The tragedy of welfare ghettoes

Michael Sweeney

Excellent Fraser. They are pretty invisible to much of our media too. Do keep going with this.

BrianSJ

Thank you.

seb

Silly men engage in a duel to settle disputes, not a dual. Clearly, given the burgeoning number of similar mistakes in contributors' articles, proposed education reforms cannot come soon enough.

Wilhelm

Tom Harris is the village idiot of liebour, a clownish buffoon and can be dismissed as such.

Richard

Utterly tragic.

NorthernJohn

Absolutely spot on.

He thinks his party's good intentions excuse them from the appalling outcomes they result in.

Stick it to him.

Gareth

"Then, typically, he went on about Thatcher, who left office almost two decades ago. We’ve had 12 years of Labour. As one of the commentators on his blog put it: how many decades does he want? Britain won a world war in six years."

Labour have provided 12 years of aspirations, empty promises, mendacity and moral turpitude. They preach a righteous creed while debasing the language, abusing their position and blaming every ill on someone or something else. They are hollow men and women with nothing that resembles a heart. This applies to all in that party - even dyed in the wool socialist backbenchers as they have stood idle while their party does the same.

At some point they must realise they have wasted a decade in power with a benign economy. An overwhelming mandate from the people has been squandered. The nation is on it's knees economically, educationally, socially and politically.

Border Reiver

Well done Fraser. Tis true, Romantic names hellish places.

Welfare reform alone will not be enough. There are no jobs to be had. The Thatcher charge is outdated, but the Tories did dismantle Scotland's failing industry - shopping mauls have not led to civic pride.

What saddens me is the kids I've met from Lanarkshire are a decent and hard-working bunch literally suicidal about the world they've been brought up in. They don't care about the machinations of the Numpties at the Numptorium - let alone 'motions' against the Political Editor of the Spectator magazine. The Welfare State that needs reformed is the pernicious weed that is Scottish local Government.

The challenge to reform these aspects of British culture is huge, if not impossible. The damage is encoded in the genes and memes now.

It would take nothing less than a revolution to reform the system. Something which the lumpen-proletariat are (fortunately for the political elite) too anaesthetised to undertake.

Feel honoured to have a motion passed against you Mr Fraser. My local MSP (at least I think she is; there's eight numpties for the Scottish Borders) is raising the outrageous fact that Scotland has not saluted two Glasgae boys were members of the Australian band AC/DC.

Oh flower of Scotland, when will we see your likes again?

Rhoda Klapp

The MPs for these areas should be angry about this. Clearly they are not. Why not? That's what you should be asking them.

LMA

After all you said you were asked to apologise?!! No bias at BBC Radio Scotland then....

Eleanor Brown

Excellent article Fraser, apart from the spelling in the first line! PLEASE check before posting, one of the main reasons for subscribing to the Spectator (in print & online) is the quality of the writing - don't be let down by a spelling mistake, it makes you look as though you don't care about detail.

Mrs B

Well said, Gareth.

Gannet

We did not "win" the war, despite being financially broke by 1942, we managed to ally ourselves to America's riches and productive capacity, and the Soviet Union's willingness to take tens of millions of casualties. We then went on to lose the peace and many of the advantages we had gained. But at least in the post war period somehow even the poorest of the urban areas were a lot safer and better than they had been before 1914, and have become since 1997. There was a choice of shops, of pubs, of social facilities, of personal contact, and visible policing and local authority presence. The schools were not as thoroughly organised, but I suspect were happier places to be for most of the pupils and the teachers. The hospitals were not as well equipped and did not have the kit and know how of today, but they were clean and the old and sick did get fed with nourishing food. The welfare ghettoes exist all over the UK, and in other parts of Europe to a lesser extent, but it is only really in the UK that they have been allowed to go totally out of control in the last decade.

TrevorsDen

Funny how labour seem intemnt on killing off their core vote.

I guess as long as they can persuade them to breed like rabbits before they die they must think they can maintain their vote.

ID

He spoke of 'your' party leader because, Fraser, time after time you behave exactly like a CCHQ flack, rather than a hack. As far as the substance of the issue goes: I agree with everything you've said, in as far as I've heard or read it. But what does Cameron offer by way of solutions? Not a thing.

George Laird

Dear Fraser

It is more than just welfare Reform that is needed to change places like Castlemilk and Easterhouse.

I lived in the Pollok ghetto for 28 years and saw it run down to being a slum.

This was caused by the Labour Council of Glasgow.

For Labour, any trouble to help the people was too much trouble.

While living in that slum, I was at Glasgow University like you, I was working is the Estates and Buildings Department of the University.

I remember you wandering about the GUU with your brown suit, shirt and tie when you were doing the Tory student bit.

I think you used to play squash but to be honest, so many students can't remember them all.

During my time there, I also free of charge taught weight training to students as a GUSA Coach.

What I saw at Glasgow University was that discrimination is rife and the people practicing it against the working class were white middle class professionals.

Welfare Reform isn't enough.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

biggestaspidistra

During the Paris riots I watched a parade of BBC journalists adopt a superior tone when describing the poor living conditions of the north african immigrants castigating the french for allowing these conditions yet completely blind to the large stretches of London that appear to be in a much worse state. 'To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle'.

JR

Fraser - "social and economic segregation" is absolutely right.

Gareth - I don't see a country on its knees. I see an exceptionally properous country where there are significant groups of the population who are stuck outside the tent. And what makes the prosperous people inside (who's living standards are higher then any group of Britain' in history) nervous is being pushed out of the tent and into the wilderness.

This isn't a uniquely British disease - as Fraser rightly points out these types of issues are prevelent in America as well.

I think Welfare Reform is part of the solution. But no matter how bad the Government it is plain stupid to pretend Britain is on its knees compared to its near and far neighbours.

Big Alec

Ach, it's all very depressing. There seems to be a mutually dependent relationship between the Labour party (especially Glasgow Labour) and those living in the Welfare ghettoes. Labour depend on securing votes from the underclass, and, in turn, the underclass depend on Labour for their welfare handouts. I can't see the relationship changing anytime soon, no matter how much Labour talk about welfare reform.

p.s. just to be clear: by 'underclass', I mean those people who don't work, breed like rabbits and think it's perfectly ok to live off the state, not those who find themselves out of work through no fault of their own.

Juliana

100 years on and they`ll still be blaming Thatcher.

Verity

It's heartbreaking.

Immigrants being swilled into the country to work and our own without jobs or aspirations and nothing but desolation and no future.

basementcat

Here's a pub quiz question for you... What do the following Labour Prime Ministers have in common? Ramsay MacDonald, Clement Attlee (who found many reasons not to repeal the ID cards introduced in WWII, it took a resurgent Churchill to do that), Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan and Gordon Brown.

The answer is that they each inherited a relatively strong economy (with the exception of Attlee) and left Britain in a recession.

See a pattern?

basementcat

In all seriousness, I can't understand why MSPs and MPs aren't doing more for the people trapped in welfare ghettos.

The system that allows them to live a workless life is insulting to them and offensive to those that fund it. Thatcher didn't create it, Labour did, and for all the best intentions, they consistently forget the law of unintended consequences. Time and again.

Ground up reform, less welfare payouts, lower taxes, more economic stimulation - it's basic capitalism and we need our politicians to stand up for it and make the tough decisions to completely dismantle a broken system.

George Laird

Dear All

Big Alec makes an impassioned plea about the “underclass” being in effect "scum" that is his right of free speech.

“Ach, it's all very depressing”.

Try living in poverty and being denied opportunities and it gets worse.

“There seems to be a mutually dependent relationship between the Labour party (especially Glasgow Labour) and those living in the Welfare ghettoes”.

Working class people hate Labour, I personally despise them and I am from the ghetto.

“Labour depend on securing votes from the underclass, and, in turn, the underclass depend on Labour for their welfare handouts”.

The first part is true more than the second.

“I can't see the relationship changing anytime soon, no matter how much Labour talk about welfare reform”.

For Welfare Reform think victimising the poor, the old Tory standby.

“p.s. just to be clear: by 'underclass', I mean those people who don't work, breed like rabbits and think it's perfectly ok to live off the state, not those who find themselves out of work through no fault of their own”.

Considering the Tories helped to create the underclass, they are part of the problem, however mighty big of you to spare some room for those who are out of work through no fault of their own. I am sure these people will be happy to know that they have your stamp of approval.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Ray

Why would Labour want to help the underclass prosper and make something of their lives when all that would achieve is that they would be able to buy their own homes and vote Conservative?

gloobrick

The people on these estates who should be supported and rewarded are the ones who heroically hold down jobs and struggle to keep their families together against all the odds.

Alf Tupper

I recall the Easterhouse report and commented at the time that your voice was appreciated.

Please keep on at the politicians who would prefer either to look away or to trot out platitudes to cover up this scandalous carry-on.

Fed up with George Laird

George Laird

you said "Big Alec makes an impassioned plea about the “underclass” being in effect "scum" that is his right of free speech"

erm - no he didn't....

If you can't get the opening point correct why should we bother analysing the rest of the post?

You posts are becoming like Igonokon Jack in the DT posts - long and tedious......

Dexter St. Clair

Tom Harris taught Fraser Nelson some manners this morning. Rather than read Mr. Nelson's excuse note above , why not listen to his burbling on Radio Scotland.
It's about 90 minutes in on the I-Player.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00h9g0y/Good_Morning_Scotland_06_02_2009/

hadrian

Fraser, in your current Spectator article you seem to be identifying these estates as 'East End' locations. If I've misread you then do forgive me but if not, I feel obliged to point out the last time I looked at my Glasgow street index Castlemilk was still very much on the South Side, far removed from East End salubriousness. And Easterhouse, though notionally part of the 'East End' constituency, actually is on the North side, cleanly divided from the old East End districts by a huge motorway and the intercourse between the two places is pretty minimal; one of Easterhouse's major problems is just that it is such a self-enclosed, isolated community. Its problems may be similar to the old East End's ( represented by such places as Shettleston, Parkhead and Dennistoun) but there are distinct differences. The old East End as you must have seen has large pockets of traditionally affluent or at least comfortable, middle-class areas such as Mount Vernon, Sandyhills, Fullerton Park, as well as genuinely regenerated inner city schemes. And Dennistoun boasts some of the wealthiest streets of luxurious 'garden city' flats and tennements populated by young professionals.
There is no doubt however that your analysis of the welfare dependency condition is too close to home for comfort for some of our purblind MPs and MSPs. Here's the rub for them- just ask how many of them do live in any of these schemes! Damned few, if any, and if they once did they got out as soon as possible. Reminds me of another socialist decidedly more equal than others, Tommy Sherriden.
Finally the description of Glasgow University as class ridden from above post,is a load of balderdash. I recall it from the Seventies and fail to recognise it from this description. The only thing I was glad to see ditched- finally- was the old Student Union division into a 'men's ( G.U.U.)and ladies' Union ( Q.M.) As for wasting ones time on sports activities, some of us were only too glad to forgo such dubious 'pleasures'!

London Calling

A change in welfare reform and that is the solution?. Ghettoes do have voices, yet I do not hear them in your report Fraser only your observation from the outside looking in and I for one would be interested to know
how the people living in these scummy estates view their lives and what can be done to improve them.
You don’t bring about change by pointing fingers, you bring about change by getting to the heart of the problems and talking through the possible solutions.

Like Cameron you appear to have no real solutions and I would therefore challenge you to live on one of these scummy estates and report back to us on your findings, I am certain your opinion would change somewhat, even if your opinion of the scum
run down estates remains, hopefully your view of the people would at least give rise to more humane solutions.

Otherwise, please remain silent
as your words are insulting to the people who live in these ghettoes and are doing their best to better their lives, they don't need people like you spouting on about something you know nothing about, from the comfort of your own fence.

With respect.

Olaf Rye

How can the Tories victimise the underclass ? Imagine the audacity of asking them to actually do a day's work and not receive money for nothing--the poor darlings ! This notion that handing ignorant, poorly mannered, and criminally disposed people money for doing nothing is noble and altruistic, and expecting them to perhaps to a job for minimum wage is cruel, is puzzling. After all, the East Europeans come and work in the chippies and McDonald's and even save money. Ultimately, the issue is that these people are work-shy and professional victims, and the Marxists wander about and tell them this. The working class of the 1800s would be in shock at hearing this term used about such a mob of lazy, worthless and ignorant filth. We must stop making excuses for them and suggesting that expecting them to work for a living instead of taking money for nothing is some form of cruelty.

RobHK

Of course it's depressing, and your concern does you credit. But where are your solutions? Just two words: welfare reform. That's vague in the extreme. What precisely would you do? It clearly won't help to just take away the only means of support for those caught in the welfare trap, and it's true you didn't suggest it. But you didn't suggest anything explicit.

David Short

Why would a senior journalist of a Tory magazine imagine that a government has any power to change the lives of people, or that it is any business of government to do so, or want to do so?

What does Fraser Nelson propose that a government could or should do about these estates and people?

Craig Strachan

Fraser, it's clear they are narrowing in on the use of the word "scummy" because they find your wider argument about these estates unsettling. You're basically right and they know it - everybody knows it - they'd just rather not talk about it.

RobHK

Of course it's depressing, and your concern does you credit. But where are your solutions? Just two words: welfare reform. That's vague in the extreme. What precisely would you do? It clearly won't help to just take away the only means of support for those caught in the welfare trap, and it's true you didn't suggest it. But you didn't suggest anything explicit.

John Ware

Some fsir comments though I couldn't help noticing that in your report on YouTube you didn't actually speak to a single resident.
Isn't this part of the problem? Outsiders decreeing the solution to social ills without actually engaging with real people?

Rhoda Klapp

It's not Fraser's job to fix it, or to propose a fix. It's the job of those MPs and MSPs. They ought to be angry about it. They ought to be acknowledging that the old solutions don't work and finding new ones. They do not. It's no use blaming Fraser. It's not helpful to give lessons in Glasgow geography here, when these places are all over the UK.

Rhoda the contrarian suggests that if you pay people to be poor, you will never be short of poor people.

Alison C

Labour government has changed many people's lives. It has punished savers, pensioners and married people, & spent far too much tax payers' money on quangos and social engineering. (Anyone recall them issuing orders instructing us how to look after our pets...?) it has meddled and changed people's lives - for the worse mostly.

However, it has not produced any effective practical measure to get people out of welfare ghettos. The current welfare state pays people to be under what is essentially house arrest; some, not all, use it as a lifestyle choice not to work. And why not when there's no incentive to work, no disincentive to be on welfare?

Frank Field tried to suggest change but was knocked back. Proper welfare reform is overdue.

Gordon Musgo

"Why would a senior journalist of a Tory magazine imagine that a government has any power to change the lives of people.."

Because it has ****ed up millions of people's live just in the last year or two?

David Short

Alison C, I see what you mean, but I suppose I meant intentional changes, and also I was positing the Tory theory, that the business of government is principally law and order, national defence and the protection of the currency.

That's why I wonder why the Spectator publishes something that seem to follow the opposite theory, that it is that social reform or social engineering is the business of government.

George Laird

Dear Hadrian

Is there any chance of spacing out your paragraphs?

Thank you in advance.

As to your final piece of wisdom, I would like to say that your experience is your experience and mine is mine.

“Finally the description of Glasgow University as class ridden from above post,is a load of balderdash”.

Subjective opinion on your part! I have university documents so I speak from a position of knowledge.

“I recall it from the Seventies and fail to recognise it from this description”.

Well when you spend 20 years rolling about, you get to see the underbelly.

“The only thing I was glad to see ditched- finally- was the old Student Union division into a 'men's ( G.U.U.) and ladies' Union ( Q.M.)”.

I always thought the QM was friendlier.

“As for wasting ones time on sports activities, some of us were only too glad to forgo such dubious 'pleasures'”.

Wasting one’s time? People, I taught have represented Britain at various levels, including going to the Olympics.

Finally, you will be delighted to know that I was the first person in Glasgow University history to be banned for giving advice to an asian et al. Copy of signed letter available upon request to further increase your recognition of our Alma Mater.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

laura__fox

The problem is obvious and tragic - unemployment.
Also the goal: work.
How to get there? Easy: learn with successful countries. Get data from America and European countries, learn from the best, adapt it to Britain.

Incidentally, that is exactly how the best get there, in all policy areas: learning from each other, using proper, competent, science, based on evidence (as opposed to ideology) and experiments/cases.

Bickers

The solution to our underclass problem stares us in the face if we care to look back a few years, although implementing it will require a complete and courageous overhaul of the State, the abolition of the PC brigade and liberal elite.

I was brought up in the 50/60's on a council estate in South Manchester (Wythenshawe) and my strong recollection of that time is as follows:
1. Nuclear families
2. Fathers in work
3. A Christian sense of right & wrong
4. Educated teachers who were able to discipline children
5. Parents who disciplined children
6. Less State control and interference in family lives, schools and the community
7. Police who were respected and patrolled the streets on foot
8. Children that engaged with each other in outdoor activities (not 'locked' away in bedrooms playing computer games - I used to work in the video games industry).
9. A sense of aspiration and responsibility for ones self and family.
10. A community and schools that encouraged sport and celebrated achievement

Was it perfect no. Did it work better than the estate that exists today (and other like it) - immeasureably - go figure!!

Observer

Hello Wilhelm, I wondered where you had got to.

George Laird - good posts. Well, you lived in a Glasgow council scheme for long enough -I think that qualifies you to make a statement.

hadrian

Bickers- Your post identifies the solution beautifully: Christian view of life as positive and full of potential and with absolute standards; good family ethos; good, disciplined teaching; personal responsibility in all areas.

Mr Laird- I am not aware what your gripe at Glasgow University is but all I can say is the institution certainly has changed since my day and academic standards have dropped in many fields, especially the Arts. I suspect PC and leftist agendas have meant they've taken their eyes off their sole raison d'etre which is academic exellence, not silly social and multicultural engineering.

Rhodda K.- My point in outlining the Glasgow geography, apart from accuracy, was that older areas that have grown up 'naturally', without the 'benefit' of social planning, are tend to be much more variegated communities. Thus our old East End has areas where houses are as grand as anything in the more prosperous West End or Bearsden, whereas a place like Easterhouse, one of the 'slum clearance' schemes, has presented a prospect of practically uniform gloom. When many of the Fifties/Sixties modern flats were finally demolished by the local council- who were just completing th job of many of the former residents- few were there to lament them. A culture of socialist resentment, expectation that the State owed them a living, gangsterism and ineffectual policing and no proper hard penal sanctions have all intensified the problems in such areas. The answer cannot be simple and not for a moment do I think Fraser believes it to be. There is a complex network of factors and he is right to see welfare reliance/abuse as one major part of it.

Savale

Increasing money that poor families receive through benefits really does help some things:
- Improves a persons access to social networks, which can help with employment
- Improves children's diet and assists with extra school costs (equipment, uniform, trips etc.) as well as imporoving the home learning environment. This is all known to support better education outcomes.
- Decreases likelihood of developing a disability or a mental health problem, both of which also decrease future likelihood of gaining employment.
- For lone parents, it increasing the likelihood of finding a new partner. Try affording babysitters and dating on benefits!

I could go on, but need to get to the other point Fraser does not understand. Welfare reform should be emulating countries that have lower poverty than the UK, not places like Australia and the US which also have high poverty rates. This means less of a focus on incresing the red tape of sanctions beaurocracy and more of a focus on an entitlement to high quality, personally-tailored support services; and this must be supported by universal childcare of high quality.

Speaking as someone who has been long-term unemployed and put on the new deal, I want people like Fraser to understand that their desire for welfare reforms that weaken entitlement and are more coercive in trying to extrinsically motivate behavioural change is misguided. We need adequate incomes, but supplemented by genuine entitlement to high quality support, not being whipped into mickey mouse schemes that do not motivate people and waste tax payers money by allowing private contractors to make money out of poor quality services.

There is also scientific evidence from the field of Self-Determination Theory that nurturing intrinsic motivation instead of coersion is more effective for producing positive changes in behaviour. If welfare reform is to be evidence-led, then the current reform agenda must be reformed itself.

jacky barfoot

indeed, welfare reform will only be viable if it cushions the long term unemployed and the disabled from sudden life threatening cut off of benefits - i am long term unemployed, try heating your home and running a coal fire for hot water and heating when you have nothing at all, no money for food, heating, washing, sanitation needs, and your plumeted into debt by the system because you fail a medical test to prove you have chronic asthma and spinal arthritis, and the resulting stoppage in benefits results in you borrowing off gangsters to live, or turning to prosituiton in order to eat and be warm, and it plummets your family into chaos resulting in someone dieing due the stress - and youve been on so many dead end schemes and seen the money made from your plight by others, you getting £60pw live on (travel, food etc) and NO proper training, while those taking you on are creaming it, and then throw you back onto dole at the end of six months - now tell me where welfare reform should start and end, sanctions are not the answer to anything