Nice house, nice kitchen, central heating – this is poverty? Relative poverty is a farcical concept.
You jumped the shark Save the Children – before you bleat on about ‘the poorest’ in the UK, consider those of us who pay for it, now working *more* hours to pay for strangers, than our own families. Hear that BANG? That’s your alarmist campaign, backfiring.
i am a parent with a ill partner i have 3 low paid jobs one of which will end in october i live in rural scotland in deeside the pressure is overwhelming and it is unfair that our children have to suffer the government says it is better to work i dont agree as i am worse of i am looking for a other job. they have made it worse by increasing the working tax element to 24 hours. my kids hate asking me for things as money is none exsistant. i am eppeleptic and it has had a effect on that my doctor has increased my dose because of the stress. i would like to send my support to all the pepole in my situation and more needs to be done for the children.
The children of this country are our future, we all have a moral duty to protect them. The welfare state was set up to protect the vunerable in our society, and yes there are problems, but you cannot tar everyone with the same brush.
Today, in 21st century Britain, we have 250 foodbanks, and more are needed. We all have responsibility, we cannot ignore this problem.
‘It shouldn’t happen here’, leave that for charities that specialise in the UK. I’m glad people care about this, I’m also glad people support Help for Heroes, providing X-boxes for children spending time in hospital, Hospices, cats, dogs, donkeys etc but I signed up for ‘No child born to Die’ If you are going to get political about this then count me out.
FrankFisher, I don’t think you can have watched the report. The family in the report doesn’t have central heating and while they do have a kitchen and a house to be envied by someone living in a cardboard shack, I’m not sure they are fancy, or even weatherproof; ‘nice’, as you put it.
But the report is about children not having appropriate shoes and winter clothes, sufficient fuel for winter warmth and enough food to eat. That is not relative poverty but absolute poverty.
Even from the most extreme ‘I’m alright Jack’ perspective, allowing children to grow up sickly and malnourished creates health and social problems for the future that everyone will have to pay for in health costs and prosperity costs due to a less vital workforce.
However, I for one don’t need there to be a profit or loss imperative to say: This is not right. Let’s do something to help.
Because of the number of children in poverty in the UK, Paul is pushing himself 325 miles in his wheelchair in April 2013 from Plymouth to London in aid of Save the Children, if you’re going to sponsor anyone please visit http://www.justgiving.com/challenge300 to donate and read Paul’s story on http://www.facebook.com/challenge300. Come everyone lets help the kids and lets help Paul smash the £50,000 target he has set himself! Thank you
Frank, central heating which she can not afford to turn on and a weekly food shop of £25, Sounds pretty poor to me!
I don’t get the working more hours for strangers thing. I am a higher rate tax payer and still take home more than half of my wage so even assuming that you don’t use the police, fire brigade, health service, schools, roads, street lights or any other service you must earn in excess of £250,000 per year before the tax take equals half your income……..
I think that “bang” may have been your argument backfiring.
As another person wrote, it appears “child poverty” is relative. One wonders how many of those in “poverty” have a Sky dish on their roof, are smokers, have large screen TV’s, video games, a car etc etc.. How is the Save the Children charity measuring this? I think we should have more information so that we can judge if our monthly payments are being wisely spent. Suddenly I’m having doubts. Is this method of measurement of “poverty” used universally? I also question the intelligence of those responsible for releasing this information in the way they have. I think the BANG is the charity shooting itself in the foot. Disgraceful.
My child and I now live in a damp 23 year old touring caravan after my application to the Royal Courts of Justice for financial relief from my ex husband was dismissed. My ex, who the Child Support Agency managed to extract only £5 a week in child maintenance for our son, has £40,000 in one bank account alone, property overseas, and pays £1,600 a month to rent a house for himself and his new wife and 2 children in Cambridgeshire, while stating to the Royal Courts that he and his wife are both unemployed and have no money, yet he doesn’t claim housing benefit ? The ‘learned’ judge decreed that as Mr Davis obviously had no money, no assets and no job, he had no choice but to dismiss my case. We don’t even have enough money to pay a deposit and first month’s rent for a one bedroomed flat in Glasgow at £550 a month, never mind what we could get for £1,600 a month ! (a mansion). The British Justice system has denied my son a roof over his head, shoes and a winter coat, and I am terrified of what we will do to keep warm this winter. Stop sending money overseas until ALL the children in the UK have a roof over their heads !!! And give the CSA more powers to investigate deadbeat Dads ! NB: My son has just apologised to me for doing a poo in a bucket for me to empty…where is the justice, where is the help we so desperately need ???
@ Richie – so you don’t pay car tax, fuel tax, insurance tax, VAT? The average person on average earnings, assuming they have a car and home, now pays more than 50% of their income out in taxes of one kind or another.
@Melissa, my wife bought my daughters shoes at the weekend, from TK Max, I’m wearing a 40 year old jacket today, from Oxfam, and I’ve already told my oldest daughter we can’t afford the priciest school trips this year; but I would never for one second suggest we lived in ‘poverty’. NO ONE in this country lives in poverty. No one at all. Save the children’s campaign is hysterical garbage.
I did voluntary work for 6 months with a housing/homeless charity in my local area. Most of the people we dealt with were long term benefit claimants and as we helped them fill out application forms for housing we had to take copies of their bank statements. I could have wept when I saw some of the sums they were in receipt of; they also had fancy phones, new clothes,cigarettes and other luxuries (sometimes drug / alcohol problems). However, one thing that was apparent was their children were often not well cared for and it was obvious many were just here for the extra money the state provided. A colleague from another EU country was astounded by the amount some claimants had to live on, and told me it would not be the case in her country. She also questioned giving council properties to young single mothers when we had working families at the bottom of the list. The poverty we saw was emotional and moral, not financial. I’m afraid my experience tells me Save the Children have got this so wrong.
For the record I was seriously ill a few years back and required nearly 2 years off work – the state gave me no financial help at all, despite the fact I have worked since 1977!
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September 5th, 2012 at 8:20 AM
Nice house, nice kitchen, central heating – this is poverty? Relative poverty is a farcical concept.
You jumped the shark Save the Children – before you bleat on about ‘the poorest’ in the UK, consider those of us who pay for it, now working *more* hours to pay for strangers, than our own families. Hear that BANG? That’s your alarmist campaign, backfiring.
September 5th, 2012 at 9:43 AM
i am a parent with a ill partner i have 3 low paid jobs one of which will end in october i live in rural scotland in deeside the pressure is overwhelming and it is unfair that our children have to suffer the government says it is better to work i dont agree as i am worse of i am looking for a other job. they have made it worse by increasing the working tax element to 24 hours. my kids hate asking me for things as money is none exsistant. i am eppeleptic and it has had a effect on that my doctor has increased my dose because of the stress. i would like to send my support to all the pepole in my situation and more needs to be done for the children.
September 5th, 2012 at 4:35 PM
The children of this country are our future, we all have a moral duty to protect them. The welfare state was set up to protect the vunerable in our society, and yes there are problems, but you cannot tar everyone with the same brush.
Today, in 21st century Britain, we have 250 foodbanks, and more are needed. We all have responsibility, we cannot ignore this problem.
September 5th, 2012 at 7:01 PM
‘It shouldn’t happen here’, leave that for charities that specialise in the UK. I’m glad people care about this, I’m also glad people support Help for Heroes, providing X-boxes for children spending time in hospital, Hospices, cats, dogs, donkeys etc but I signed up for ‘No child born to Die’ If you are going to get political about this then count me out.
September 5th, 2012 at 7:36 PM
FrankFisher, I don’t think you can have watched the report. The family in the report doesn’t have central heating and while they do have a kitchen and a house to be envied by someone living in a cardboard shack, I’m not sure they are fancy, or even weatherproof; ‘nice’, as you put it.
But the report is about children not having appropriate shoes and winter clothes, sufficient fuel for winter warmth and enough food to eat. That is not relative poverty but absolute poverty.
Even from the most extreme ‘I’m alright Jack’ perspective, allowing children to grow up sickly and malnourished creates health and social problems for the future that everyone will have to pay for in health costs and prosperity costs due to a less vital workforce.
However, I for one don’t need there to be a profit or loss imperative to say: This is not right. Let’s do something to help.
September 5th, 2012 at 8:09 PM
Dear All
Because of the number of children in poverty in the UK, Paul is pushing himself 325 miles in his wheelchair in April 2013 from Plymouth to London in aid of Save the Children, if you’re going to sponsor anyone please visit http://www.justgiving.com/challenge300 to donate and read Paul’s story on http://www.facebook.com/challenge300. Come everyone lets help the kids and lets help Paul smash the £50,000 target he has set himself! Thank you
September 6th, 2012 at 12:26 AM
Frank, central heating which she can not afford to turn on and a weekly food shop of £25, Sounds pretty poor to me!
I don’t get the working more hours for strangers thing. I am a higher rate tax payer and still take home more than half of my wage so even assuming that you don’t use the police, fire brigade, health service, schools, roads, street lights or any other service you must earn in excess of £250,000 per year before the tax take equals half your income……..
I think that “bang” may have been your argument backfiring.
September 6th, 2012 at 10:37 AM
As another person wrote, it appears “child poverty” is relative. One wonders how many of those in “poverty” have a Sky dish on their roof, are smokers, have large screen TV’s, video games, a car etc etc.. How is the Save the Children charity measuring this? I think we should have more information so that we can judge if our monthly payments are being wisely spent. Suddenly I’m having doubts. Is this method of measurement of “poverty” used universally? I also question the intelligence of those responsible for releasing this information in the way they have. I think the BANG is the charity shooting itself in the foot. Disgraceful.
September 6th, 2012 at 2:23 PM
My child and I now live in a damp 23 year old touring caravan after my application to the Royal Courts of Justice for financial relief from my ex husband was dismissed. My ex, who the Child Support Agency managed to extract only £5 a week in child maintenance for our son, has £40,000 in one bank account alone, property overseas, and pays £1,600 a month to rent a house for himself and his new wife and 2 children in Cambridgeshire, while stating to the Royal Courts that he and his wife are both unemployed and have no money, yet he doesn’t claim housing benefit ? The ‘learned’ judge decreed that as Mr Davis obviously had no money, no assets and no job, he had no choice but to dismiss my case. We don’t even have enough money to pay a deposit and first month’s rent for a one bedroomed flat in Glasgow at £550 a month, never mind what we could get for £1,600 a month ! (a mansion). The British Justice system has denied my son a roof over his head, shoes and a winter coat, and I am terrified of what we will do to keep warm this winter. Stop sending money overseas until ALL the children in the UK have a roof over their heads !!! And give the CSA more powers to investigate deadbeat Dads ! NB: My son has just apologised to me for doing a poo in a bucket for me to empty…where is the justice, where is the help we so desperately need ???
September 7th, 2012 at 12:49 PM
@ Richie – so you don’t pay car tax, fuel tax, insurance tax, VAT? The average person on average earnings, assuming they have a car and home, now pays more than 50% of their income out in taxes of one kind or another.
@Melissa, my wife bought my daughters shoes at the weekend, from TK Max, I’m wearing a 40 year old jacket today, from Oxfam, and I’ve already told my oldest daughter we can’t afford the priciest school trips this year; but I would never for one second suggest we lived in ‘poverty’. NO ONE in this country lives in poverty. No one at all. Save the children’s campaign is hysterical garbage.
September 8th, 2012 at 4:18 PM
I did voluntary work for 6 months with a housing/homeless charity in my local area. Most of the people we dealt with were long term benefit claimants and as we helped them fill out application forms for housing we had to take copies of their bank statements. I could have wept when I saw some of the sums they were in receipt of; they also had fancy phones, new clothes,cigarettes and other luxuries (sometimes drug / alcohol problems). However, one thing that was apparent was their children were often not well cared for and it was obvious many were just here for the extra money the state provided. A colleague from another EU country was astounded by the amount some claimants had to live on, and told me it would not be the case in her country. She also questioned giving council properties to young single mothers when we had working families at the bottom of the list. The poverty we saw was emotional and moral, not financial. I’m afraid my experience tells me Save the Children have got this so wrong.
For the record I was seriously ill a few years back and required nearly 2 years off work – the state gave me no financial help at all, despite the fact I have worked since 1977!