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Some 10 years back, I used to work for a charity. We got donations of furniture from people, and distributed it among the poor and needy.
It was a real eye opener for me.
Trust me, there is a lot of real poverty out there. Some of it is truly harrowing.
We did everyone from the young teenage couple who got pregnant, to domestic abuse victims, to asylum seekers.
They were all on benefits, they had to be to qualify.
Some of the sights I encoulntered were disturbing. Some of these people truly had nothing.
No, they were not alkies, or druggies, and few of them smoked, they were people with literally nothing.
However, in my opinion, the problem is that there are too many folks "crying wolf".
I live in a deprived area. It's full of folks on benefits, single mothers, junkies etc.
These people are NOT poor. They do not live in poverty.
Some of them are f/b friends, their status updates are regularly sent from "blackberry device", or "iphone".
They all have satellite dishes.
Some of them get taxis to go for their shopping to save the 5 minute walk.
I work 6 days a week, and still can't afford these things.
Trouble is that there are so many spongers, that it means that the genuinely needy are overlooked, because the system has to presume that everyone is a sponger.
Now I'm not a great one to moan about bankers bonuses, or overpaid footballers, most of that comes from petty jealousy in my opinion.
However, I do believe there is something wrong in a country where one man can receive a £7m bonus per year, and a footballer can earn hundreds of thousands per week, yet people have to go without basic necessities of life..
There is too much disparity in distribution of wealth
agree with you completely bobman, word for word. yep there is people out there who desperately need help, then you get people who are playing the system for fools, but how do you separate them? some people just put them all under the same bracket, that is the wrong way to go about it, a lot are good people who have fallen on hard times, i too live in a poor area, one of the worst in the east of scotland, if not scotland, so i see these people aswell, but i also see decent people who just can't get out of this rut, it's a shame, SOMETHING needs to be done, i have no clue what though, and it is no doubt going to get far worse in the next few years
I might well watch it Paul. But of those parents who seemed decent how many drink and smoke and have tattoos? What does a pack of cigs cost? What's a tattoo? £30? That would buy a kid a coat or pair of shoes or feed them for a week (if you could be bothered to buy ingredients and cook meals rather than buy takeaways and pot noodles).
Sorry but whilst my heart breaks for the kids (I did see some clips of the show on the local evening news programme) I have very little sympathy for the parents who can't find jobs and yet I couldn't begin to tell you how many Eastern European people have come to Bradford in the last 10 years and found employment.
Yea but theres a big difference between someone that is from this country working for £6 an hour and a new temporary arrival working on £6 an hour. For the eastern european this is decent money that he saves to take back to hes own country for a British native this is peanuts barely liveable. After travel cost lunch money and paying full house rent your better off on benefits. Wages for the poor are unacceptable.
Yea but theres a big difference between someone that is from this country working for £6 an hour and a new temporary arrival working on £6 an hour. For the eastern european this is decent money that he saves to take back to hes own country for a British native this is peanuts barely liveable. After travel cost lunch money and paying full house rent your better off on benefits. Wages for the poor are unacceptable.
That is indeed the myth that many choose to believe - but don't forget the Eastern European has to live over here and save money to send home. Added to that the ones I've met don't appear to be living in third world squalor whilst doing it.
If you engage in conversation with them you will find that they think that the unemployed Brits are lazy and don't want to work. I personally employed a woman who was previously a lecturer at a Polish university. She took a basic admin job to improve her English and after about two years she managed to get a job in a British university. Very interesting woman to talk to.
Of course there are people who are genuinely unemployed and want to work but through bad luck have been unable to do so. they probably don't live in conditions of third world poverty. But there is an underclass in society who don't want to work and have no idea how to live a decent life.
That is indeed the myth that many choose to believe - but don't forget the Eastern European has to live over here and save money to send home. Added to that the ones I've met don't appear to be living in third world squalor whilst doing it.
If you engage in conversation with them you will find that they think that the unemployed Brits are lazy and don't want to work. I personally employed a woman who was previously a lecturer at a Polish university. She took a basic admin job to improve her English and after about two years she managed to get a job in a British university. Very interesting woman to talk to.
Of course there are people who are genuinely unemployed and want to work but through bad luck have been unable to do so. they probably don't live in conditions of third world poverty. But there is an underclass in society who don't want to work and have no idea how to live a decent life.
So you think its a myth that £6 an hour dont get you far in say somewhere like London. A lot of the eastern European guys that work here live 3 or 4 a bedsit. They dont use the pubs either like the Irish did back in the 60s and 70s because its £4 a pint so these eastern European lads dont go out, they are living a **** life over here aswell but they can look forward to better times knowing they have saved some money for when they go back to their own country where it is a fraction of the price for a house etc.
A native Brit with no education working on £6 will just have to pretty much live a miserable life. Might aswell just not work eh.
Rather than blame them you could blame crap schools or no real industry's. And not enough places for young working class kids to learn a trade i suppose its cheaper for the companies to get cheap labour abroad.
very sad to see and read this and with all the Royalty and wealthy people in the UK you wonder why don't they do more instead of helping other people in other countries.
that's why i said the poor themselves (meaning parents)
and i would say SOME of the poverty in certain areas of britain, whoever's fault it is, is truly shoking and wouldn't look out of place in some very poor countries
Shocking figures, particularly in Glasgow and Dundee. For such a small city as Dundee to have more poverty stricken areas than Edinburgh, Aberdeen and the whole of Fife is a joke, nearly 2/3rds of the city with over 30% child poverty.
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