Third World Britain on the Way

Now I am not really that sure what all the fuss was about when it was widely reported in the press and the media in general that an aid to the pontiff on his historic papal visit had to pullout of accompanying Benedict XVI.

Just what was the big deal and in what linguistic context did German-born cardinal Walter Kasper who was quoted as saying to that country's Focus magazine that "when you land at Heathrow you think at times you have landed in a Third World country".

There is a soup-kitchen that I have referred to before now, that everyday feeds the homeless and destitute in Canning Town. It’s not quite near Heathrow, but almost on the end of the runway of the city air port which serves the many business types who fly in and out everyday making deals and living it up, the good life in the many cities of the EU.

When I look around I see poverty amongst my neighbours, it may not be as bad as a Third World country, but I’ll tell you this it’s not far off and it’s set to get worse.

But let’s just consider this; in the US poverty is rising, this is supposedly the richest country in the world and poverty is rising; where one in seven people in this great country are living in poverty. Some American Dream is that.

This is still a wealthy country, but the distribution of income has been becoming more and more third-world-like according to a report released last week by the Census Bureau on poverty and health insurance coverage. In 2009, 43.6 million people were in poverty, up from 39.8 million in 2008 — the third consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty, and the report draws you to the conclusion that the countries closest to the U.S. are Rwanda and Nepal. Just something to keep in mind as we think of the cuts in benefits on the way, and what happens in the US inevitably happens in the UK. 

Are would-be racist murders roaming Canning Town?"

Time just to up-date on an earlier post of this week, and in regard to Newham Council and the Metropolitan Police attempt to harass residents of Canning Town. I was pleased that the Council Officer who put his name to a letter sent out threatening amongst other things eviction from council tenancies, read our post along with the London Olympic Committee, and that it caught the eye of some journalists.

Just goes to prove, what having and maintaining a blog can do!”

In an article published in this weeks Economist that I read it describes Canning Town like this:

“The average life expectancy in Westminster is 78 for men and 85 for women. In Canning Town, a poor area just eight stops east on the Jubilee line, it is 71 and 78 respectively. So for every stop the train makes, locals can expect to live nearly a year less. Glaswegian MPs can produce even starker facts about disparities in life expectancy between the richest and poorest bits of their city.”

Now I don’t want to spend my time depressing everyone that reads this blog, but the fact is that Canning Town is depressing, it’s very air has that smell of deprivation about it, you see it on the faces of the residents who try to go about their everyday business, of just about keeping ones head above water.

The Council have big plans for Canning Town and what they describe as its regeneration project which has been included in the last Government's Mixed Communities Initiatives, which aims to create neighbourhoods with a balanced mix of owned and rented accommodation.

They say that Canning Town and an adjoining ward Custom House, is a highly accessible location in London and that this £3.7billion project aims to transform the area physically, socially and economically with up to 10,000 new homes and two new improved town centres.

Well I have no idea whether the funding for such an elaborate and systematic plan of action has been secured or if the planed cuts in government spending will put the boot in to these plans, but what I do know is that hundreds of houses and council owned flats are being decanted and pulled down whilst thousands are in need of public housing. Some of those in need of housing live in Anchor House on the Barking Road, historically a hostel for seafarers visiting the ports of East London. However today Anchor House is a charity based run hostel in Canning Town that provides support to over 200 homeless and workless people each year to help them move on to employment and independent living, or so they say!” All part of the big plan to control and direct the homeless into being useful members of capitalist society, whilst at the same time charging exorbitant rents, as indeed many have told me. Although for the time being rents are covered by Housing Benefit and the many I’ve met say they have been living there for years without so much as a sniff of an offer of their own accommodation.

Hopefully by now, you are beginning to taste the ambience of this environment, for this is an area of London and like many parts of Britain has been let down by the governments of all the political parties of capitalism and New Labour included. To think that there is an estate named after Keir Hardie is mind blowing, when I think what that party which he stared is doing here today.

There is one other matter which I’ve decide to raise on this blog, something that if proven to be with foundation, and as yet I have found no confirmation, but it would be safe to say must be viewed as a horrific and unacceptable racist attack that should not go un-noticed, or swept underneath any carpet, and that the Council and the Police should be held to account.

Now I must reiterate and repeat that I have no confirmation, despite looking for any news on the Internet and asking others in positions of closeness to the authorities, whether they could provide verification, has met with failure so far.

On Thursday this week I was informed by a Polish friend, that he and his nine associates all from Eastern Europe, where attacked by a gang whilst they slept rough under the flyover that runs through Canning Town and is part of the A13. He told me that a gang poured petrol on their belongings and set them alight, that the fire and ambulance service were in attendance. I can not say if anyone was hurt, as his English was limited. I have found my friend always to be a man of integrity and have no reason to disbelieve him, plus he was much shaken and visibly scared when he was trying his best to explain this terrible experience.

If this has happened then we in the Labour Movement should now be very concerned, and the Council and the Police should be asked why they are spending public money and time on clamping down on so-called anti-social behaviour and yet would-be racist murders are allowed to attack welcome guests to Britain, who along with our own unemployed are trying to find work – which is not a crime – and it should not be tolerated!” 

The Highest Inequaility Since The 1930s"

One big story or at least what we think it is a big story, and that’s the one the press has take up over the last two days in which it is reported that the poorest people in Britain are twice as likely to die before the age of 65 as the richest - the highest inequality in mortality since the economic depression of the 1930s.

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) study found that despite a continued rise in life expectancy, the gap between the richest and poorest in the UK was actually widening. The study look at mortality data for England and Wales, from the Office for National Statistics, and for Scotland, obtained from the General Register Office for Scotland.

Lead researcher Professor Danny Dorling said: "Health and wealth are directly linked and, unless we tackle the income gap, we could well see life expectancy actually starting to fall for the first time in the poorest areas." (inthenews.co.uk)

Of course these will be the poorest people that this government wants to work until they drop by raising the age a worker retires and can qualify for state pension, they the government, are moving towards considering the age of 70 as being appropriate.

So I can’t help thinking that this is a throwback to the days before the eight-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement, also known as the short-time movement, which had its origins in the Industrial Revolution here in Britain, where industrial production in large factories altered working life and enforced long hours and poor working conditions. With working conditions unregulated, the health, welfare and morale of working people suffered.

What’s next child labour, and then the capitalist class can get the most out of their slaves before they push up daisies in the local graveyard.

Over the past twenty-five years, there has been a substantial increase in work which is felt to be due, in part, by information technology and by an intense, competitive work environment.

Many mortals predicted that technology would eliminate most household chores and provide people with much more time to enjoy leisure activities; but capitalism in the modern world ignores this option, encouraging instead a consumerist culture and a political agenda that has elevated the work ethic to unprecedented heights and thereby reinforced the low value and worth attached to parenting and just enjoying life in this modern world.

The highest inequality recorded since at least 1921, stands as an anathematization upon capitalism!”

The Monopoly Game

One of the many attractions that I’ve enjoyed over the thirty years that I’ve lived in London, and I must say on and off, has been the sheer prominence of history, locked up in its working class areas such as here in my beloved East End. I can stand for hours in front of an old building imaging things or events, what life would have been like for a much poorer working class in times gone by. Well I say for a much poorer working class, but the truth is, that still in London’s east end, poverty has never completely disappeared as I’ve tried to highlight in posts now and again.

Constant and alphabet soup like in nature, the pace of change seems to have stepped up a gear or so recently, of course the city prepares for the Olympics, a non event in my book, sold as a complete pack of lies its so-called benefits to our community, and I have yet to see any. What I do see is luxury apartments shooting up everywhere for the rich and well off as they begin to move into an area occupied for centuries by the working class poor.

Many new apartments have been created or rather converted out of the old storage warehouses and factories that were once connected to the London Docks, the Docks serviced by the working class poor who made their homes in slums and hovels whilst the rich looked the other way when they were starving and trying to get by on the poverty pay, many died in that fight to survive but they never gave up. One weapon that was used in the fight for survival was the establishment of the cooperative movement that provided many cheap retail services to the working class. Now without the need of a history lesson here, the cooperative movement was untenable to capitalism and over a long period of time it set about dismantling and acquiring its assets, a good example of this would be the latest development to spring up in Whitechapel. Apartments in the luxury Sugar House start from £485,000 and go up to more than £1m for the penthouse pads. The gorgeous stone-carved grade II-listed building at 99 Leman Street was the Co-operative's headquarters in the late 1800s, and proving that Whitechapel is no longer as cheap as the Monopoly Game suggests (£60)

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For Your Sunday treat I've found some wonderful and extraordinarily old photographs of old East London hope you enjoy them:

 Aldgate Pump 1908

Leman Street 1902

Leman Street Today

Limehouse 1936

Munsell Street 1902

Whitechapel 1913

NEW DEPTHS OF DECEIT EVEN IN DEATH!

Health Secretary, Andy Burnham is trying to work NEW LABOURS latest (Scam) stratagem, not happy that last year 45,000 elderly people had to dig into their lifetimes savings or even sell their homes to help pay for their health care, and let’s not forget that these are the individuals that battled, defended and brought us through the aftermath of the second world war, they carried on that struggle through the hard times of poverty and the ration books.

Not what my country can do for me, but what I can do for my country the words of President, John, F .Kennedy come to mind here, but they did do for their country, with blood, sweat, tears and all. And now after all their purposeful and industrious endeavours’ the politicians have come to realize that all that hard work, struggle and saving that they selfishly did for family and the next generation, has necessitated that their property and equity has increased in value, believed to be in the region of one TRILLION POUNDS.

And they the bailing-out the banks political class, want it! £20,000 death duty, I hope the people of this country, will not let this happen, this attempt to deprive by deceit!

THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM is failing us all!

The National Deficit has been brought about by the same 10% of the people that run and own the country, now they want the people that rebuilt the country in the hard times after the war, to do it all again in death, how much lower can they sink!


Post By: Brain Hopper or In The Box

St.Valentines Day and the poor are still dying on a grand scale!

A Robin Hood Tax on banks’ financial transactions could raise hundreds of billions of pounds to fight poverty, protect public services and tackle climate change. Is the new idea being shown the red carpet by those who still think that capitalism can be regulated and made obedient as the command given to a dog ordered to heel.

The Robin Hood Tax campaign is calling on the leaders of the UK’s political parties to support a global tax on the banks to help repair the human damage caused by the global economic crisis, protect public services at home, fight poverty abroad and help foot the bill for climate change.

The campaign, supported by almost 50 organisations including Oxfam, the TUC, Barnardo’s, the Salvation Army, ActionAid and Save the Children, is launched with a promotional film starring Bill Nighy, and written and directed by Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Comic Relief). It is backed by regional events, advertising and online promotions challenging politicians, public and banks to Be Part of the World’s Greatest Bank Job.

Today on St.Valentines Day and despite not receiving  any cards, I became quite angry on the Sunday-morning walk to my local shops for the papers. I was thinking that poverty its existence is very much treated like the throwaway food containers, that litter the streets of Canning Town. Poverty in Africa or Asia evokes much sympathy not least because people living on less than a dollar a day are often so visibly ill or hungry. UK poverty comes in less stark form and is therefore trickier and almost ignored by the media, often do I wonder why coverage of UK poverty is curiously anonymous?

However poverty is mentioned in another context often, crime, heath and education.

The World Heath Organisation (WHO); has said that "social injustice" is Killing people on a grand scale. In countries with high levels of inequality, the poor, even if they stay of the booze and drugs, fags and crisps, and even if they are comfortable by international  standards, will die early.

African Americans have a lower life expectancy than, for example, inhabitants od Jamaica, Cuba or Lebonon. Poor children in parts of Glasgow won't live as long as children in India, Philippines and Poland.

That's something to think about and it wont change even if Robin Hood himself came back!        

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Child Poverty at Christmas

Yesterday I blogged about Father Christmas and a pre-Christmas dinner organised by a local church in Canning Town. What I really wanted to talk about was poverty, but I had not quite pulled together my thoughts; particularity about poverty here in my manner Canning Town which is a part of the London Borough of Newham.

I had the good fortune yesterday of meeting at this event a mother and her four young children, and I had the opportunity of not only enjoying their company, which made a very pleasant afternoon spent, and in all the places a church, but much more important was the chat that I had with this wonderful mother, if there was a prize to be had for devotion to the responsibility of parenting, then I wouldn’t hesitate in awarding it to this mum. All four children ages ranging from 11 to the youngest of four were so well behaved and polite that I would have no bother adopting them just for Christmas.

In our discussion during and after the meal this mother shared with me some of the very real difficulties that this family experienced in the struggle to survive in today’s modern world. As a family they were living in private rented accommodation; their rent being £300 a week, with the husband working as a security guard which in London is not a particularly well paid occupation, this meant that most of their expenditure was sucked up just paying bills to keep the utility’s on; but keeping warm and in this cold snap was proving to be problematic, running out of funds meant not being able to charge up the electric key or the gas meter, she told me that this was never a problem until about two years ago, when the prices started to rise like a broken thermometer gone crazy. The family had decided that rationing would make things last longer, this meant watching television covered in quilts and blankets in the evenings.

With a young growing family clothing and the replacement of footwear didn’t come cheap, even in the many charity shops clothing is expensive and there very prominence on the high street has led to the demise of the jumble sale once a reliable option now closed to the many seeking to obtain cheep durable outfits for children.

One other thing that I felt rather up-set about was that this Christmas, with the lack of funds things would be scarce in terms of gifts and presents for the children, the mother told me; that she and her husband had explained the situation to their children and she said they had told them; that the most important thing was being together as a family. I asked the mother did she think that she was in anyway unique in this situation, were any of her friends or neighbours experiencing the same difficulties, her reply was somehow as I anticipated; most were struggling to keep their heads above the water line.

This family I should also emphasize, has spent 11 years on the council housing list and that the children have always lived in the private rented sector, they have never been able to call any particular place their permanent home.

Over the course of the last two years I have written much about child poverty in Britain and particularly about its existences in Canning Town. I find it an absolute abhorrence and detestation that it exists still in the 21st century that children are not only suffering but possibly becoming scarred and deeply affected, as it must surely impede upon their development. I have often read reports in provincial newspapers that organisations are having to handout food parcels to help families cope because child poverty has become widespread in our towns and cities, this is not the short of information that makes the front page of a national newspaper or an item on news at ten, more important to report that the recession is coming to an end, that the housing market is picking up or that a syndicate of factory workers have won big time on the lotto.

So what I’m saying is that child poverty is not considered to be newsworthy; and I wonder why?

Even the politicians give it almost no prominence in their everyday deliberations, how can that be when you consider the 20 parliamentary constituencies with the highest levels of child poverty including Edinburgh, near to where the Chancellor Alistair Darling is an MP, 94% of children in Greendykes and Niddrie Mains ward live in poverty or are in families struggling on low incomes, and just for good measure let me mention some of the others: Bethnal Green and Bow, Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath, Manchester Central and of course Poplar and Canning Town, which has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the country.

Bethnal Green and Bow’s MP is George Galloway, the so-called progressive Respect leader, but when I organised a meeting two years ago on child poverty in Canning Town he tried his level best to get out of it, but after applying gentle pressure and when he did attended he spoke about everything but child poverty, considering that his constituency has a very high percentage of children suffering in poverty, he has been nothing more than a complete disappointment because he would rather spend his precious time delivering help convoys to the Gaza. I have no problem in saying that he is a waste of space!

This is a subject that I could go on and on about, it’s more prevalent and more obvious today than at any recent time in the last 20 years. It is the legacy that I will remember New Labour for more than anything else, as it has taken a very serious turn for the worst under their stewardship, but lets be clear and say that poverty in all its vile forms will never be eradicated unless you are prepared to get rid of the capitalist system lock stock and barrel, then and only then, will our children have the best chances to make the most of their lives.

Christmas Cheer!

The last few day’s I‘ve been rather busy and have not had the time to blog as much as I would have liked, and I’ve had a bit of writers block. However, today I went along to a local church just down the road from me, who cater and provide food and support to hard-up families struggling to make ends meet in Canning Town. The occasion was the annual Christmas dinner with presents included, and with special quest the bishop The Rt Rev Thomas McMahon, Bishop of Brentwood; he oversees a large and varied diocese stretching from East London to the North Sea.

The Diocese comprises the Administrative County of Essex, the unitary authorities of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock, and the London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Newham, Redbridge and Waltham Forest.

And of course Father Christmas made an appearance, I was trying to workout; just how old Santa, standing next to the elegant nativity display, handing out the wrapped parcels to all, just how this invented character fitted in to the doctrine and school of thought served and up here by the Catholic  Church, made me wonder!

Father Christmas is the name used in many English speaking countries for a symbolic figure associated with Christmas. A similar figure with the same name (in other languages) exists in several other countries, including France (Père Noël) Spain (Papá Noel), Malta (il-Krismis Fader), Brazil (Papai Noel), Portugal (Pai Natal), Italy (Babbo Natale) and Romania (Moş Crăciun). In past centuries, the English Father Christmas was also known as Old Father Christmas, Sir Christmas, and Lord Christmas.

Father Christmas neither typified the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, or was he a gift bringer, nor particularly associated with children. The pre-modern representations of the gift-giver merged with the British character Father Christmas, to create the character known to Americans as Santa Claus. And it was the American Company Coca-Cola and its artist Haddon Sundblom who in the 1930s introduced the figure that we all imagine is the representation of Father Christmas (Santa Claus) that we all know today. Father Christmas modern creation evolved also from the following poem.

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his sack.
His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump,--a right jolly old elf--
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

Written by Clement C. Moore in 1822 as a Christmas present to his children.

I think that’s quite a lovely poem really and composed for the poet’s children; who he clearly loved. I can imagine that so many will say, what harm dose old Santa do then, well that’s a really good question I suppose, with no easy answer, for who would shatter the magic held by millions of children, nay trillions of innocents and young, but add to that the trillions of children thought-out the world whom Father Christmas is nothing more than a fictional character. We forget about them children or put them out of our minds, when we sit around the Christmas tree or tuck into our festive food. Is it that Father Christmas is nothing more than a sales gimmick? After all Coca-cola successfully used him to sell their drinks and they gave him his distinctive red outfit, if you like typecast him in such away that it’s stuck like glue the colour of its branded product.

Welfare not Workfare

Plotting and scheming for Welfare not Workfare


On 12 November, it became legal to force unemployed people to work for their benefits – to do 40-hour-weeks for under a third of the minimum wage. The Government's Welfare Reform Act introduced 'Work for your Benefit' pilot schemes, which once completed can be rolled out without any further debate. It also attacked single parents – who face sanctions if they fail to prepare for work outside the home as soon as their child turns three – and people with impairments, disabilities or severe and enduring illnesses.

Two days later, members of twenty-three different groups from around the UK met to share information and plan resistance to these pernicious attacks, which will take their toll on working-class and low-income communities.

Groups present included Unemployed Workers Unions from six cities across the UK, the Disabled People's Direct Action Network, Southwark Mind, WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities), Single Mothers' Self-Defence (part of Global Women's Strike) and members of the union in the Department of Work and Pensions – PCS. They were joined by feminist and other groups (all listed below).

The strength to be gained from meeting in solidarity with each other was immense and created a real sense that a movement is building: a movement which will not only fight the immediate attacks of the Welfare Abolition Act, but draw out the connections between our struggles and together challenge the ideology driving them.

The Act seeks to make our worth dependent on work; work defined in the really narrow terms of waged work for someone else's profit. By making us compete with those in waged work for non-existent jobs, it helps drive down wages and conditions. We all take the brunt as the rich make even more money out of us.

• We want solidarity with and from people in low-income, temporary and insecure work. These are the jobs that 'work-for-your-benefit' would replace.

• We want caring to be recognised as important work in society. Single parents are already working and benefits are their entitlement to a social wage.

• We want justice for people with severe or enduring illnesses. The drive to get people off incapacity benefits and Employment and Support Allowance and into work is making people more ill with stress. Only we know what we are capable of and it is wrong for conditions and sanctions to be imposed on us to force us into unsuitable work, unwanted “work-related activity” or “motivation sessions” which press us into their programmes of treatment for addictions and other conditions.

• We want the right not to work. People not in waged work contribute loads to their communities. We do not want to be forced into mind-numbing, insecure work that leaves us no better off, or worse off than on benefits and definitely not at £1.27 an hour!

• We want free, high-quality, public services to support older people and people with impairments/disabilities. People should not have to become employers managing 'individual budgets' in order to access the care they need.

• We want to stand in solidarity with migrant workers. Just as unemployed people are pitted against people in work, so migrant workers are pitted against us. We believe that we must stand together and demand all of our rights together.

• We want to fight privatisation of the Department for Work and Pensions. Attacks on DWP and Jobcentre Plus workers are attacks on our rights to access welfare. We will support the PCS' fight against cuts.

• We want an end to the apartheid system of benefits, healthcare and housing for asylum seekers. UK Border Agency support should be scrapped -- where people are forced to survive on incomes far below benefit levels – which are already set at subsistence level. No slum housing and dangerous and dirty hostels, dispersal, or vouchers.

After a day of info-sharing, outrage and scheming, we formed a few working groups. If you're able to help out with any of the projects, please email hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com

1. Media working group – monitor and respond to hostile articles in the media.

2. Our propaganda – creating posters, newsletters etc to get our messages out

3. Website – put together a website as a space to share resources, feedback and comment, get the word out about our campaign and publicise local and national action.

4. Our welfare rights – compiling information to help us access our rights now and creating 'Know your rights' leaflets.

5. Defeating the Work for your Benefits pilots – research to support the network to take action against the pilots.

If you want to stay in touch, please join our discussion list here: http://groups.google.com/group/no-to-welfare-abolition

If you agree with our demands above and would like to take part in our campaign, please ask your group to sign up to this statement and email hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com

And put the next national meeting in your diary now.... 17 April in Manchester!

The meeting had people in attendance from: South Manchester Community Union, London Anarcha-Feminist Kolektiv, London Coalition Against Poverty, Feminist Action, Defend Welfare Newcastle, Manchester Unemployed Workers Union, Cambridge Unemployed Workers' Union, PCS, Hackney Unemployed Workers, Single Mothers' Self Defence, Winvisible, Alliance for Workers' Liberty, Disabled People's Direct Action Network, Southwark Mind, Women's Office Manchester Student Union, Riveters feminist group in Manchester, Feminist Fightback, Industrial Workers of the World, No Borders, Stop Deportations, Anarchist Federation, Communist Students, Salford Unemployed Workers' Union.

Handing the banks the dough...

Alistair Darling dramatically flung another £40 billion bailing-out yet again the banking system yesterday, not that it hasn’t escaped my notice, that’s ten time the amount needed to halve child poverty by 2010.

This say’s a lot about this government and its priority processing and in who's interests, even before the recession there were 4 million children living below the poverty line. Now, many families are falling deeper and deeper into poverty, as unemployment rises and working hours are reduced.

Will we see more children growing up without the basic minimum that they need?

Hunger in the Face of Plenty

One sixth of humanity does not have enough to eat and a child dies from hunger every ten seconds. More than one billion people worldwide are undernourished, reports the UN. The global situation is dire, especially in the poorest countries. The annual report, assembled by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO), shows that the economic crisis has exacerbated the problem, leaving the world at its highest levels of hunger since 1970.

Since 2007, there have been riots over food in more than 60 countries.”

People are famished or undernourished, since they have no incomes and cannot care for or support their families; they are left with feelings of hopelessness and despair. That desperation can lead to tension, conflict and even violence when the foodstuff of life is denied.

In the better off West we do not hear much about world hunger in the news or media; not unless some celebrity pop stars decide to make a name for themselves and holds a concert, thereby appeasing a conscience and lifestyle based on wealth and privilege that most of the X Factor contestants only dream about. The latest celebrity to speck-out is Singer Melanie Brown who has urged the government to step up efforts to tackle poverty.


The former Spice Girl claimed some of the poorest people in society have been left feeling “abandoned”.

“The Government have got to admit there’s a massive problem here. We need to work together to change things,” the Mirror quoted her as saying.

Brown was speaking out after spending a week on a run-down council estate in her native Leeds for an ITV documentary, ‘7 Days On The Breadline’.

The show saw Mel B looking after five kids, aged six, eight, 12, 16 and 18, on a budget of just 264 pounds a week.

“I did it to make a point and show that just because you’re a celebrity, you can live on benefits. But even I was shocked by the scale of what I saw,” she said.

Hunger and access to good food is not only a problem that haunts the millions in faraway continents such as Africa or Asia, it can be found under our very noses in most of our towns and cities. I have mentioned many times on this blog about the hundreds who line up every night in locations around London for food hand-outs or what are called goody bags, in other words food parcels. For many this is becoming a way of life and the only way to survive in modern Britain the fifth richest nation in the world. One contributing factor must be the government’s severe and constant onslaught on benefits with the result that many are being driven away and into grinding poverty while banks and other financial institutions are given billions if not trillions; like pouring liquid gold profusely into a bottomless pit.

The government’s recent welfare reforms will force more vulnerable people deeper into poverty in the years to come and with the return of the Tories after the general election would mean a more stringent regime with tougher measures.

Many will say that the system overlooks millions and all over the world, some to a lesser and some to a greater degree. I will argue that the system of capitalism never intended to help the poor or weak, for it’s not in its interest or has it ever been and therefore the only cure to poverty is the complete abolition of this system that allows a child wherever in the world to first cry out with pain and then die needlessly of hunger and in the face of plenty.

fuel poverty

Research from the Department of Energy and Climate Change has now confirmed that one in four families in the UK are now trapped in “fuel poverty” whereby at least 10% of their income is spent on gas and electricity.

This figure has risen by 15% since 2007 and now takes in 4 million people although projections for this year suggest the figure could rise to as high as 6.6 million people. This is almost 3 times the figure from 2004 and is alarming. These figures are expected to rise even further as energy prices go up to pay for new generation of nuclear power stations.

Despite the fact that the government has promised to address the problem of fuel poverty and energy prices, in reality just like child poverty little has been done As a consequence, more and more people are now falling into the fuel poverty trap and the 6.6 million people forecast for this year could well increase in the short to medium term.

Cravings rise for economic recovery

Yesterdays information on the economic forefront, that was being driven and given to the media, prevails that longings are generating towards a brisk economic recovery following a swathe of encouraging signs that suggest the UK economy is on the road to expansion. Which challenges in away what I articulated in my last post. Far from being an economic expert, I am just one of life’s observers and formulate my opinions on what I see, hear and read, but observations and fact finding play a big part, and of course my own experience.

I made reference to the 1930s in fact I drew a comparison; but the myth and reality of that period is two very important truths. On the one hand it is remembered and retains that all-pervasive image of the ‘wasted years’. Even today we imagine unemployment, hunger marches, appeasement, and the rise of fascism. This time is best summed up by A.J. P. Taylor who has written:

The nineteen-thirties have been called the black years, the devil’s decade. Its popular image can be expressed in two phrases: mass unemployment and ‘appeasement’. No set of political leaders have been judged so contemptuously since the days of Lord North.

Taylor continues:

Yet, at the same time, most English people were enjoying a richer life than any previously known in the history of the world: longer holidays, shorter hours, higher real wages. They had motor cars, cinemas, radio sets, and electrical appliances. The two sides of life did not join up.

Interesting to consider the light that Taylor throws on that period before the war, and that was not escaping; and it would, of course, be fatuous to suggest that the 1930s were not for many thousands of people a time of great hardship and personal suffering. However for those in work, the 1930 were a period of rising living standards and new levels of consumption, on which a considerable degree of industrial growth was based.

I’ve also discovered that throughout the interwar period two benefit systems operated in parallel in the United Kingdom, the national unemployment insurance started in 1911 and made available to all workers in 1921, and the vestiges of the nineteenth century Poor Law; that is just an interesting supplement.

Returning to the essence of my post; it’s notable that in the 1930s many new industries emerged such as service and entertainment, with travel broadening the horizons of millions. All this led to a network of roads and motorways, filling stations and so on. This was a time of the new Factories that looked like exhibition buildings, giant cinemas and dance-halls, cafes, motor coaches, wireless, hiking, greyhound racing and the dirt tracks, swimming pools, and almost everything given away for cigarette coupons, it also gave expansion to such a shopping icon as Woolworths. By the 1920s and1930s a new Woolworths store was opening every 17 days. Local officials across the country were desperate for Woolies to open in their town, and if it did so it was seen as a seal of approval for the area. The British image of the chain was raised further when the company raised enough money to buy two Spitfires during World War II.
Woolworths dropped the fixed price concept during World War II. The 6d upper limit had been stretched to breaking point during the 1930s as Woolies started selling socks and shoes individually for sixpence. And if you wanted a saucepan, you had to buy the lid separately too! As rationing came in, the 6d upper limit had to go.After the war, Woolies grew even more quickly than before. Alongside the programme re-opening stores affected by the events of World War II, 330 new stores were opened within a six year period in the 1950s. At one point, stores were opening at the rate of two per week. The 1,000th Woolworths store in Britain was opened in 1956 the year I was born and of course, I digress, wandering from the main subject again. But what is being demonstrated I hope; is that capitalism even in the depths of slump and depression as worst as the one with hunger marches and soup kitchens, never stopped its drive towards it only concern, that of profits, whatever and no matter what the costs were to wider sections of the community. So long as there is a profit in it, do it, has always been the approach of this system, from one generation to the next. So when the profits slide or the competitive edge is lost, well Woolworths 2009 says it all; 27,000 workers sent to the dole. It's not that the goods and things sold in Woolies were not useful or expensive but rather the constant sifting ground without gravity of the market, imposes and dictates!

I hold the view that recession, is good for capitalism, even though the economic crisis is seen by many as unstable thwart with danger, bankruptcies and redundancies and so on! However it’s an economic crisis’ after which the ‘patient’ either dies or gets better and survives, and around we go again. In a recession, in a crisis such as this, surgery is carried out, without the medicines or anaesthetic agents of a sane and humane society, discarding any concern with the alleviation of suffering, which is considered burdensome; and has costs that are not compatible to the capitalist system of society. The knife of the butcher is then used; cutting away the lean red flesh and muscle tissue of profit, discarding the rest. Governments will administer, in a desperate attempt to prop up the patient with oxygen of stimulation, dumping trillions down its gullet in the hope of recovery.

Capitalism will not cease on its or of its own accord, and no one can prophesy its frequent twists and turns or even it final cessation, nevertheless I believe that a system that denies the many the real fruits of their Labour, will one day be vanished, when the many see the light of reason and demand the complete abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a system of society in which the means of production and distribution are owned and controlled by the whole community.

‘Poverty Over’

On my way to central London yesterday and in the vicinity of Limehouse, well to be precise under the railway bridge of Poplar and Limehouse Station; my eyes fell upon an exact copy of the above billboard poster.
Actually I was on my way to meet some friends who every night queue up at the food handouts in Holborn’s Lincolns Inn Fields. I was on my pushbike traveling through one of the most poverty stricken areas in the country. I will spare you the statistics’ about child poverty in London’s East End as I’ve given them so many times in previous posts on this not bleak but black and distressful subject.

But of all the places to display such a poster it just beggars belief, it really dose!

Christian Aid is the charity behind this ad campaign, as it has a vision that poverty can be eradicated. Instead of prayer! It aims to stimulate debate and invite people to take action to help bring about political change; and so they say. The activity is called ‘Poverty Over’ and thousands of pounds have been spent putting up static and digital billboards in community and other high-impact sites. A few thousand ‘Squid’ has been dished-out to advertising development consultancies that have come up with this unintelligent, daisycutter advertisement which will have as much impact as a spider living amongst a pride of lions.

Child poverty is a scourge on our children wherever in the world they live; it has always existed in one form or the other in every county of the world. Only a few weeks ago MPs were debating the Child Poverty Bill in the House of Commons, and all that this bill amounted to was placing a duty on local authorities to undertake a child poverty assessment in their area's and then develop a child poverty action plan.

Common sense, empty talk, what will it take? To ensure that every child gets a square meal - an earthquake?

Nelson Mandela once said: “Poverty is man made and can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings”.

One look at South Africa tells us that Mandela and all his grand words have eradicated nothing. What we must ask ourselves is why that is, and not just of him but of all the establishment politicians in every corner of the globe.

All the people of the world, wherever they live, whatever their skin colour, whatever language they speak, really do deserve better than the few crumbs sill cast aside from the masters table. It’s not a pop concert or a poster demanding an end to poverty thats needed but a movement, a world movement for Socialism that will really take that gigantic step to make poverty history, once, and for all humanity.

As always I welcome all comments and contributions to my blog, so long as they are kept clean, I will have no problem in publishing them. And as Christian Aid wish to start a debate and stimulate a discussion, I offer this post as my contribution and would welcome any comments they may like to make by way of return, as I will be forwarding this post to them when publishing.

WORLD POVERTY

Most people are aware of the awful poverty that exists in parts of Asia and India but capitalism is a world system with world-wide social problems. "Volunteers from one of the world's most impoverished countries are to travel to Scotland to help people in communities blighted by drink and violence. The aid workers from Pakistan have been warned that they will see shocking poverty when they arrive next month in the east end of Glasgow to work in some of Britain's most run-down housing schemes.... In Pakistan, a third of the 170m population lives below the poverty line - defined as earning less than $2 (£1.36) a day. However, the average life expectancy for men is 62, compared with 54 in parts of Glasgow" (Sunday Times, 12 April). No doubt many of these doomed men will be singing on a Saturday night "Glasgow Belongs To Me". In reality though, Glasgow – like ever city on Earth – belongs to the capitalist.

From The Socialist Standard, Voice from the Back May 2009

The Hungry Thirties

During this world crisis of capitalism a great many on the so-called left like to cunningly conjure up images of the hungry thirties; a time undoubtedly of mass unemployment, hunger marches and the rise of fascism at home and abroad. Many social commentators of the time were fulling over each other trying to paint the picture of a world in poverty Jack London and George Orwell come to mind. It may even be argued that the conceptualisation of the hungry thirties or even what some describe as the 'devil's decade' may have attained for that decade a far worst press stereotyped without escape. This concentration upon unemployment and social distress does much to distort our view of that period. It would be vacuous of course to suggest that the 1930s were not for many millions around the world a time of great hardship and personal suffering, and as if the world was ever free under capitalism from ravishing and assaulting poverty. Even in the 1930s living standards were rising along with new levels of consumption, upon which a considerable degree of industrial growth was based. The economic record shows in the aftermath of the Great Crash and financial crisis of 1931, new industries began to forge ahead at an unprecedented rate. The Central Electricity Board meant that Britain had one of the most advanced systems of electricity supply in the world. As a result consumption of electricity rose fourfold between 1925 and 1939, and it became the driving dynamo of new industry as mass production methods began to be used for the manufacture of consumer goods. Under this new forging capitalism beginning to shape the way we live today, important developments occurred in the patterns of trading and marketing, goods were packaged and priced by the manufacturer, rather than by the shopkeeper. Motor transport allowed direct delivery to multiple branches and the first mail order schemes were introduced. Under the impact of the this retailing 'revolution', almost a thousand chain stores were built in the inter-war period, showing virtually no decline in the depression. Marks and Spencer, for example, one of the most successful of the clothing retailers, opened 129 stores from 1931 to 1935 and extended 60 more. By the outbreak of the Second World War, Marks and Spark's, Lipton's, Sainsbury's and Woolworth's had become household names in almost every medium-sized town. bringing with them a wider range of foodstuffs, clothing and household gods than had been previously available at the traditional corner shop. It is ironical then to think that Woolworth's was born in one recession and then died in another 78 years later. It is worthwhile noting that in the 1930s employment opportunities were expanding for shop workers, clerical staff, transport employees and the professional and managerial salariat. The background to many of these developments is of the thirties wich is most easily forgotten amid the prevailing image of the 'hungry thirties'.

fuel poverty

Around five million households are believed to have suffered fuel poverty this winter – meaning they will spend over ten per cent of their income on energy bills.
Millions of older people, the unemployed and families on low incomes who have just suffered through one of the coldest winters in years will be devastated and dismayed to lean that this afternoon The Fuel Poverty Bill was thrown out of parliament because not enough MPs could be bothered to vote.
The Bill proposed to make homes more energy-efficient and introduce lower prices for vulnerable households, but was rejected in its second reading in the House of Commons. It received 89 votes for and two votes against - but needed 100 votes to get through. The failure of this Bill is a devastating blow for millions of the most vulnerable in our society who will now be left struggling in fuel poverty."

Households Exposed

Norwich Union has and withdrawn unemployment-only cover.

The move could mean tens of thousands of households are left exposed and unable to meet their mortgage payments if they are made redundant from their jobs.

It comes as exclusive research for revealed that premiums for this type of insurance have increased 17 per cent in the past year.

Norwich Union has disclosed it no longer offers unemployment-only cover available through its partnerships with Paymentshield and Select & Protect. And it refused to rule out extending this policy to other partnerships.

Norwich Union's cover pays out to workers who are made redundant and covers their mortgage payments for up to 12 months.

Unemployment is rising at its fastest rate for 17 years and is heading toward the two million mark, according to latest figures. The financial services and construction industries have been particularly badly hit by the credit crisis.

Research revealed the cost of unemployment cover has increased from £3.07 per £100 to £3.58 per £100.

A spokesman for Norwich Union confirmed the products had been withdrawn, saying: "We are responding to current market conditions and as an insurer we want to balance the risk of our portfolio."

USA 2008

The Great Depression

Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis
Symbolic of the downturn until now has been the parades of houses seized in foreclosure all across the country, and myriad families separated from their homes. But now the crisis is starting to hit the country in its gut. Getting food on the table is a challenge many Americans are finding harder to meet. As a barometer of the country's economic health, food stamp usage may not be perfect, but can certainly tell a story.

Michigan has been in its own mini-recession for years as its collapsing industrial base, particularly in the car industry, has cast more and more out of work. Now, one in eight residents of the state is on food stamps, double the level in 2000.

Inevitably, comparisons with the Great Depression, when food stamps did not exist, are being made. Then, a quarter of the workforce was unemployed, compared with just 5 per cent today. By one estimate, 60 per cent of the populace lived in poverty in the depths of the Depression. The 30 per cent poverty experienced in some US inner cities and depressed rural areas today is showing signs it is capable of reaching that level.

Fuel Poverty

Fuel poverty hits 3.5 million homes

At Least 1 million more households are living in fuel poverty, according to new government figures.

The number of homes in Britain spending more than ten per cent of their income on heating rose to 3.5million in 2006 from the previous year.

Environment minister Hilary Benn (son of Tony) said Labour was committed to tackling fuel poverty but that ‘sharply rising energy price rises have made that goal increasingly difficult’.
Meanwhile, Help the Aged said more than 25,000 people died from cold related illnesses, such as pneumonia each winter.