Hungry Britain

GA, thank you. That was always my favourite passage in the New Testament. Although I don't believe in a supernatural being, the Christian ethic holds good for me. As for deserving/undeserving poor - how can children possibly be undeserving? They go hungry if their parents' benefits are cut, whatever the reasons.

I agree. Thoughtful and well considered, restoring the discussion of a difficult subject to the level at which it deserves to be.

Yes Gill, the charity, which is used by those who have been homeless and are given a home by the council, told me that the people who are looking for furniture only want new or modern stuff. That is what I found unbelievable. I have as Ive said before been on benefits and know how hard it is and I have been quite happy to take anything as long as it serves its purpose.
With regards to earlier remarks that some people have made about judging those less fortunate, I simply mean that if they stopped smoking/drink etc then its obvious they would have more cash left. Can no-one see that view. I also feel that as long as there is a safety net either the state or foodbanks then some people will just fritter their money away. I think that many people have lost a sense of responsibility and there is a "someone else will sort it out" attitude. We need as a nation to take responsibility for our own actions and not leave it to the state to pick up the bill. After all go back to times before the welfare state and you had to work or starve and people would go selling rags or firewood just to make a few bob. Im not implying we should go back to that but where is our spirit of enterprise and also where is our neighbourliness. My granny used to take food to anyone who was poor, myself I used to bake for the old guy next door until recently. nowadays no-one cares.

Thankyou ga and GillT57 for summing up what is important here. Poverty in the UK is increasing and we have to protect the vulnerable people who, for whatever reason, can't help themselves and those able people who are temporarily in need of a safety net. Citing the few who try to milk the system is detracting from the majority who don't want to be reliant on food banks and charity.

cactus it's because so many people DO care that we're having this discussion. The government is there to do our bidding, not take our money and fritter it away. How can IDS and his supporters justify taking away support for so many people, how can you accuse struggling families of frittering away their benefits because some smoke and have a drink? If you look around at how poorer people manage to acquire tobacco and cheap alcohol you'll find they aren't buying packs of 200 B and Hs in the supermarket. There's a local supplier for roll-ups and we all know that you can buy alcohol cheaper than bottled water. It's hypocritical to tell the impoverished to manage better - there's only so much you can do when costs are leaving families with a pittance to manage on and it's another week with no sign of a job, yet there's little sign of 'them that have' cutting back, sharing a bit more of their wealth, or paying their taxes honestly.

Yes, I'll willingly give an example of the undeserving poor ...Mike Philpott.
I could name others I have known personally but their names would mean nothing to you, but those of us who have worked as teachers, social workers, prison warders, etc will come across them time and time again.

The deserving poor, those who through no fault of their own are suffering hardship.

Those who think there are no undeserving poor are living in cloud cuckoo land. I fully support benefits for those who are struggling and deplore the fact that the system cannot stretch to help them as much as they need due to it being manipulated and drained by professional scroungers. Do all these bleeding hearts not realise that genuine poor people and ther children are suffering at the hands if those who milk the system because they do not want to work?

"the behaviours and attitudes of those in poverty basically mirror those of mainstream western societies." Exactly! Should it? Surely if you hit a rough patch you should pull your horns in. No, not give away the tv and the kids' toys. Noone would advocate that. But surely do without the mobile phone contract, the Sky box and the fags.

And there is a certain type of person who own several huge dogs which must be expensive to feed. They shouldn't have got them in the first place!

And you would have to be a lot more than "reasonably solvent" to spend all of your twenties in a drug induced coma and your thirties in a drunken stupor. Those celebs have a lot more money than that!

I do, however, agree with Jesus.

Agree Aka

Mind you, if we all sat back and "considered the lillies of the field", we wouldn't get far.

Yes. I agree with Aka. Very much.

Woman's hour today; Carmel McConnell talking about how she started her charity for breakfast in schools, so that hungry children could be fed!!
How can we let this state continue??
These are not necessarily parents who are not working. It is time someone in the government 'got real'! All parties are responsible! X

jingle I can't see how you can say you agree with Jesus and then agree with posters who say or imply that some people who are in difficulties don't deserve help.

Aka Choosing Mike Phillpott as a an example of people on benefits is like choosing Jimmy Savile as an example of DJs. And who decides whether it is someone's own "fault" that they are in difficulties? Will they have to fill in a questionnaire asking whether they have a TV, smoke, drink, buy new clothes, etc. etc.?

We have a very unequal society and I find it astonishing that people are so much more willing to lash out at the people at the bottom than those at the top. But that's the way those at the top like it - they must think it's hilarious as they watch working people blaming each other and fighting amongst themselves.

Eloethan I may have chosen an extreme example but I did qualify it by saying I personally know lots of undeserving poor. I been asked why they should work when they can get more for staying at home.

If you haven't met or worked with this type of scrounger then I understand where you're coming from. But I really do know that there would be more money in the benefit pot for those poor souls who cannot work or find work and who really want to.

I'm not lashing out at those at the bottom, I'm lashing out at those who take, take, take from the genuinely poor and hard up.

During the war there was a nutritionally balanced diet dictated by rationing. I wonder what adhering to those limits would cost today. Would a family on benefits be able to feed themselves within those constraints?

I understand that we have now overtaken the US in terms of child obesity - the US has food stamps and they have to be spent on food essentials, not wants. Something doesn't quite add up.

J52 'it's time someone in the Government 'got real'? About breakfast? I'm sorry but how much do you expect any Government to do for you - surely personal responsibility features somewhere? A pan of porridge does not cost a fortune and provides a nutritionally sound breakfast.

It's amusing to be told that those of us who don't want welfare support to be further reduced must be living in cloud cuckoo land. I wish I had someone to shout that through the door to me whilst sitting in benefit appeals, comforting frightened children during a bailiff's removal of a family's possessions when on a home visit (later proved to be illegal but too late by then), and staying late with a homeless young person on Christmas Eve whilst we sorted out a lonely B and B for him etc etc. These situations can only increase under this punishing regime as the safety net develops bigger holes.

Eloethan, agree entirely with your comment regarding lashing out at the wrong people. Yes, we all know people who manipulate and fiddle the system, and yes it is hard to understand how someone can smoke and then ask for help with feeding their children, but why should the children go hungry? I am not a bleeding heart ( whatever that may be) and do understand the frustration felt by people working hard and struggling while they see others who seem to be able to get by without working, but it is still an absolute disgrace that people have to ask for help to feed their families. I think more attention should be focused on businesses and celebrities who avoid paying the taxes that they should, I have mentioned it before on another thread, but my small business pays more corporation tax than The Ritz, work that one out!

As you know I don't normally reply to your posts When but I must put you straight I said that those who don't believe there are undeserving poor live in cloud cuckoo land.

Don't put words into my mouth.

What about the undeserving rich - isn't it time someone sorted them out?

Of course I can Eleothan. You can love people and want to help them whilst still acknowledging their failings!

And you can have empathy. Which I do have for the poor. (There but for the grace of God...)

I stand by what I wrote. I do not subscribe to the term 'undeserving poor.'
This is a good article that expresses it better than I could.

www.scotsman.com/news/joyce-mcmillan-myth-of-undeserving-poor-revisited-1-2878384

.....and for anyone who hasn't the time or inclination to read the whole article, an extract:

'In the first place, they say, the poor are exaggerating their plight. In the second place, their plight is all their own fault, and could be remedied by a little thrift and ingenuity. And in the third place, they have too many children; so many that the only answer is to punish the children along with their parents, in order to remove the “perverse incentives” that led to their birth.

And the problem with these views is that they are founded on a failure of empathy, of common fellow-feeling with those in misfortune, that is plainly inimical to the whole idea of democracy and equal citizenship. They divide the world into “people like us” – people who, like Iain Duncan Smith, are perfectly entitled to claim five-figure expenses on top of a six-figure salary, and to enjoy life as they please; and those like “them”, who are greedy, feckless economy-wreckers if they fail to survive for a week on what Duncan Smith spends in an hour.'

Just came back on. Sel, I don't expect the government to do anything for me personally. Thank you. However, for children to start the day hungry, for whatever reason is unacceptable. X

But if the money is just not there When I'm64......?

Theyhave to find a way to allocate funds fairly.

The money is there - it's in the war chest!

I wonder if the autistic man's dying had anything to do with benefits cuts. There seems to be a lot of other issues involved. Sounds like a complete breakdown of the so-called "caring" professions.