Everything is wrong in this country

Can you clear something for me please was Malthus an influence?

I don't think he had a direct influence. His main concern was with population growth; a concern which, once again we see has not changed for some people 200 years later. He believed that the country did not have the resources to support the rapid population growth of the late 18th, early 19th C. Naturally, this was the fault of the feckless poor, who would go on having big families when they couldn't afford to maintain them and the nation didn't have the resources to feed them (for 'feckless poor' substitute 'immigrants' today)

The 1834 Poor Law would have some effect on limiting those families as parents were separated on entering the Workhouse, but the main objective of the Poor Law was to make 'not working' so unpleasant that those idle, shiftless buggers who thought they could live comfortably on handouts thought twice about even contemplating asking for 'relief' and went and found themselves an honest job.

Sounds so familiar, doesn't it?

Read the Shardlake series set in Tudor times by CJSansom and then come back and say this.

^ I think people found that totally negative and gloomy and they didn't like it.^

So, faced with a catalogue of the awful things that are happening in our country today, instead of saying 'Right, what can we do about this?' they go off and start a Pollyanna thread on chat about what a beautiful country we live in and how blessed they are to have wonderful families...

Who are you talking to, Taffy1234?

WTF has 16th C England got to do with our situation right now?

MaizieD - in difficult times it's important to count your blessings and keep your spirits up. Some people will go down a spiral of depression if things get too gloomy and the fact we are mostly older folk doesn't help. The 'happy' thread at least keeps a balance and helps us focus on the positive which is important for mental health.

I'd be more impressed with that, Chestnut if most of the people on the Pollyanna thread weren't the ones who have been attacking Whitewavemk2 on this thread and refusing to acknowledge that this country is in a terrible state.

taffy I don’t agree anyway. As far as I understand it poor relief that started under Elizabeth was far more humane that what came after it. At least the ill, disabled and mentally infirm were housed in places like Almshouses and given food clothing and money, even those unable to find a job were given work , clothing, food an£ money. It was only the so called idle poor that were sent for correction but not punishment you notice.

All that completely changed in 1843, and the rhetoric I have been reading surrounding this period struck me as astoundingly similar to what we have been hearing since 2010 coming from the Tory party, and parrot like from supporters of their welfare policy.

You're right about the Elizabethan Poor Relief, Whitewave. That's why the supporters of the 1834 Act didn't like it. Make the idle buggers work...

Poverty was their own fault, of course...

I see a real parallel between the post war idea of a safety net and assistance to what the Tories are gradually bringing in, and what happened in the early 19th century, especially the rhetoric. Johnson is a prime example.

Perhaps we could be proactive and support a very good, reputable organisation that helps people?

I'm open to ideas.

If we all donated the cost of a coffee, we could make a difference.

It’s no good ladies here minimising your concerns, they are fully justified. After 10 years of the current government our country may be one of the richest countries in the world but for our poor, our disabled, our children, our homeless, our workforce, their lives do not reflect that.
Whoever you vote for please recognise where we are now.
A rich country with the poor getting poorer and children’s poverty the highest it has ever been.
The Tories answer? A vague manifesto, very worrying because who knows what it will eventually hold, and reduce taxes when our services are crying out for investment.

But hey, we will have Brexit .. ☹️
You’re right to feel the pain of this country.

ink a GN favoured charity?

Who runs the food banks?

Would GNHQ run it? Not sure how else it would work.

juel ? welcome

Before the 1834 Act, poverty was the responsibility of individual boroughs, so they were responsible for their own poor. Committees decided who was worthy. Reading records of those committees is fascinating. In the early nineteenth century there was something called the Speenhamland System, which gave people poor relief related to the price of bread. When prices were high, the ratepayers had to pay more, which they didn't like, but it meant they didn't have to raise wages. (Does this sound familiar?) However, the system was more localised and people could carry on working.

The workhouses had local overseers, but the system became much harsher (as has been described above) and was controlled by central government. It was the beginning of the benefit system we have today.

J.B. Priestley's "An Inspector Calls" should be essential for everybody who thinks the poor are responsible for their own demise.

Blimey I remember the “speenhamland system” from my school days. Can’t remotely remember what it was about though.

Those must reads are beginning to pile up.

Not really thought it through! Perhaps HQ could deal with it? The Trussel Trust maybe?

growstuff - no-one thinks the poor are all responsible for their situation, but there is a feckless underclass who won't work and keep having babies in order to live off the welfare state. These people are leeching off the system and many of them think the state should be responsible for bringing up their children. Most people limit their children to the number they can afford to support but these people have a completely different take.

So how would you identify this "feckless underclass"? Should their children just be left to rot?

Dinahmo

Chelsea Tractors in the city? They are driven around everywhere and anyway isn't a bus larger and that drives on the road.

Oh are you now saying you are a mixture of nationalities and you have dropped the idea that you are a mongrel. Go
back to one of your own posts it was you who said "U. K citizens are mainly made up of mongrels as a nation"

I find you write confusing posts and when asked about them
you backtrack on yourself and change the agenda.

inkcog There are plenty of charities that work well with the poor - Shelter, which provides safe places for young people on the streets and Save the Children, which does a lot of work in the UK.

Chestnut I was a volunteer for Save the Children for about 20 years. One thing we learned was that it is never the child's fault that it is in the the situation that it is in. That's why the charity exists - to help those children. Some parents may be feckless (but a tiny minority) but the children need helping.

When I was a volunteer often people would not contribute on the flag day because they thought all the money went abroad. This is not the case. At 30% (back in the nineties and noughties) was spent in the UK on a large range of projects.

gI think you are taking offence where none was intended, 3nany6

'Mongrel' is only pejorative if you want it to be,. It describes a person or animal of mixed pedigree. Nothing at all wrong with having a mixed pedigree. Who cares about 'pedigree,' anyway, in this day and age?

MaizieD, apparently, some people really do care about 'pedigree' - those with a superiority complex who feel that they're naturally entitled to first dibs of anything going.

They resent anyone (else) getting handouts but seem to forget that the majority of benefits go to working families. I, myself, resent benefits going (ultimately) to greedy landlords and payday loan companies.