Many children are living in Victorian conditions – it’s an inequality timebomb

Our fears about child poverty in the UK are coming true: that austerity is entrenching hunger, stigma and educational exclusion. And this sort of damage lasts



What does it mean to be one of the richest countries in the world? I wondered this as I read through the report by the Children’s Commission on Poverty (CCP) at the end of last year, in which British children describe the hunger that comes with not being able to afford lunch, or the wait for a “good day” when their mum has 25p spare for a snack. I was reminded of this by the teaching union NASUWT’s warning this week that there are children in this country living in “Victorian conditions”, turning to charity for regular meals and going without a winter coat.

Britain’s economic recovery can be felt in the lives of “hardworking taxpayers”, David Cameron claimed at a rally on Easter Monday. Yet children are coming to school in dirty or fraying clothes, eight in 10 teachers surveyed report. Other children are vanishing halfway through the term, evicted and without a home near their school to go back to. I imagine it is difficult for them to feel the coalition’s economic recovery – if only their parents had worked harder.

The union’s message is clear: the financial crisis is impacting on the poorest children’s attainment. Hungry and tired children cannot concentrate in class. Living in a cramped flat or temporary accommodation means doing maths on your knee or producing English coursework with no internet, let alone your own laptop. Teenagers who are worrying whether their parents can pay this month’s rent are likely to become withdrawn, not confident students ready for university interviews.

There is no such thing as an equal life chance in Britain. This will not be news to the former free school meals child now scrubbing toilets for a minimum wage, or to the Eton alumni born to sit in Downing Street. The system is rigged – and it is rigged in favour of the ones who don’t need the advantage. That is the greatest irony of inequality and education: the school system is both the emancipation of the working class and confirmation of its place. Austerity’s architects could never have thought that growing inequality – where the elite have seen their fortunes rocket as the poorest suffer – would do anything but worsen this.

As further evidence of this, the educational “achievement gap” between richer and poorer children is widening, as of this year. Only one in three disadvantaged pupils is hitting the government’s GCSE pass target – compared with over 60% of their richer peers. And the education system literally divides children along class lines – our schools are among the most socially segregated in the developed world. We group together children of immigrants: 80% are taught in schools with “high concentrations” of other immigrant or disadvantaged pupils. Poorly educated parents – defined as those who don’t have five good GCSEs – see their kids taught together, shut away from advantaged children. Meanwhile, private schools continue to let privilege buy privilege. The best comprehensives and academies practice social selection by stealth, siphoning out the poor kids on free school meals.

“[Eating] depends really on what my mum’s situation is,” one child explained to the CCP inquiry. “If I don’t have the money I normally just wait until I get home [from school]. Or me and my friends always share food about and they normally give me something.”

It is comforting to pretend this sort of poverty is inevitable, as if inequality were genetic rather than the product of conscious political decisions. Choices have consequences and austerity is not good at hiding them: be it the children in the communities where low pay and benefit cuts have pushed more than half into poverty , or food bank signs among leafy, red-brick mansions.

But inequality goes deeper than what is visible. It is stigma, exclusion, and stagnated opportunity. We have become used to framing economics in short-termism. Why wouldn’t we? Poverty makes a habit of immediacy. High rents and unstable or low paid work force finding your children’s next meal to become the priority. This coalition has enshrined a culture of desperation, where some parents have to beg or steal for food, and even emergency council loans are taken from them. This damage is lasting.

In a decade from now there will be a second crisis, when the children currently learning while tired and hungry will be expected to compete in a labour market against the offspring of the families who were able to provide the luxury of a desk and regular meals. That is how inequality works. Today’s “Victorian conditions” will define tomorrow’s too. This government has sat back as a whole section of society is locked into long-term poverty.

It is 2015 and children in this country are going to school hungry, as they sit in class in dirty uniforms. Where exactly do we expect them to be in 2025? Austerity is starving the poorest out of their future.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/09/children-uk-victorian-conditions-inequality-child-poverty

The people I am canvassing with are passionate that this is not going to carry on. I don't canvas by foot as much as they do, I do as much as I can and then go back to telephone canvassing. I thought people would be cross about me phoning, how wrong was I. They are dying to tell what is happening to them and how they are terrified for their children of it continuing. I've been around a long time, and se had bad conditions in the 50s, but we also knew it was going to change for the better. Now the country is in a death grip and on every street, in areas that your think are quite prosperous, people are angry that they struggle while this government has handed tax breaks to the wealthiest and intend to do more of it if they get back in again and are determined that won't happen.

risingsun wrote:Our fears about child poverty in the UK are coming true: that austerity is entrenching hunger, stigma and educational exclusion. And this sort of damage lasts



What does it mean to be one of the richest countries in the world? I wondered this as I read through the report by the Children’s Commission on Poverty (CCP) at the end of last year, in which British children describe the hunger that comes with not being able to afford lunch, or the wait for a “good day” when their mum has 25p spare for a snack. I was reminded of this by the teaching union NASUWT’s warning this week that there are children in this country living in “Victorian conditions”, turning to charity for regular meals and going without a winter coat.

Britain’s economic recovery can be felt in the lives of “hardworking taxpayers”, David Cameron claimed at a rally on Easter Monday. Yet children are coming to school in dirty or fraying clothes, eight in 10 teachers surveyed report. Other children are vanishing halfway through the term, evicted and without a home near their school to go back to. I imagine it is difficult for them to feel the coalition’s economic recovery – if only their parents had worked harder.

The union’s message is clear: the financial crisis is impacting on the poorest children’s attainment. Hungry and tired children cannot concentrate in class. Living in a cramped flat or temporary accommodation means doing maths on your knee or producing English coursework with no internet, let alone your own laptop. Teenagers who are worrying whether their parents can pay this month’s rent are likely to become withdrawn, not confident students ready for university interviews.

There is no such thing as an equal life chance in Britain. This will not be news to the former free school meals child now scrubbing toilets for a minimum wage, or to the Eton alumni born to sit in Downing Street. The system is rigged – and it is rigged in favour of the ones who don’t need the advantage. That is the greatest irony of inequality and education: the school system is both the emancipation of the working class and confirmation of its place. Austerity’s architects could never have thought that growing inequality – where the elite have seen their fortunes rocket as the poorest suffer – would do anything but worsen this.

As further evidence of this, the educational “achievement gap” between richer and poorer children is widening, as of this year. Only one in three disadvantaged pupils is hitting the government’s GCSE pass target – compared with over 60% of their richer peers. And the education system literally divides children along class lines – our schools are among the most socially segregated in the developed world. We group together children of immigrants: 80% are taught in schools with “high concentrations” of other immigrant or disadvantaged pupils. Poorly educated parents – defined as those who don’t have five good GCSEs – see their kids taught together, shut away from advantaged children. Meanwhile, private schools continue to let privilege buy privilege. The best comprehensives and academies practice social selection by stealth, siphoning out the poor kids on free school meals.

“[Eating] depends really on what my mum’s situation is,” one child explained to the CCP inquiry. “If I don’t have the money I normally just wait until I get home [from school]. Or me and my friends always share food about and they normally give me something.”

It is comforting to pretend this sort of poverty is inevitable, as if inequality were genetic rather than the product of conscious political decisions. Choices have consequences and austerity is not good at hiding them: be it the children in the communities where low pay and benefit cuts have pushed more than half into poverty , or food bank signs among leafy, red-brick mansions.

But inequality goes deeper than what is visible. It is stigma, exclusion, and stagnated opportunity. We have become used to framing economics in short-termism. Why wouldn’t we? Poverty makes a habit of immediacy. High rents and unstable or low paid work force finding your children’s next meal to become the priority. This coalition has enshrined a culture of desperation, where some parents have to beg or steal for food, and even emergency council loans are taken from them. This damage is lasting.

In a decade from now there will be a second crisis, when the children currently learning while tired and hungry will be expected to compete in a labour market against the offspring of the families who were able to provide the luxury of a desk and regular meals. That is how inequality works. Today’s “Victorian conditions” will define tomorrow’s too. This government has sat back as a whole section of society is locked into long-term poverty.

It is 2015 and children in this country are going to school hungry, as they sit in class in dirty uniforms. Where exactly do we expect them to be in 2025? Austerity is starving the poorest out of their future.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/09/children-uk-victorian-conditions-inequality-child-poverty

The people I am canvassing with are passionate that this is not going to carry on.   I don't canvas by foot as much as they do, I do as much as I can and then go back to telephone canvassing.  I thought people would be cross about me phoning, how wrong was I.  They are dying to tell what is happening to them and how they are terrified for their children of it continuing.    I've been around a long time, and se had bad conditions in the 50s, but we also knew it was going to change for the better.   Now the country is in a death grip and on every street, in areas that your think are quite prosperous, people are angry that they struggle while this government has handed tax breaks to the wealthiest and intend to do more of it if they get back in again and are determined that won't happen.

It's the Tory way. Look after themselves and convince the plebs that they are better off under the Tories.

Get them out.

Only a month to go!  Quite wish we hadn't planned our holiday during some of it!

This government don't give a damn about anyone else but their rich chums, who in turn line the coffers of the Tory Party.

Lots of children go to school hungry, not because their parents are too poor to buy food, but rather too lazy to cook or prepare proper food or they're too busy buying crap they don't need to fund a greedy lifestyle.
That's nothing to do with governments but every thing to do with ignorant shit parenting.

This really does disgust me when I see articles like this.
There is no real child poverty in this country, real poverty is what you see in parts of the third world. What you see is people struggle, but have many basic necessities which those in poverty do not.
To coin this word in the western world is appalling. Its basically lessening how poorly off those who are in real poverty next to people less well off and is degrading the word and its meaning to those who suffer real poverty
Yes we need to help people who are not so well off, but lets stop claiming they are living in poverty, that is just absurd.

Night all

And that's not what is being talked about here Eddie, those children know they will go home to food at night and have school dinners or packed lunches.  Teachers are talking about children who don't want to go home at night because there is little food and hardly any heating because parents have no money.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/malnutrition-cases-in-english-hospitals-almost-double-in-five-years-8945631.html

eddie wrote:Lots of children go to school hungry, not because  their parents are too poor to buy food, but rather too lazy to cook or prepare proper food or they're too busy buying crap they don't need to fund a greedy lifestyle.
That's nothing to do with governments but every thing to do with ignorant shit parenting.

Agreed, and how many are places their needs above the children in all this?


Catch you later Eddie.x

Yes I understand, and I have seen, first hand, these kind of children, many many times in the schools ive worked in! Do you realsie now many of the parents had phones, and smoked cigarettes??

Sassy, there is a reason children go hungry, and Id say it's a small percentage, a tiny percentage, where it's due to real proper poverty and not shit-ignorant bad parenting!

Brasidas wrote:

eddie wrote:Lots of children go to school hungry, not because  their parents are too poor to buy food, but rather too lazy to cook or prepare proper food or they're too busy buying crap they don't need to fund a greedy lifestyle.
That's nothing to do with governments but every thing to do with ignorant shit parenting.

Agreed, and how many are places their needs above the children in all this?


Catch you later Eddie.x

I have never seen a case of proper poverty. Every single case (and I have seen many I can promise you!) where a child isnt fed properly, the mum has an iPhone or similiar, and never have the parents been skinny little underfed waifs.

This isn't about lack of money. It's about bad spending.

When you live it and see it first-hand, then you know what's really going on.

ONE IN FIVE PARENTS STRUGGLING TO FEED THEIR CHILDREN
One in five parents in the UK is struggling to feed their children,
new research has revealed.
The research shows more than twenty per cent of parents have skipped meals, gone without food to feed their children or relied on family members or friends for food in the last twelve months.
The research, carried out by Tesco, the Foodbanks charity the Trussell Trust and food redistribution charity FareShare comes as the three organisations prepare to hold the biggest ever food collection
in the UK on the 5 and 6 July.
70% of families suffering from food poverty with children in primary school education rely in some part on food supplied by schools, either through free school meals or food given out by breakfast or after school clubs. The upcoming school summer holidays could now see a large number of children going hungry.
More than a quarter of parents suffering from some form of food poverty said they were unable to provide food for all the meals their children need
during the school holidays. The research also shows the proble m of food poverty is unlikely to improve in the near future, with only a third of people currently suffering from food poverty expecting their situation to improve in the next twelve months.
Rebecca Shelley, Group Corporate Affairs Director at Tesco said:
“This research reveals that since our last national food collection in December, the problem of food poverty in the UK has increased and shows no signs of improving.
It’s hitting families hard, especially when resources like free school meals, breakfast clubs and after school clubs are not available.
“Because we have stores in so many communities across the UK, we are
working with the help of our customers, thousands of our colleagues and volunteers from the Trussell Trust and FareShare to help provide emergency food to people who are struggling”
The National Food Collection will take place in every Tesco store in the country and will help provide much needed food for the Trussell Trust foodbank network and the 900 UK charities supported by FareShare

http://www.trusselltrust.org/resources/documents/Press/1-in-5-parents-struggling-to-feed-children.pdf

What a disgusting legacy.

eddie wrote:

Brasidas wrote:


Agreed, and how many are places their needs above the children in all this?


Catch you later Eddie.x

I have never seen a case of proper poverty. Every single case (and I have seen many I can promise you!) where a child isnt fed properly, the mum has an iPhone or similiar, and never have the parents been skinny little underfed waifs.

This isn't about lack of money. It's about bad spending.

When you live it and see it first-hand, then you know what's really going on.

1.  Adults lose weight at a much slower rate than children and also put on weight if they are eating cheap food.

2.  They have to have a phone or the job centre will not contact them and they are sanctioned, how do you know they didn't have it before the lost their job etc.

And as this has been looked into in great detail and it has been shown it is about money and people starve themselves to feed their kids or live on sugared tea and white bread themselves to feed their kids a little better I think other people might know something about it.

eddie wrote:

Brasidas wrote:


Agreed, and how many are places their needs above the children in all this?


Catch you later Eddie.x

I have never seen a case of proper poverty. Every single case (and I have seen many I can promise you!) where a child isnt fed properly, the mum has an iPhone or similiar, and never have the parents been skinny little underfed waifs.

This isn't about lack of money. It's about bad spending.

When you live it and see it first-hand, then you know what's really going on.

I totally agree Eddie, I grew up with very little, by my parents always ensured there was food on the table. They placed their children first. Okay sometimes it was not much but it was food at every meal time and so we had to share clothes, but they were mindful with their money. The fact is many people are living beyond their means and I know of parents in my area like this where they still waste their money on things they do not need and end up in a constant spiral of worrying over money all the time, mainly of their own creation.
What is needed is more money management help for people and for many to stop being selfish. These articles fail to see what is going on within these households. Of course some people do have very little and still manage their money very well, which then begs the question how they can manage on even less than some and still provide for their families. It hits home clearly there is other factors at play and one is spending beyond their means and the other is placing selfish needs above their children. I mean all these food banks, I have no doubt many more people are using them, because they are there to be used, and if you can save some money on food then you would use them too. There is clearly some genuine people suffering out there, it is not poverty though, but we certainly need to help, but most of all people need to start taking some responsibilities for their families. As I say if others can manage on low wages there is then little reason why others cannot, there will be some reasons for some, but most live beyond their means.
That is the technology age for you where they place this and gadgets above food

Sassy, im going to say this again:

It's almost never about not having enough money coming in but about bad management.

1) when were you last living solely on benefits?
2) when we're you living among people who were on benefits?

Answer my those questions - no lies, because you do bend the truth to suit your stories - and then we will move forward.

Well, until I read the last sentence I was going to tell you, but after that, you can go to hell.

It's really strange that it only since this coalition came to power that the number of people using food banks and falling back on charity has received so much cover by charity organisations and that claims that so much of it is down to bad parenting etc. are pushed out into the media.

So why were the numbers not so high before this when times were a little but easier? And it's not just charity organisations that are saying this, the OBR and the IFS are also saying that under this government that cuts to the welfare system will take us back to the levels of the 1930s.

There has to be a connection surely

Irn Bru wrote:It's really strange that it only since this coalition came to power that the number of people using food banks and falling back on charity has received so much cover by charity organisations and that claims that so much of it is down to bad parenting etc. are pushed out into the media.

So why were the numbers not so high before this when times were a little but easier? And it's not just charity organisations that are saying this, the OBR and the IFS are also saying that under this government that cuts to the welfare system will take us back to the levels of the 1930s.

There has to be a connection surely

No Irn, I just think that you, and certain others, live your life through reading papers and other people's opinion s and have zero idea of what some areas of Britain are really like.
I can tell you. I lived for eleven years in an impoverished area - now when I say impoverished, I mean the poorest area of a rich area. Most people on benefits.

Most of the people on benefits lived and survived perfectly fine; they couldn't afford holidays abroad but went on holiday to caravans with The Sun newspaper tokens that you can get.
Most of them, drove cars, had phones, and fed their kids propers dinners becasue they were being prosper parents.

Some however, didn't cook and had the attitude of "They get a dinner at school so I dint need to cook for them tonight, beans on toast will do"
These people drive cars, have phones and let their kids play  out till dark comes.
These kids eat crisps for breakfast or last nights cold mcds burger.


As sassy pointed out: the parents are fat due to cheap ready meals - chicken nuggets and chips and microwave curry/spag bol and garlic bread.
That's not being poor: that's not eating poor (ready meals actuLly cost more in the long run as you can't stretch them)
That's lazy-arse parenting.

There's not real poverty in this country: there are just people who cannot be bothered and spend their money on "luxuries" they can't afford.

Oh and a very good friend of mine works in family support and also the food banks scheme, so quite apart from my eleven years experience of living and working with "poor" people - I asko hear the same stories every singe day.

Oh and as a little side note: a lot of these children from the lazy are se parenting club, are also chubby or overweight due to the crap they eat - they don't eat proper food, they eat junk. So it's nothing to do with no food.

This country isn't a modern day "Oliver!"
You're blaming the government (and I'm not a Tory I'm unbiased) and not looking at the real issue.

risingsun wrote:Well, until I read the last sentence I was going to tell you, but after that, you can go to hell.

Well perhPs it wasn't fair to say it, but it is what I think and I will stand by it.
Hopefully you'll change my mind over time.

Irn Bru wrote:It's the Tory way. Look after themselves and convince the plebs that they are better off under the Tories.

Get them out.

It's sad, but this need repeating so often.  People just don't pay attention, or if the do happen to catch onto something from some story or other, they have only short attention spans.

Liberals and conservatives are not just different brands of the same product.  They are completely different products.

Politics is about interests.  Conservatives represent special interests, while liberals represent the general interest.  That's why liberals are so often associated with bigger spending: the general public requires more attention.  The conservative answer to that problem is to ignore the general public.

The big problem for conservatives is that to represent the few wealthy, is to get back only the "few" votes.  What do conservatives do?  In a word: they lie.  If we did a pie chart of things conservatives pretend to be concerned about, probably the largest part would be stories about wrongdoers.  Nothing about poverty, health, education, global warming or other broad public policy matters...and for god's sake nothing about how rich the rich are.  Nothing about changing the framework, just little stuff about bad guys (who are generally poor anyway).

Conservatives divert attention over to crime and punishment, and joy-of-joy if they get their hands on a benefits cheat who is prosecuted (that's double the reward).  Crime and war are the two most important things to conservatives and not just because crime attacks their infrastructure, and war expands their opportunities.  No, also, these two subject generate passion among the voters, such that conservatives can turn them into political issues, and divert attention from the much bigger crimes of their own: the stealing of resources.  And lo, what do we find but that the top 1% control the top 90% of all resources.

All of their lies and deflection are to divert attention away from the fact the BP Oil--I use BP as simply a metonymy for the corporate/industrial complex--is polluting our waters in order to get the Koch Brothers more and more money, that they can pour into the political process, to create more and more deception and diversion, so the general public becomes more and more ignorant.  Oh yes, and they argue that tax money to combat ignorance--that is to say, for education--is wasted...they argue.  What a surprise.