speak English. Because they come from third world war torn countries many of the women are illiterate and are not economically productive. Due to our town being cheap we have a large concentration of these people. No probs with this but it’s a huge financial drain on our council which is already struggling because of austerity.
Please don’t pontificate about things you don’t understand.

@Goldenbear It’s a combination of factors. The SE based dc still do better than many in the north. There’s also pupil premium and funding factors to take into account and London weighting is one. There’s also deprivation!

And it's worth remembering that really the only basic message of the Tories is that they are 'the natural party of government'.

It's a message deeply rooted in British class shibboleths.

I did have a bit of an epiphany today.

Austerity / COL crisis - everyone has been affected, however, it disproportionately affects those at the bottom - this is what I think my friends who have always lived in nice areas / have comfortable lives are oblivious to.

Take holidays:
The super well off can no longer go to the Seychelles for a week, they go to a lovely riad in Morocco.
People who usually go to Morocco now go to a gite in France.
French gite people are now holidaying in Wales.
Welsh holiday people now have a day out in Blackpool
And so on and so on........................ The rich people are moaning & fixating about Morocco but have no idea how it affects the people with a lot less money.

Now use the above analogy on truly important stuff - food, bills, heating, housing, transport, health, education..............

I wouldn't say SE children do better. Definitely not London anyway (and I doubt in extremely deprived places like Jaywick Essex either). Might be more school funding but doesn't seem to address inequality or poverty.

London has the highest rate of child poverty in England.

https://www.childhoodtrust.org.uk/about-us/child-poverty-in-london/

That is disingenuous as we all know that one of the major reasons for the turn around in the performance of London schools was as a result of a 00s Labour initiative, the London Challenge. I went to school in London in a very diverse area, it was probably the school the drama Grange Hill was based upon or at least gave the writer ideas about and it was scary, pretty shit in terms of outcomes (outcomes were pretty much dependent upon your family outlook on education) and violent in terms of some awful pupils. The London Challenge changed all of that and it is something schools wanted to model across the country such was the success!

The South east is not the same as London funding at all so if you aren’t well off in the south east, you are statistically less likely to do as well as someone in one of these London Challenge school. My nieces and nephews got to private schools but they could have easily gone to their local state school in London and achieved a comparative education. I remember once a birthday party being hosted in this North London school and the facilities were out of the us world. My youngest attends a secondary school that is desired in the south east but it is still a comprehensive as we don’t have selective schools where we live and even now - the party was 12 years ago, their secondary school wot facilities and buildings is not a patch on the London ones. Do I think it helps with the grade attainment - of course it bloody does. My DC will do well pretty much on the basis of their upbringing and I would say that’s true amongst our friend’s DC but who knows if they would get higher grades with funding matched to London’s.

Apologies for terrible grammar and spelling mistakes- it is a result of my dire secondary education in a London Comp😂

Unless you didn't go to school, use the NHS etc then, like everyone, you have received a penny, from everyone. Imagine where'd you'd be without it?

By your own logic (which I don't agree with), if you can't afford the VAT on your DC's schooling that's your own fault.

Yes, but the difference is probably taken up with increased building costs and higher staff salaries in London. There is a higher cost of living so staff have to be paid more to retain them. Nhs staff are paid 20% in central London, so I presume teachers are similar. The children probably aren't getting better facilities or a better teacher to pupil ratio for example. It just costs more in London to provide the same education provision.

Oh, you can be incredibly sheltered for sure.

I'm from abroad and as a teen, the only parts of the UK I knew were Surrey, West/Central London and wild Scottish countryside.

I remember coming to as less affluent place as a uni student and seeing people visibly on drugs/ rough people/ streets in poor order and I was honestly totally shocked and felt out of place. Based on my experience so far I thought all of the UK was super modern and chocolate boxy.

I then did work with poor high ethnic minority communities in my 20s and again, saw things I never knew existed. E.g. I did not know that completely non-white primary schools existed in the UK, or that there were so many people that didn't have basic English/literacy skills and therefore had very limited employment opportunities. Or before then I had never met anyone whose family had been in prison, or on drugs, or where someone in the family had to care for a disabled child. Mind you, I hadn't even met anyone who hadn't done a foreign exchange before I turned 20! I didn't realise my comments about having had certain experiences could seem as boastful as I thought I was poor compared to people at work etc.

I'm now a big advocate for the socially disadvantaged in my daily work and highlight the unequal start in life that people get in this country. But I am still shocked even now when I end up in somewhere like Oldham, parts of Birmingham, Dagenham... Central London doorsteps after 9pm...

Unfortunately in my professional circles, we live in chocolate box villages where a non-white or non-MC person would stick out, and when we venture out it's to 'naice' places - we don't go to inner cities as part of normal routine. So the inequality, kids going hungry, etc is just figures to many, they haven't seen it and can't imagine the limitations/ cultural stigma.

People think "Shameless" couldn't be anywhere near reality. Whereas actually in my ex bf's life most of these characters existed! What's normal for the 20% most affluent is completely not normal for the 20% most disadvantaged and vice versa.

Well no, it isn’t just that as I posted above, the London Challenge turned schools around from the early 00s onwards and it is a momentum that has been maintained. You can’t argue it is just down to the demographic make up or these school populations as when the London Challenge was implemented the rate of improvement in these schools was much higher than the rate of demographic change. And yes, unsurprisingly, the good performing schools do attract the best teachers which obviously impacts attainment. The best schools do have better facilities without a doubt!

I went to one of this schools in London and they were hugely diverse still quite bad results and this totally shifted in the early 00s

@TheBestFriend great post.
Problem is that when people visit the north for example it’s the naice parts of the north. Like Harrogate, York, Ilkley, Hexham or Chester. When they move up here, it’s to naice places too.
Plonk them in some town centres in the North and they’d think they were in 70s Eastern Europe. Equally they don’t understand how bad the public transport system is. And this has a knock on effect upon jobs and educational opportunities especially for young people who cannot afford to drive. My son had a couple of friends desperate to do an apprenticeship, with decent qualifications and good CVs. None of them managed to get one (and I’m not talking about high flying ones with KPMG).

@Goldenbear Those DC are long gone and so is Labour. 14 years ago is a long time. Loads of research shows dc in London and SE are more likely to go to uni. It’s obviously not about Labour 14 plus years ago! It’s about now. Also in London, deprived areas don’t necessarily correspond with poor educational outcomes. They actually produce dc who want better. They see it all around them. Why wouldn’t you aspire to a slice of the action? Many dc in London are a living very close to much wealthier people and they’ve worked out education matters. Certainly it does to immigrants. Good on them.

@TheBestFriend

True, and it's the same for London and the rest of the south. I don't suppose people on a weekend city break go to the deprived estates of London, and if they think of places like Kensington they'll think of the large mansions rather than Grenfell.

Likewise the rest of the south. Doubt many people go on holiday to Jaywick or Gillingham.

Same with the rural/urban divide (whether north or south). People will go on holiday to a chocolate box village in North Yorkshire or the Cotswolds, or the 'naice' tourist parts of Cornwall or Northumberland. They won't book a holiday cottage in the deprived rural areas of the UK.

Well Labour aren’t really long gone, it looks like they will very much be back before we know it! It is fundamental to the changes in the London state schools, that turn around in performance was before the Conservative government got into power. Attributing the attainment to pure agency is just ridiculous, there were huge changes brought about by the London Challenge that the schools built upon. As I stated, my school was really diverse both in ethnic diversity and socio-economic diversity so why didn’t this magic happen then. It is ridiculous to dismiss deprivation as not being relevant to poor educational outcomes as it simply isn’t true. We live in a city in the south east that isn’t very racially diverse but it is pretty wealthy in our locality and the teenagers do well the sixth form college has had 52 Oxbridge offers this year, are you really suggesting money hasn’t got much to do with this. Where that doesn’t exist interventions like the London Challenge are key.

Had a look out of interest and seems London has high youth unemployment rates so I'm not sure opportunities are that great there. Assume also the high cost of housing there means many can't afford to stay in London so can't benefit from any opportunities that are there.

Really there's an inequality and poverty issue across the country. And it can only be addressed by ensuring everyone wherever they live has opportunities. Good well-funded public services, social housing, supportive benefits system, improved child support system, and jobs education and training opportunities.

That would help individuals and communities, and also help the economy by reducing need. People get timely and effective help, then have less need for longer term help.

Unemployment is also not something which is experienced the same across the UK, with the regional UK unemployment rate of the United Kingdom varying from 4.5 percent in London, and in the West Midlands, England to just 2.3 percent in South West England. During the same month, London had the highest youth unemployment rate amongst regions at 15 percent, compared with 5.5 percent in the South West.

https://www.statista.com/topics/1989/unemployment-in-the-united-kingdom/#topicOverview

Yes, this.