Save the Children launches appeal for children in the UK

[Vagaceratops]

BBC link

And it will get worse :(

The Trusell Trust is actually a good example. I don't dispute there are people out there in genuine need. I actually volunteer for our local trust so I know quite well how the whole scheme works. So I do actually truly know that there are people in real need out there. To the point where myself and my daughter give up our own time to do our bit to help.

But one of the things I do like about the trust is that they don't just hand out food parcels to anyone who presents themselves and says they can't afford food. All 'customers' need to be referred by a professional. So for example a good one is when an application for benefits is delayed and the family have no food because they have no money. In that situation who can begrudge helping?

So in that instance the answer is let's focus on speeding up benefit claims so we don't need food banks. Giving more money out via benefits would not really help in this situation.

i've got an idea, lets not help those poor peole in our country until they are as poor as those in other countries.

until they are living in tin shacks, have no sewage system and running water let alone electric, cant get their kids to school, dont have money for food or shoes we wont help them or bother about the division between rich and poor. Like Brazil lets live in towns where there are mansions backed up with shanty towns. Like where my family are come, let the poor kids come to the gate every day asking for bread, walk miles to school and beg for food on water on the way back as they are starving, have women in the middle of the road with toddlers running about them and babies tied to their back selling crocheted stuff and washing windows, then and only then will they be poor enough for us to consider helping.

nice what about asylum seekers and those not entitled to public funds?

I do not understand why this is such a huge shock to people!

Wow. Some very hateful statements yet again about poor people.

Those of you that post such crap as poor people should only drink water and relative poverty, have you ever been poor?

What do you mean specifically Nailak? I don't understand the question.

I'm not saying we don't help. I'm not dismissing the problem.

I'm saying we need to understand the root causes and target help accordingly. The article only suggestion is to throw money at the problem with seemingly no investigation on the causes, only focusing on the impact.

The days of throwing money at problems in order to solve it have gone and we've learned that life is simply not so simple.

Surely 17k for a single parent with one child is different to 17k to a 2 parent family with 4 children? It also depends on where the family lives, what their outgoings are etc?

The Government need to do something about the stupid energy prices though, as a lot of income (not just families, there's single people, OAP's etc) is used by keeping warm. It seems stupid that prices just keep going up (same with public transport, bus tickets never seem to go down, always up).

oops it hink i meant star but anyway do you get a lot of those people at the food banks?

I remember in the 70s when we had 18%, 20% and 22% inflation in 3 consecutive years! Imagine that 60% rise compared to today's inflation rates. It was terribly hard. We did not have power some of the time and people were working a 3 day week. Anyway the real issue is whether Labour or the Tories are in power there is very little money - we are spending much more than planned as tax revenues are nothing like they expected for last month.

No one is against the welfare state on this thread.

I swould though say that anyone at home with an internet connection should try to work. I have sat there sending out artilces to publications to 50 or so, I've worked through the night, I drink only tap water as I say (although I have not said I am not poor, I am much better off than most single parents but amazingly that seems to come from working all but 2 weeks a year, often 6 or 7 days a week for nearyl 30 years and going back to work full time when the babies were 2 weeks old. Now people will now say to me they would love to work but there is no work. It is possbile to move. I moved for work. Loads of us will have relatives in the past who did. If you live somewhere where there are no cleaning jobs even if you ring up all the richer houses, even if you are going round the streets leafleting - something I would hope all benefits claimants are trying even if your volunteering is not leading to anything, keep trying.

Go and read the women who earn £1k a day thread and the entrepreneur's thread for ideas.

There has been quite a few people yes. But I'm also blown away at how many people donate food. It's also quite humbling to see how much people donate. We ask people to consider putting a couple of items into their trolley extra which they can then donate after. But quite a few people actually donate several carrier bags full.

But as Star correctly points out, debt is one problem. The other is benefit delays. So it seems based upon that, the sensible solutions are actually to crack down on payday loans/door step lenders and to streamline benefit payments. Not as the report suggests which is hand out more money.

I'm off to search for that, Xenia.

I remember when ds was born, I lived on biscuits for about a month until the income support was sorted out.

I don't think the amount of benefits is the problem. I'm not saying it's easy to live off benefits, they are just enough to survive on, not enough to live on. If your fridge breaks down, there's not enough money to get it replaced in one go as it's more than a week's money. This is where the shitty door step lenders/cash till pay day/bright house people are waiting. Removing the crisis loans are going to send more families towards people like this

I don't advocate cash in hand but a single mother who is struggling to feed her only child with the benefits she is receiving won't burn in hell if she do for example few hours cleaning job in her neighbourhood cash in hand while her child is at school. Well but I'm in London where all the foreigners are getting job while the feckless English are complaining. Being a CM is just an example. I had to become one not because it ewsas the dream of my life but I need to earn and couldn't afford childcare. I had to borrow to start off, it was hard to get permission from the landlord but I did and you can make pretty much any house suitable specially if you have child already. It is a 20 hour course maximum. And it so basic you don't need to be genius or have any other qualification. I paid 3 debts and my life is getting better. But I now am reading to study and get another career. And I can do it because I turned the TV off and created the solution for my problem myself.

TBH it's not necessary to be a raving, hate-filled Tory to be slightly suspicious of some of the measures the government uses to define "poverty". This is only out of the papers, not the full report, but I understand that one of the measures is "sharing a room with a sibling". My brother and I were living in poverty until I was eleven if that is the case.

Going without food etc is another matter, clearly. But I distrust any method that draws a line and says "anyone below this line is LIVING IN POVERTY", as if that alone is meant to usefully inform social policy. It cannot possible be true that everyone above a given line is fine and dandy, and everyone below it is living in some sort of Dickensian puddle.

Ooh, wasn't there some good news about a crackdown on payday lending recently?

Here we go! They're all benefits scroungers who just need to work more! If you're not living in the streets and eating out of bins, it's not real poverty, because favelas in Brazil are such a good thing - it's why a lot of people have to live with bodyguards and in fortresses, because those people stuck in favelas are pretty pissed off and desperate and will gladly kidnap you or your child and kill them, piece by piece, for money.

Incidentally, I remember reading that quite a lot of the previous governments funding to "tackle child poverty" ended up going to some of the least in-need families in the category. There was a Rowntree Foundation study about it I think. The less desperate families were nearer the magic line that meant they would no longer be "in poverty", so it was cheaper to get them out of it than it was to get needier families out of it.

Drawing arbitrary lines creates silly incentives.

'I don't advocate cash in hand but a single mother who is struggling to feed her only child with the benefits she is receiving won't burn in hell if she do for example few hours cleaning job in her neighbourhood cash in hand while her child is at school.'

You have to declare that and if it's over about £25/week, it will be deducted from her income support. Not declaring it is fraud.

Ever seen where a lot of those foreigners live? It's why many councils and boroughs are having crackdowns on 'shed landlords'.

Oh, Joy, you should hear it when your child gets cancer. 'XYZ had cancer and lived, so she will, too, you just have to be positive.' Oh, okay, so because she died, it means we failed somehow. No, it means she had a shit form, doctors did all the could and she died.

"Well but I'm in London where all the foreigners are getting job while the feckless English are complaining."

To use a favourite MN phrase - did you mean to sound so rude? All the foreigners have jobs and all the English are feckless whingers, really?