In Which I Groan…about prefix poverty

I watched Sky News for about 10 minutes on Saturday and in that time – including adverts – I heard mention of 3 different types of poverty; hygiene poverty – in reference to kids turning up at school in dirty clothes, food poverty – in a fancy advert about a big business donating to Foodbanks and child poverty, which presumably is linked in some fashion to the state of the parent(s)’ finances.

In the course of my work I’ve also met and listened to various groups who are attempting to solve bed poverty, fuel poverty, clothing poverty and period poverty.

As a kid, I experienced bathroom poverty (we didn’t have one), central heating poverty (likewise), new Christmas present poverty (mostly second hand but still pretty good), car poverty (again, didn’t have one), holiday poverty, (didn’t go away, ever), and school tie poverty. The latter, wearing a second hand green cub scouts tie instead of the branded navy blue school tie, possibly scarred me the most. Kids can be mean.

I’m not Monty Pythoning here for sympathy or trying to say I had it worse than anyone else. There was worse off, there was better off, but we were pretty dirt poor while I was a kid and frankly, it cuts deep and stays with you until you find yourself decades later ranting to the internet about prefix poverty. Unless we – as a society today – address what’s going on in the round, rather than tinkering about the tatty edges with mission statements to deal with this consequence of living in poverty and that, then I’m sorry but all we are doing is allowing people much better off than those we want to see getting off the breadline, to dictate the slatternly pace of change that we should not be willing to accept.

Don’t speak out to make yourself feel good. Don’t donate to give your profiteering company a false sheen of compassion. Don’t tell the family they need financial education when there is no way to stretch that insufficient budget to cover the very basic needs of the household without visiting Ollivanders on the way. And please don’t preach inclusion to someone so poor that you think it’s good enough to suggest they take out a credit union loan to buy school shoes. If it would not be good enough for you why should it be for them?

Every kid. Every single kid deserves a chance to grow up healthy and without the stress of a family broken and stressed out by not having enough money to pay for the basics. It causes deep anxiety and suffering that lasts way beyond childhood.

Two things this government could do now would be to abolish the punitive and arbitrary two child limit on benefits and the benefit cap. Get the supermarkets to stop donating to Foodbanks and instead reduce the cost of food so everyone can afford it. Increase benefits so people who fall on hard times don’t actually have to plunge all the way to rock bottom and may even be able to get up again. Redirect all that money that goes to the consultants who tell our local authorities how best to brand their public services and just put the money back into delivering the public services. And, for the love of God, stop scapegoating people who are chronically sick or have disabilities that prevent them or the people that care for them from working. It’s not their fault the country’s finances are screwed. Follow the money and tax it properly. No-one should *need* a foodbank voucher. No pensioner should end up with hypothermia because they’re too afraid to turn the heating on.

Am I being too simplistic here? Maybe. But I don’t think we need a taskforce to tell us these things do we?

Rant over.