BBC1 news tonight

[Pomegranatespompom]

Did anyone watch the poverty and covid report? It was incredibly sad, people living in absolutely awful circumstances. There was no SD/mask wearing,. An utterly depressing watch.

@thecatsatonthewall

If this thread raises awareness and encourages people to donate to food banks - that’s a very small good thing to happen

No it fucking isn't, food banks are the worst thing ever, they let the tories off the hook for the years of austerity and under funding they support.

We (the UK generally) have all voted for these levels of inequality over many years & given how popular the tories despite the disastrous way they have handled this pandemic, i suspect they'll be back in again in 2024.

Agree...it’s shameful the way foodbanks have grown and how everyone says what a great thing they do. Start writing to your MPs on why people IN WORK are not paid a decent enough wage by their employers to afford food. Start writing to your MP on the cruelty of making people wait for 6 weeks to receive benefits cos they like to assume everyone gets paid 4 weeks in arrears so will magically always have 4 weeks of income owed when losing their job. Start writing to your MP on homelessness or crap way disability payments made- I was appalled to see people in wheelchairs in that report. Food banks are not the answer

@Imaginetoday I didn’t say food banks were the answer, but they help with hunger now.
Agree we need to raise this more and keep raising this.

See I actually question the lockdown policy when I see things like this - is it really genuinely worth pushing people into this kind of poverty to save lives of people who are in the vast majority of cases 80+ and have Alzheimer’s, dementia or some other serious life limiting condition? And I don’t believe it’s truly possible for the government to just solve this by throwing more money at it, they are already throwing so much money at the furlough scheme trying to prevent more people slipping into poverty but god knows how long it will be possible to maintain it for beyond next spring.

And yet....this was so utterly predictable.

they are already throwing so much money at the furlough scheme trying to prevent more people slipping into poverty

Furlough is about keeping people spending, making it look like the economy is doing ok. It is not about preventing people from slipping into poverty, if it was the scheme would give greater protection to those on the lowest incomes. 80% of minimum wage (less than £7 an hour) is not a liveable income.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

If you're in favour of lockdown then you're in favour of making poor people suffer. There's no point in being shocked about it.

Its also disproportionately people living in poverty that are affected by poor health. So its really not that straightforward.

A few people have mentioned how these poorer areas have voted tory, and yes I agree it is heart breaking to watch them suffer at the hands of the government they voted for in good faith. In my area we are tory, flipped from Labour last time. We had a wonderful Labour mp. I've yet to decide about the current one. He has received an email from me recently regarding free school meals. I highlighted he fact that he was now representing a very deprived area and please could he bare this in mind when voting. The truth is that many Labour voters were scared out of voting for Labour by all the Corbyn propaganda. "i simply can't vote for that man" etc so now here we are. I know this as I'm surrounded daily by working class tory voters who claim, even while surrounded by all of the suffering I mentioned in my last post. The propaganda against Corbyn worked an absolute treat, and I'm not his biggest fan either just to be clear. But I know where the tory's priorities lie, and they are not in Burnley. Or anywhere else working class. They simply can't imagine that poverty is anything but the problem and fault of those who are in it and simply nothing to do with them.

I'd like to force Boris and his shit show of a cabinet to watch this.

Boris could watch it on repeat for the rest of time and it still wouldn't sink in. The man has had an empathy lobotomy.

It did stand out all of them were old, sick or disabled. Or with live tragedies that would make them unemployable or with mental ill heath. All of which can do nothing to improve their condition. We have had 10 y of austerity so least they can’t take much more of this group.

Universal credit went up £20 a week for new claimants for covid for those new To the lows of the benefit system. Yet those or it before or older legacy benefits didn’t get increased a penny. If you had suddenly pay for PPE for carers or more for food and deliveries because you wouldn’t go out tough carry on.

@thedaytodayyesterday

A few people have mentioned how these poorer areas have voted tory, and yes I agree it is heart breaking to watch them suffer at the hands of the government they voted for in good faith. In my area we are tory, flipped from Labour last time. We had a wonderful Labour mp. I've yet to decide about the current one. He has received an email from me recently regarding free school meals. I highlighted he fact that he was now representing a very deprived area and please could he bare this in mind when voting. The truth is that many Labour voters were scared out of voting for Labour by all the Corbyn propaganda. "i simply can't vote for that man" etc so now here we are. I know this as I'm surrounded daily by working class tory voters who claim, even while surrounded by all of the suffering I mentioned in my last post. The propaganda against Corbyn worked an absolute treat, and I'm not his biggest fan either just to be clear. But I know where the tory's priorities lie, and they are not in Burnley. Or anywhere else working class. They simply can't imagine that poverty is anything but the problem and fault of those who are in it and simply nothing to do with them.

It's not just anti Corbyn propagada at play here. There are lots of Brexiters in Burnley, many will have voted for Boris for his promise to "Get Brexit Done". Remember this is the area that first voted in BNP councillors, and plenty of UKKIP supporters also.

@TheDailyCarbuncle I agree with everything you have written. I hope more people come to this thread and instead of shaking their heads and saying “gosh terrible awful” and putting a packet of dried pasta in the food bank bin in their next shop, they write to their MP to tell them to look at this report. I have emailed mine this evening.

Many people do more than chuck in a packet of dried pasta in a food bank.

@Pomegranatespompom

Many people do more than chuck in a packet of dried pasta in a food bank.

Yes they do and its admirable, however, it still allows the Tories to wriggle off the hook.

We 've had Food banks for many years now, has poverty decreased? no, did their introduction reduce poverty? no.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

The mention of the lack of social distancing just shows how entirely out of touch some people are and how little they understand the reality of people's lives. If you're starving, you're not going to be worried about a less than 1% chance of dying from an illness that the people around you might not even have FFS. It's fucking ludicrous to think that a person hasn't eaten for days is going to hang back and risk starving to death because there's a tiny tiny chance of getting a fucking virus.

This.

Ans sadly, we're going to see more of this type poverty across the whole country, not just 'unfashionable' places like Burnley.

@TheDailyCarbuncle you are spot on.

It irks me that it's seen as "kind" to want everything to shut down "because Covid".

My observation is that the kindest folk bleating the loudest for lockdowns and spotting breaches are very comfortable working from nice warm homes, enjoying the "time to cook from scratch" and being tended by Amazon drivers, Deliveroo, bin men, gardeners, window cleaners and so on. Not what you see in the programme at all.

Funny how the baseless research / modelling you mention was publicised widely and used to determine strategy, yet the one showing differential impact of the "lockdown" on different sectors must be kept secret.

@howitstarted yes you're right, there's also the promise of brexit which swayed a lot of people.
@TheDailyCarbuncle thank you for your posts, I'm glad to hear your point of view and I agree also with so much of what you are saying. We have been warned the effects of lockdown would be devastating for some, and yet here we are shocked at the footage. I am not shocked at all, we're about half an hour from Burnley and the scenes and stories in that film can be seen in our town too.
Again, I'm not anti lockdown either, but the poor have been so overlooked it's heartbreaking. The cycle is self fulfilling as I said, working class area = more key workers = more transmission = tier 3 = already poor area made poorer

@Stradivari, chucking a packet of pasta in the foodbank is better than tutting, saying it's awful and doing nothing. Your comment comes across as so sanctimonious. Instead of wagging your virtual finger at people, how about trying to say 'great, as well as giving to your foodbank, write to your MP too'. There are ways of getting your message across, making people feel shit for trying to do a little bit to help in their own way isn't the way to go about it.

FWIW, I do write to my MP. He's a Tory arsehole, who listens to nooone but I do still try. And no, I didn't vote for him.

@ScatteredMama82 I don't care if I sound sanctimonious. I am livid with this whole situation. Countless number of my friends have been left high and dry with no idea whether they are coming or going with regards to openings and closings and job security. Terrified they will be laid off with no recourse to pay their mortgages. Savings disappeared in a puff of smoke but the cost of living still bearing its weight on their heads. It's absolutely foul. And yes, I'll be pleased that they can get their food from a food bank if they need it but god, it shouldn't have come to that in the first place! These are people who had jobs that didn't need that kind of support a year ago. It's just utterly outrageous.

@Stradivari I agree with you, this country is in a complete mess and foodbanks shouldn't have to exist. All I'm saying is, don't put people off giving to them by telling them it's not enough. Encourage them to give AND do more.

@Stradivari You're right. I apologise. I was just incensed by this report to write and be guilty of directing my anger at the wrong people. As EVER it is down to the shambolic destruction of equality and fairness.

@howitstarted

The crazy thing is that the people in Burnley, where this was filmed and which is one of the poorest areas in the country, voted in a Tory MP last December.

Wow, from an also NW girl with a SE husband, you have summed this up to a tee

@thedaytodayyesterday

I am in a tier 3 working class area of Northern England. My husband is a cleaner/caretaker/litter picker for the council and sees daily people walking up to him and other colleagues asking if there are jobs for them, often with hear breaking desperation in their voice. The poor have been so left behind in all of this. My friend works for a children's charity doing similar work as shown on the film. She is regularly in tears at what she sees daily. The thing is, the working class (like my husband) have gone out to work every day in this crisis, meaning they are more exposed to the virus, so the cases rise in the working class areas, so then we're put into tier 3, so more businesses suffer, and so it goes on. This is the crisis we're in now. The lockdowns save the middle class and let everyone else suffer. I don't want to sound like I've got a chip on my shoulder, far from it, but coming on MN and hearing people worry about whether they should still be having/paying their cleaner/nanny gardener when where I am there is unimaginable suffering right outside our door, it just feels a world away from my experience and like the class divide is getting bigger and bigger throughout this pandemic. I am also not against lockdown as the NHS where we are is on it's knees. Someone I know's wife broke her leg the other day and there was no ambulance for her. BUT there should have been more to help the poorest and most vulnerable. And the amount of self employed people falling through the gaps into bankruptcy is unforgiveable. I am fortunately covered by the scheme, but so so many people just haven't qualified for it at all. If you registered self employed after 2018 you don't get a penny, and I have no idea what the justification is for this. There's another thread on here at the moment wondering whether it is ok to go shopping tomorrow, I say please get out there and support the economy if you can. There is this holier than thou attitude coming across of 'oh no of course I won't go out shopping' when like I say, the working class have had no choice but to be out there every day throughout this, please go out and support the businesses that they work for. If you clapped for key workers, now is the time to show your appreciation by supporting the economy.

Sorry, meant to quote this

@TheDailyCarbuncle

Completely agree with most of what you've said. Supporting lockdowns is prioritising the lives of the elderly and vulnerable from a medical perspective over those of the poor (or those who will be poor as a result of our covid response). A policy which deliberately destroys our economy in a way which impacts the jobs of the poorest most will inevitably cause a huge increase in poverty, which in turn impacts on people's health and life expectancy. The government could probably have done more to target support to the poorest during the pandemic but we are facing years of mass unemployment, decreased tax revenues and huge government debt. It will be very difficult for any government to prevent people falling into extreme poverty in those circumstances. The fallacy involved seem to be thinking that the economy can be paused and then restarted or just not understanding the scale of the damage we have done - I've seen suggestions that businesses selling face masks could take the place of the lost jobs in retail and hospitality, for example.

I'm very disappointed by Labour's failure to engage meaningfully with these issues. Their covid policy seems to be to out lockdown the conservatives when they should be considering the impact on the poor and vulnerable. The media also seems to have shied away from much coverage of the wider effects of lockdowns.

I have usually found mumsnet quite sensitive to the position of the poor and vulnerable in the past but since covid a lot of people seem to have lost sight of the fact that not everyone has a comfortable or even safe home; not everyone can afford enough food for a week at a time or even for a day; not everyone has the education level required or language skills to understand complex and ever changing rules about how many people you're allowed to meet in a park etc; that for some a shop or pub closing is an inconvenience but for others it is their livelihood gone.

It bothers me that once the vaccine is rolled out the government will claim to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, while hundreds of thousands or millions live a poorer and probably shorter life than they would have done. Without a death counter ticking up every day it's likely that the MSM won't really notice and no one will really care and if there's another similar disease in future we might repeat the same madness.

It’s heartbreaking to hear how so many people have lost their jobs and possibly their homes too because they can’t pay their mortgages.

However, I think it’s so difficult to do the right thing as this is such a unique situation we are in. The lockdowns are there to protect the vulnerable and even the rare healthy patients from fatalities or effects of long covid. It’s also to protect the NHS so it can function and serve its purpose. I know there’s pros and cons in regards to lockdown, but it’s not just the U.K. that has chosen to go down this route, many countries have as the scientists have advised what they believe is the best option. I do believe if we had the first lockdown earlier then the virus would’ve been some what under control by now and therefore the less privileged would have suffered less. Also the rule breakers (illegal raves, larger weddings, not isolating when supposed to etc) have all made the lockdown impact not as effective as it should or could have been.
I actually feel more sorry for those who have to face losing their homes due to job losses than those who are have never worked in their lives and probably living in council homes which they don’t risk losing.
I am fortunate that both DH and I have secure jobs and decent incomes, however I am not naive and know that can all be taken from us in a heartbeat even during non covid times, so I really feel for those suffering right now.

Well I agree with dailycarbuncle. This was obviously what was going to happen and the pearl clutching "it's so awful I'm going to donate to the local food bank!" is just bollocks.