UN to investigate extreme poverty in the UK

[tannhauser]

Pvapour said:

otolith said:

Is that bradford?

[Mave]

Zetec-S said:

Riley Blue said:

Poverty, especially child poverty, is no laughing matter. My O/H has dealt with it in the past and it can be heartbreaking; one boy of seven or eight was asked what would make a big change to his life. His reply, "An alarm clock because then I wouldn't be late for school and not get in to trouble." She discovered his parents were alcoholics who stayed in bed most of the time and didn't have money to feed him, it all went on booze.

So scoff away, it's a real problem even in the UK and probably not far from where you live.

But is that poverty, or a failure of social services/care?

Arguably the parents would have the money but because they are s choose to neglect their child.

Failure of the parents more than failure of social services.

[JagLover]

billshoreham said:

UN to investigate extreme poverty in the UK – after nearly a decade of austerity

thought I would leave this here so that the usual empathetic PH crew could comment.

I read this a couple of weeks ago as someone raised it as an amusing story on somewhere like the Spectator.

The UN is discredited a little bit more every time one of their extreme left wing "special envoys" puts settling political scores in the west above fulfilling the mission of the UN.

On a worldwide basis we barely have poverty in the UK, let alone extreme poverty.

A few guardian readers will lap it up, most of the rest of us will shake our heads in disbelief.

[Mandat]

billshoreham said:

UN to investigate extreme poverty in the UK – after nearly a decade of austerity

thought I would leave this here so that the usual empathetic PH crew could comment.

What's the definition of extreme poverty, and why do you think austerity has caused any?

[Toltec]

sas62 said:

Relative Poverty ? Any poverty that can be completely eradicated by reducing the incomes of others is not real poverty.

I had to think about that, nice test.

[98elise]

Toltec said:

sas62 said:

Relative Poverty ? Any poverty that can be completely eradicated by reducing the incomes of others is not real poverty.

I had to think about that, nice test.

And by the same token someone can find themselves classed as relatively poor, just because someone else got got a pay rise.

[Hereward]

Ahh, the good old UN. I remember they stood by and allowed the Srebrenica massacres. Joke of an organisation.

[turbobloke]

Toltec said:

sas62 said:

Relative Poverty ? Any poverty that can be completely eradicated by reducing the incomes of others is not real poverty.

I had to think about that, nice test.

It shows what a sham the relative poverty definition is: a household is in relative poverty if its income is below 60% of the median household income.

As above per sas62 everyone in the UK having an income of £10,000 means no relative poverty. They could all own and live in £10m mansions and have a pretty polly villa in Tuscany - it would make no difference to a definition based on income not wealth.

However, if 25% of the UK population has an income of £10m, 50% has an income of £6m and the remaining 25% has an income of 'only' £2m then a quarter of the population is in relative poverty.

Makes sense

A UN definition of extreme poverty is "severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information".

At least the UN provides information, even though its fodder is edible only to Guardian addicts.

Investigation on!

Edited by turbobloke on Friday 16th November 16:58

[eharding]

BoRED S2upid said:

Pvapour said:

otolith said:

Is that bradford?

Somewhere up north I dare say.

Definitely not in the UK - you'll note that by and large the railway track has been kept clear, in the general expectation that there will be a train coming along sometime in the near future.

[StevieBee]

In the UK, there is absolutely no financially or institutionally driven reason why anyone...

Should go hungry and be denied nutrition
Be denied fresh water
Not have access to very good healthcare, for free
Not have a roof over their head
Warmth (when needed)
Protection against those that seek then harm
Be excluded from education
And....and this is the nub.....be denied opportunity

Only when these are all expunged from British society can we truly say poverty exists in the UK.

Until then, we have an uncomfortably high number of people who live on an uncomfortably low amount in desperate conditions relative to the norm. The reasons for this are numerous and complex but I work often in the countries were poverty exists and I can tell you without any hesitation or doubt, poverty does not exist in the UK.

[esxste]

There is extreme poverty in the UK. To deny it is to deny reality.

You can argue semantics of what definitions of poverty the UN or the Government use all you like.

I'll take you on a little walk around any large city in the UK, and you can tell me the homeless people we see are not living in extreme poverty.

[wc98]

hutchst said:

I think it's a total disgrace that the idiot president in the White House is cutting the U.N. funding when you look at the really important work that they do. Why only today we learned that the secured conviction of 2 90 year old men Pol Pot assistants in Cambodia. That makes 3 in total, and it only cost $300 million. If they get a move on they might be able to sentence them before they expire from old age.

The U.N. is a laughing stock.

Edited by hutchst on Friday 16th November 16:32

i see you are as big a fan of the useless numpties as i am

[Thankyou4calling]

esxste said:

There is extreme poverty in the UK. To deny it is to deny reality.

You can argue semantics of what definitions of poverty the UN or the Government use all you like.

I'll take you on a little walk around any large city in the UK, and you can tell me the homeless people we see are not living in extreme poverty.

You are Ralph McTell and ICM£5

[andy_s]

Riley Blue said:

Zetec-S said:

Riley Blue said:

Poverty, especially child poverty, is no laughing matter. My O/H has dealt with it in the past and it can be heartbreaking; one boy of seven or eight was asked what would make a big change to his life. His reply, "An alarm clock because then I wouldn't be late for school and not get in to trouble." She discovered his parents were alcoholics who stayed in bed most of the time and didn't have money to feed him, it all went on booze.

So scoff away, it's a real problem even in the UK and probably not far from where you live.

But is that poverty, or a failure of social services/care?

Arguably the parents would have the money but because they are s choose to neglect their child.

Poverty can lead to addiction and vice versa, I don't know about this particular family. How about another example, girls who can't afford sanitary products.

I'd like to see some figures on the sanitary products thing - not having a go or disagreeing but I've a feeling that it was rather like the 'nurses forced to eat from skips' thing that went around last year - this boiled down to a nurse that had phoned the NHS employee debt helpline and due to gambling, loans & poor management had fallen so far into debt that she was eating from a food bank. Yet this became the 'image' of austerity & nurses & wicked tories but didn't reflect a true situation at all. Similarly sanitary products - a negligible yet necessary expense - I find it hard to believe that mere 'poverty' is to blame for whatever incidence of this there has been, which again I suspect, is very, very, very low indeed, if at all.

'Austerity' & 'extreme poverty' seem hyperbolic in the context of the UK in the 21st century, a country with welfare and free health care for all.

As a final note, I'd like to see what they suggest as the way out of this situation of having a certain percentile that are at the bottom of the income graph - for as long as man has existed in society and for all the different ways of gaming that society, no one, ever, has eliminated some people being poorer than others.

[Dindoit]

It's great to see Jim Davidson's comedy routine alive and well

[turbobloke]

esxste said:

There is extreme poverty in the UK. To deny it is to deny reality.

You can argue semantics of what definitions of poverty the UN or the Government use all you like.

I'll take you on a little walk around any large city in the UK, and you can tell me the homeless people we see are not living in extreme poverty.

Does that include those deliberately scruffy folks who pretend to be homeless to gullible passers-by in order to 'earn' more from begging than many people earn from work? It's not easy to tell who is genuinely homeless in any case.

Meanwhile to answer your point directly, sure - I can tell you that the small number of individuals I see begging in the town centre here are not living in extreme poverty.

A politically incorrect view of the begging fraud in one city from its police service follows. It's not safe for all, think before you click.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/25/every-...

[Brave Fart]

Ah, but when Comrades Corbyn and McDonnell are elected, they will eradicate all poverty, by making us all equally poor. I mean rich, oops. It's the Socialist way, you know. Just look how well it's worked in Venezeula!
They will do this by issuing bonds which, apparently, is not debt at all. Oh and by taxing the crap out of "the rich" who obviously won't move abroad, no siree.
Of course, to justify all this, they need to convince you all that extreme poverty exists in the UK today. Good job the UN can bring an objective view to this issue then.

[StevieBee]

esxste said:

There is extreme poverty in the UK. To deny it is to deny reality.

You can argue semantics of what definitions of poverty the UN or the Government use all you like.

I'll take you on a little walk around any large city in the UK, and you can tell me the homeless people we see are not living in extreme poverty.

You can and should argue the semantics because there is a chasm of epic proportions between poverty and hardship.

I've worked in around 140 local authority areas in the UK over the past 15 years and walked round many an inner city to see things we should not be seeing in the UK. It's heartbreaking. It shouldn't happen. But it's not poverty in the sense that you see in places like Sierra Leone and others. For example....take this family home, located in the middle of a dumpsite in Freetown, Sierra Leone. That lagoon you see - that's human st, dumped there by the vacuum trucks.



Never gets cold there so the harmful pathogens remain alive. Everyone is permanently ill, with no healthcare to speak of and no opportunity to do anything about it without external help.

If you can point me to any family living in the same situation anywhere in the UK, then I will happily (or sadly) concede the point of the existence of poverty here,

[andy_s]

Brave Fart said:

Ah, but when Comrades Corbyn and McDonnell are elected, they will eradicate all poverty, by making us all equally poor. I mean rich, oops. It's the Socialist way, you know. Just look how well it's worked in Venezeula!
They will do this by issuing bonds which, apparently, is not debt at all. Oh and by taxing the crap out of "the rich" who obviously won't move abroad, no siree.
Of course, to justify all this, they need to convince you all that extreme poverty exists in the UK today. Good job the UN can bring an objective view to this issue then.

Looking at it objectively, anyone that supports any sort of socialism/marxism/communism should be treated the same way as people that support ISIS or Al-Qaeda - ideologies that have caused nothing but misery and death to large populations. I've no idea why 'socialism' still holds any sway at all in a modern world.

[stuartmmcfc]

esxste said:

There is extreme poverty in the UK. To deny it is to deny reality.

You can argue semantics of what definitions of poverty the UN or the Government use all you like.

I'll take you on a little walk around any large city in the UK, and you can tell me the homeless people we see are not living in extreme poverty.

I’ve unfortunately had a lot of dealings with adult and children social services lately and the tales they’ve told me make me feel very fortunate. This is in Loughborough, a relatively affluent town in the Midlands.