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Telly addicts

famous, rich and hungry for sport relief

358 replies

misstiredbuthappy · 12/03/2014 21:08

Anybody watching ? I watched it last year realy hit a nerve with me.

OP posts:
TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy · 13/03/2014 13:09

I was a neglected and abused child. I sometimes went weeks where my only food was what my friends shared with me at school. My body will be damaged for the rest of my life because of that neglect.

And my father made almost 6 figures and I lived in his house during this time period. He has lost his job/business quite a few times during his life but was supported by the community and family network that his family has built up to get into other well paying work within days each time. He was able to be a drug addict that was abusive and didn't support his family because his community and network would handwave it away with how hard he worked (he's a tech monkey) and how important his family were to their little bubble. He's made a lifetime of bad choices and supported all the way through by the network that his family built up - not him, his family. My mother did not have this network (and when they separated was shunned by this network) and was left to flouder in her alcoholism and isolation and sweeping up both of their bad choices. If she had his network, things would have been very different for her.

It isn't bad choices alone that gets and leaves people , it's the lack of most often inherited prestige and status. It's far easier for companies and sharks to smack people around when they have no other support and the surrounding messages are that they are subhuman for not having that network. When someone in poverty gets told that the company has made an error, hasn't sent them an updated bill in a year and because of the company's lack of communication, the person is almost a grand in debt to them and must spend almost three times as much each month to them, there is very little that person can do after weeks of talking to them on the phone and searching for help. When someone like my father repeatedly forgets to pay the bill to the point their child is home alone when they come to cut off the supply, he ends up making one phone call and its all better, he even got the late fees dropped.

One can make all the right choices, work to the bone, and be poor. One can fuck everything up, ruin people's lives, and be well supported, wealthy, well loved members of their community. Poverty and wealth are part of wider systems, and the rhetoric of these programmes fuels the concept that poor people deserve to be poor, ignoring that many rich people make those same choices and come out mostly unscathed and that poverty and people's choices don't happen in a vacuum. It's all part of wider systems that these types of shows support and fuel.

whineaholic · 13/03/2014 13:11

I agree about loans too. Any loans offering an above average APR should be banned.

Yes also to a system of supplying white goods etc. In my nearest town there is a large Barnardos furniture and white goods charity warehouse where you can buy a fridge for £20 inc delivery. They also allow a payment plan if you are on benefits - it's just brilliant.

Outlawing cigarettes would be an enormous step forward on many levels, too.

TheOrchardKeeper · 13/03/2014 13:33

^ most areas have something like that. In our town we have the community furniture project. You can get white goods cheaper if you're on benefits but even then you often need help affording it. I was luckily enough to have family that could help with the odd tenner here and there for me to gradually buy things like a fridge, microwave, washing machine etc (though I had to make do without any of that and just a 2 hob-plate that could be plugged in for the first month or so as my benefits were in a total mess and all took ages to come through and my family had already helped as much as they could, to get decent flooring down as my son and I were always getting splinters and he took a toe nail off on a loose floor board at one point). Not everyone has that.

The pay-day loan issue is just awful. So many people getting sucked in all the time. Then there's places like Brighthouse where you can buy household goods and furniture but will be paying it off for the rest of your life and then some.

Again, we're still lucky to have any safety net at all but we do live in a first world country and it is shocking how awful it can get for some people despite that. What's even worse is that it's a hidden problem for most. All these tv shows and daily mail headlines detract from the importance of the issue, which is that people are seriously suffering and something --lots of things- needs to be done to change that.

bibliomania · 13/03/2014 13:35

That's a very compelling post, Spork. I'm so sorry your childhood was like that.

Roseformeplease · 13/03/2014 15:49

Feeling invisible here. My childhood was shit. So was Spork's. It feels just a bit shittier when I pour my heart out about what it is to come second to a packet of fags and then, nothing.

brighteyedbusytailed · 13/03/2014 15:54

I thought Rachel's lecture to that mum was wholly pompous and unnecessary, appointing herself 'bad cop' who the fuck does she think she is?

bibliomania · 13/03/2014 15:58

Oh Rose, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to be hurtful. I'm posting at work so I only get to see snippets of the thread at a time, and I reacted to the one I'd just read.

Your childhood is heartbreaking - I'm so sorry that your mother wasn't able to put you first, the way she should have.

Highlander · 13/03/2014 16:34

These people are wholly vulnerable, and open to abuse by other people - loan sharks.

I'll probably get flamed for this - but they are probably on the lower end of the IQ spectrum as well, making them even more vulnerable and unable to make choices that could help them climb out of poverty - why do we as a society vote for govts that treat our most vulnerable members of society like shit?

Ban money lenders, unless their interest payments are less than 10%.

Ban the sale of cigarettes.

Build more social housing (I lived in a lovely council house as a kid)

Raise the level of benefits. It's all very well paring welfare back to the bare minimum, but our most vulnerable members of society need so much more - with very little in the way of qualifications, most of them will struggle to find work, period.

Roseformeplease · 13/03/2014 16:39

Thanks.

Sometimes, people do need help in the form of vouchers. If my Mum had been given vouchers for vegetables and fruit, lean meat and good carbs she would have used them. She loves good food and would have enjoyed cooking / eating it. However, if a neighbour would swap for fags, she would have done that. She had a councils house but had "fallen" a long way. She has a degree equivalent qualification. She is from a very middle class family (Doctor's daughter) and had travelled the world and is very cultured and educated.

But, she is an addict. This means she loves fags and booze before anything else - before her own health, her children, her family.

I wonder how many of those in poverty could save the nation a fortune if they were given help to overcome addictions, rather than just beer and fag tokens.

whineaholic · 13/03/2014 16:52

Raising benefits won't solve a darn thing - it simply creates more poverty by entrapping more people. Exactly what happened under 13 years of generous Labour rule.

The only way out of poverty is through work.

usualsuspect33 · 13/03/2014 17:03

Then wages need to rise, plenty of low paid workers are struggling.

Blondeshavemorefun · 13/03/2014 17:11

True. Nmw is crap. A few pence over £6 :(

So someone working an average of say 10hrs a day will still take home £300ish and that's also taxed so even less :(

And paying out rent and council tax let alone other normal bills like water gas electricity etc leaves not a lot left to clothe and feed and impossible to save

GobbySadcase · 13/03/2014 17:52

If you CAN work, whinge.
Some can't.

Pre motability when the car went that I needed to get kids to hospital mum loaned me the money to get another. Otherwise I'd have had to take a loan and banks wouldn't have touched me.

I can see how it happens. Shame some people on here have zero inclination to try to understand the complexities of others' lives.

LondonNinja · 13/03/2014 18:30

I can see how it happens. My own parents scrimped and saved. Had they not, we'd have struggled terribly. Thanks fuck neither put fags or booze before food on the table.

I've got family who have fuck all and I mean fuck all. They'd love shoes to wear, have no idea what Sky is and the thought of others CHOOSING anything above feeding their children, well, what is there to say?

GobbySadcase · 13/03/2014 18:39

As I'm sure is the situation with the majority of people using food banks, Ninja.

But if you prefer to believe Daily Mail or Tory propaganda and deny that poverty in this country happens then go for it.

LondonNinja · 13/03/2014 19:31

I haven't denied that at all.

I am talking facts. Not fucking party politics.

I don't give a fuck what is Tory yadda yadda.

FFS

LondonNinja · 13/03/2014 19:32

I have seen people starving so please do not tell me what I think, Gobby.

Enough.

susiedaisy · 13/03/2014 19:46

Just watched the programme found it lacking in facts to make a proper judgement. It seems some people get enough benefits and some don't. But with the families shown I do think its a mix of bad choices poor health absent fathers lack of education. Put it all together and it means they struggle.

usualsuspect33 · 13/03/2014 19:52

Lots of factors at play. It's not as simple as some on this thread choose to believe.

perplexedtoday · 13/03/2014 20:12

I watched the programme. I was aghast and ashamed that in today's UK people are STARVING. There is no comment on here about the lady working part time who could only afford to feed her daughter and not herself.She lives in Barnet! Affluent N London area and can't afford a bowl of cereal for breakfast! And the ill man being berated for smoking - how many cigs could he buy if he was spending £48 of his £50.50 a week on heating. How can we possibly expect people to survive on less than £5 a week. He is ill - these are the very people the state should be looking after :(

FunnysInLaJardin · 13/03/2014 20:49

fwiw, I agree with usual Bloody Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris, with her £3 swede and her patronising advice to that poor woman about getting her daughters to take more exercise. That woman looked crushed as she said 'oh yes, I really must step up and try harder'.

A total load of patronising bollocks IMO

FunnysInLaJardin · 13/03/2014 20:53

High I don't agree with folk in poverty being at the lower end of the IQ scale, however they are almost certainly at an educational disadvantage

ivykaty44 · 13/03/2014 20:56

See there was me thinking that they were talking about her

Skype bill and keep it down to a certain level per month

I didn't think any of those people had sky TV and if she had sky TV can you keep the price down each month? Not aware of how sky TV works?

FunnysInLaJardin · 13/03/2014 20:56

Whine loan sharks are banned. I very much doubt they are working within FSA guidelines

candycoatedwaterdrops · 13/03/2014 21:05

Woooo let's exploit the poor for yet another night! Hmm

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