The Government fails the poor

GeoffH

Fails the poor?

This government has failed everybody.

C Powell

Can we please stop talking about children in poverty when we mean families in poverty? You don't get rich parents and poor children. What we mean is that there are poor parents with children, who (statement of the bleeding obvious coming up) are also poor. The way to help poor children is by helping their parents by, for instance, letting them keep more of their own money (when they work), making it worthwhile for them to work (if they're on benefit) and helping both with childcare (e.g. by allowing all parents - not just La Spellman - to set childcare costs against tax). The focus on children is odious and deceptive sentimentality to make Labour seem kind-hearted, stop the rest of us pointing out that it is adults who need help and make us (subliminally) forget that it is parents - not the state - who have responsibility for their children.

Nicholas

C Powell - good post, good points. Completely agree. This government has let parents down in multiple ways; tax, education, running interference in child/parent relationships centrally and locally.

Actually "let down" suggests failure when in fact what they have done is deliberate, is misrepresented and, as usual, has had unintended consequences.

John Page

At least the BBC (Radio 4 news) has now started talking about RELATIVE poverty. Don't accept the nulabspeak. We are NOT talking absolute poverty here, we are talking large scale redistribution. You can take from the better off relatively painlessly in good times, but in bad times the pips are squeaking already. So even without the technical factors the Radio 4 6 o'clock news found time to mention, this target is dead in the water.

john miller

Yesterday's minutes of the poverty mob (er committee, yesterday) juxtaposed against Balls announcement on schools (today) was brilliant.

Government - target reduction in child poverty by 50% by 2010, eradicated by 2020. Result: child poverty in 2007 higher than in 2005. Action: Ed says moral imperative for someone to do something.

Ed today "Ve Vill Smash Failing Schools From Der Existence"

Failing government=fiddle more expenses, Failing schools = "exterminate"

Which reminds me , Ed Balls IS a Dalek

TrevorH

A labour government will never be concerned about families - about parents. Parents are a barrier to the state controlling children.

Labours undisclosed policy (spoiler alert!) is to have all children born in the East London Olympic Legacy Hatchery. They will be purpose made, genetically predisposed, to vote labour and to accept the ministrations of their social workers.

Verity

It's poverty of aspiration that is the tragedy the socialists have forced on children. Get pregnant at 15. At 16, you get a council flat and a family allowance plus your regular benefits.

C Powell is correct to note that there isn't a special well of poverty for children. It's parents who are dependent on the state who are the problem.

In other words, it's the socialist state that is the problem.

Perry

Suggest the title be edited thus :

The Government fails the poor everyone and everything

Or, (subtitle)

Can anyone think of any ‘Government’ [sic] success?

[Stand-by for retaliatory gushing hyperbole]

Commondog

C Powell.

My very thoughts.

What is all this nonsense about this stand-alone child poverty?

More threshing and flailing from a defunct leadership.

Max Kaye

Below what size plasma screen (in inches diameter), is one considered poor?

Michael

Poverty - It's just another nail in this dreadful Governments coffin. I wish they would resign gracefully and allow the British people to regain their dignity.

Mr. Brown....remember when you you 'awarded' the pensioners the 50p pay rise...I do...and will recall it again at voting time.

Familiar Clown

"Letting them keep more of their money (when they work)...
You mean, a regular job if you are capable of working?

"The 'real' figure of people with illnesses and disabilities which make them unable to work is closer to the 700,000 on benefit in the 1980s than the 2.64 million now claiming a total of more than £12 billion a year."

Persuading those two million pseudo IB claimants back to work might contribute somewhat to curing the family poverty
problem.

David C

Peter Hoskin is right.
Brown asked to be judged on his achievements.
Even with a contrived objective, arbitrary evaluation standards and fiddled figures, Brown has managed to fail.
Somehow, Brown has lost his own rigged game.
I just shake my head in disbelief.
John Page. If the BBC is now injecting qualifiers into their reporting, they are preparing to 'finesse' the whole matter away. Wait for it to disappear from the BBC conciousness.

Michael

'It's poverty of aspiration that is the tragedy the socialists have forced on children...' says Verity. My understanding is this phrase was first used by the late, great Ernest Bevin after observing the working classes at play in Blackpool after Attlee's government had come to power with it's socialist ideals. The pre-war novel Brighton Rock talks of Britian's sleazy underbelly. Capitalist America also has poverty of aspiration with it's gangsta rap and crack. It's not all the fault of socialism. But a radical overhaul of welfare may provide a stimulus to many.

Ray

Governments can no more 'eradicate child poverty' than they can abolish sin. As long as 'child poverty' is measured in relative terms, common sense should tell you that it is a totally meaningless aspiration (the pursuing of which this government makes a speciality).