Child poverty in the UK?

msmancunia

Think that's what's happened round my way - three houses all stripped of lead off the bay window roof the other week :shock:
I sleep right the other side of the wall and didn't hear a thing...

mroli

SimonAH wrote:

I would however submit that bar an infinitessimally small proportion of the whole, these kids are in the position they are because of shiite parenting, not because of a lack of a state safety net.

If however your child is hungry and metaphorically shoeless in the UK then radical action is needed to either re-direct you or separate you from your child and let you self desctruct in peace.

I would tear the roofs from houses before I would let my children go hungry or uncared for.

Dude - there are many reasons why a parent cannot provide for their children, it is not solely because they are lazy feckless individuals who don't care.

This is really interesting in the charity sector actually - we have worked with charities like Kids Co that (amongst other things) believe that they provide a safe haven for kids and a "family" environment for neglected children and West London Action for Children who believe educating parents, helping them cope and keeping the family together is important. I don't know what the solution is, but I do think it is an important debate to have and I do find it shocking that people are complacent enough to think that there aren't serious problems in this country.

rick_chasey

Charity shouldn't be the backstop. They do what they can, but they're not compulsed or oblidged to help everyone who needs it. Nor, from what I've heard annecdotally, can they help everyone.

The state should. They are oblidged to help anyone and everyone if they need it. Or at least, they should be.

People in the UK treasure the NHS as healthcare which is there for anyone and everyone, regardless of who you are or what you do with your life, yet they seem to find it intolerable that social care should be too.

clarkey cat

I would tear the roofs from houses before I would let my children go hungry or uncared for.

won't somebody think of the children?????


I'm slightly gobsmacked that in the most severe depression is several generations, while the economy is retracting, yet a small group of people are taking an ever larger portion of that shrinking pie, you are suggesting people have their kids taken away from them. I'm in the fortunate position of having enough money that I can SAY "I would tear the roofs from houses before I would let my children go hungry or uncared for" too without actually ever having to do it.

SimonAH

clarkey cat wrote:

I would tear the roofs from houses before I would let my children go hungry or uncared for.

won't somebody think of the children?????


I'm slightly gobsmacked that in the most severe depression is several generations, while the economy is retracting, yet a small group of people are taking an ever larger portion of that shrinking pie, you are suggesting people have their kids taken away from them. I'm in the fortunate position of having enough money that I can SAY "I would tear the roofs from houses before I would let my children go hungry or uncared for" too without actually ever having to do it.

Yes CC we have established that my child is in no danger of needing to hunt through the pile of the carpet looking for crumbs as shockingly it was earlier revealed that kids taken into care often do. But. And it is a big but, spelled with a capital BUT, we have also established that the welfare system in this country is so robust that people are made so comfortable that getting many of them to go out and earn rather than just pick up the cheque each week is difficult.

On that basis the economy has fcuk all to do with it,

If the state provides sufficient for you and your child (which it does) and you allow your child to go hungry and uncared for then, frankly, I would hope that your child is taken away from you at a young enough age that it stands a chance of blanking you from it's memory for you are not fit to breed.

I appreciate of course that there are specific conditions where the above generalism does not apply, and also that anyone can find themselves on the skids for a couple of weeks whilst paperwork is sorted. But for FS....

clarkey cat

we have also established that the welfare system in this country is so robust that people are made so comfortable that getting many of them to go out and earn rather than just pick up the cheque each week is difficult.

have we established that?

and even if we have isn't that a dual problem of the welfare system being so robust whilst the wages and working conditions on offer at the lowest end are so egregious so as to make the former a more attractive option than the latter. Despite Owen Jones being a precocious lefty tw@t, this book does provide an interesting counter-view to some of the usual chat on this subject. Not that I agree with all of it, or even most of it, but it's rare voice for those that you perhaps view as

not fit to breed

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chavs-The-Demon ... 184467696X

gabriel959

walkingbootweather wrote:

gabriel - Are you saying that these people are committing benefit fraud, and if so why don't you report them?

Or are you just unhappy that our society chooses to pay benefits to those that do not work?

I am unhappy that the government pays money (which it doesn't have - look at the deficit and the debt) to people who can clearly work, some of them who are intelligent but decide not to an instead the government decides to fund that lifestyle.

As far as I know neither of them is committing benefit fraud.