Campaign to tackle poverty in London by the Evening Standard

[clever1]

ES have launched a campaign to highlight poverty in the nation's capital. It's got some powerful backing too, but do you think a campaign like this will make a difference?

Nope
ES should read the comments their articles are receiving online

Yes, I've been looking through them now. Far more negative viewpoints than positive, which is a shame as I do feel there is a genuine problem with poverty in this country. The trouble is, in order to get support, the media have to be so careful to choose an example of poverty that people can empathise or sympathise with. For instance, the article about the mother of 11 children drew some very negative responses such as 'hasn't she heard of contraception?' and 'I resent working and paying my taxes to fund this woman's lifestyle'.

11 kids by 5 different guys

the article on communal graves was pretty rubbish too - how would spending council funds on individual graves help the living?

Oh so this presumably runs alongside their other campaign to get the Tories back in then? How complementary ...

So far both of the ES features seem to be along the lines of 'oh look at how these poor people live!'. So given the choice would you rather have a pauper's grave or an extra few thousand in benefits? A harsh choice...but where is all this extra money supposed to come from?

Also, both my husband and I working full time in order to have roughly the equivalent as what the lady in ES today has in disposable income (after paying income tax, mortgage, council tax, childcare etc.) we choose fewer children!

...and while I'm on a roll, whilst certainly not subscribing to any Conservative ideals, having grown up in a very poor family and working very hard to get out of that cycle I find ES's approach belittling, strangely middle-class and detached. Propaganda even would not be so trite and at least it would have an agenda. Can't wait for tomorrow's A-level course work style feature.

I've just been reading the 11 kids article on my way home and think it was a very poor choice of example. This is clearly a difficult topic but I think that it did more harm than good.

The thing is, the woman in the article didn't seem to take any responsibility for her predicament - apparently "mistakes happen". Yet surely the point is that you learn from your mistakes not continue to make them another 10 times. Surely there must have been a point prior to the 11th child when she must have looked around and her life and realised that adding yet more children into the mix would only harm the living conditions of the ones she already had. Take the school shoes thing she mentioned - teachers apparently had a whip around to get the £50 quid for the child's shoes. Yet she spends £40 a month on sky.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that the kids should be left in some form of dickensian squalor pour encouragement les autres, and I don't think the idea of the the undeserving poor is helpful. But bad call by the ES, a bad, bad call.

Those articles made me mad.

We are hardly talking real poverty here are we? The poverty line is relative to the mean income. This isn't the same thing as third world poverty. The woman with 11 kids is costing tax payers 40k per year. It is her choice. The other woman had a kid at 17 and is moaning about not having the same lifestyle as a city worker - why should she?

The state should fix the education system and ensure that the kids of these morons fare better. Apprentiships etc are the way forward not hand outs. A TV and Sky are not necessities. I don't have Sky now.

How many of use grew up without at TV (and Sky which didn't exist) and spent time at the library?

And as for her grocery bill - don't get me started on that one because it certainly sounds like convienence foods to me not fruit, veg, pasta, grains etc.

The problem is how to address the cycle and get these deadbeats off handouts.

I am glad some one mentioned 'communal graves'. The land usage for individual graves is unsubstainable and cremation is more friendly. In that context even communual graves are an outrageous extravagance.

In Canada - poorer children get breakfast and dinner. The schools in could do a similar scheme give the kids 3 square meals, provide uniforms and an education to break the cycle. Giving money to the parents doesn't always ensure it goes to the kids or maybe they'll just have more.

I read the ES yesterday and thought what a good idea to highlight the need of Londoners in London. Then I read tonight's article and I thought . I didn't understand the comparision between the woman with 11 dcs living on welfare and the CEO with 8 children who has the income to fund her choice.

I have lots of sympathy for those on the poverty line through change in circumstance etc but having 11 children without a thought of how to provide for them just seems very odd to me.

As for the article on shared graves well that made me very sad indeed. Everyone has a right to dignity both alive and dead.

It's no accident that the stories of poverty are not met with sympathetic responses.

They were never meant to be. This is the Evening Standard, remember? The puppet of the Daily Mail? They are pointing the finger at the 'feckless poor' through a guise of concern for poverty stricken families.

Interestingly enough, they ran a double page spread a few weeks ago marvelling at the Crown Estate's proposals to sell of all of its affordable key worker housing, lauding it as 'a fantastic investment opportunity'. Hardly the editorial of a paper concerned about poverty.

Still, good to see that people are falling for it

It's patently not a real campaign about poverty. It is a dressed up way to a) sell newspapers and b) support the Tories. Prince William lecturing me about poverty can just fuck off. Boris Johnson ditto. They are rich who have only ever looked after themselves and their own families, and now the ES is wanting us all to pretend that they are Mother Theresas. Well I ain't buying it. And I don't believe that someone having 11 kids is the best example in London of the deserving poor- it was just something designed to get the chattering classes chattering.

And, like boobmeister, I think there is something of the troll about the OP.

I agree that all the examples I've read in the ES are ones with which I couldn't really sympathise. Perhaps the paper does have another agenda. What about children with disabled parents, older people desperate for help from the care services who can't afford to buy in their own help - there are so many people in real need rather than the mother of 11. I also noted the comments in the paper about the bags of clothing etc in their flats/houses, implying that these were feckless people spending their benefits on cheap disposable clothing etc.

Actually I don't know about the OP's status and whether there are any troll tendencies but I came on specifically to talk about this article and would have started a thread if there hadn't been one already.

Yes but would you have included the words "do you think a campaign like this will make a difference?" in your OP? Seriously?

The Evening Standard has always been a tory rag but at least there used to be some actual articles in it. Monday's ES was so obviously just straightforward propaganda it was laughable.

It's so cynical, the way the tories claim they're going to help families when they'll do anything but IMO. You can slate Labour for many things, but at least they have actually done things which make a real difference to families. Like working tax credit, and child tax credit, professionalising the childminding profession and improving maternity and paternity rights for starters.

It'll be so sad if the tories get in and unpick it all.

No I wouldn't have but hey at least she saved me the hassle of starting a thread.

Oh god but we are just driving traffic to their website! They are deliberately pissing us off because they know we love it and it will pull in the advertisers

FGS no-one click on the link to the ES site, it will just push up their search ranking!

Actually this evening's ES also had a double page spread on mumsnet a few pages after the feckless poor poverty article.

I read the article on the tube and put the rag in the recycling so that some other sod wouldn't have to read the stupidly blatant propaganda. All the bleating too. How many single mothers of 11 children (to 5 different fathers no less) are there in London fgs? They must have had to look long and hard to find her.

There was also an article about a couple of people whose house is falling down because the stupid developer next door buggered up his building. The couple were referred to as 'Mr X and Ms Y (who are married' - and the relevance of their marital status is what? Oh yes, they have children so of course it must be stressed that they are married lest we think they are undeserving of our sympathy

I really shouldn't read the damn thing - I swear my blood pressure rises every time I pick it up

It's depressing - I remember when it was a real newspaper, back in about 1998. Now they don't even have the cash to do a decent job of being a lightweight Tory propaganda rag

i totally agree with serenityx's analysis.

i'm glad i'm not alone in thinking it is a very weakly portrayed campaign.

check out the story today - apparently heartstrings have been pulled and all the poor people will now be treated to dinner, drinks and scholarships.

If the ES really gave a shit about poverty it would be doing something to address its systemic causes, not this Victorian-era exercise in hand-wringing patronage.

This is such a poor piece of Tory marketing. On one day there are all the sob stories and then the day after are all the stories about people willing to help and to give them money. So, of course we don't need the welfare state, as people will always help others out??!

I am not critising the campaign (I am a Guardian reader!) but the examples chosen are really inappropriate. Not many people will be able to identify with a single mum complaining of poverty when she lives on £39,000 and has chosen to have 11 children. Also, even though the teenager has had people willing to give him the £19 for the UCCAS application, what about all the rest of the money to fund the course (travel costs, books, stationary etc)? And the restaurants and theatres who are donating meals and tickets - going to a posh restaurant is not really the issue here!

I read yesterday's edition on the train, and was wryly amused to see that all the "ordinary punters" they had interviewed thought that "the government should do more about poverty / there should be more money available to tackle poverty etc" Hmmm - ironic really as if the ES has it's way there will be much less money available to tackle poverty from May 7th onwards . . . !