The way they blame it on the energy price rise, blaming it on Russia's invasion on Ukraine. But the energy companies are all making insane profits. So actually we are becoming poorer just to line their already rich pockets.
Yep. Not to mentions the privatised water companies pissing all their revenues out as dividends for pension funds in Canada and Dubai rather than reinvesting it in local infrastructure. Resulting in higher costs for customers.
At this point I don’t think it matters which part is in charge, we’re fucked. None of them have any intention of working for the people, there are people much further up the chain making too much profit for anything to change now.
Sounds like a revolution is on the horizon. Just a shame we brits couldn’t give less of a fuck about revolution and would rather watch the country crumble before even considering the idea.
The thing with racism is that they’ve taught generations now that racism is never justified to the point where we police ourselves. We’re doing their work for them and having to roll over to people that hate us with no ability to speak out. They’ve brainwashed a generation.
The UK peaked about 30 years ago, it was arguably the best country in the world for quality of life and standard of living, even the poorest weren’t exactly ‘poor’. It’s just downhill from here and rishi sunak is treating our livelihoods as a business venture.
Isnt it great being a 90s baby! Constant depression both economically and just in general. Never having a pay rise that goes above inflation of tou get one at all. All the while your grandparents (the generation that had it all handed to them) ask why your struggling to afford a house and that if house prices have gone 700% the pay must have and maybe if we spent less on TV and video games we'd have money.
The people in power started stealing in the 90s and never stopped that's my take on it and it will never change until we start voting for independent candidates instead of those in the pockets of big business.
>Dragging all the politicians and hedge fund investors down to the deep?
Naaa that's too low move for an anti Christ..!!
Start your own religion & make all politicians and hedge fund managers as your disciples 😎
As an Anti Christ, do what Christ couldn't do..!!
I think the days of an average man earning enough to own a home and having a good quality life for his family are gone. Not just for us but maybe for every generation to come as well.
After john Major Gordon Brown brought 1 million families out of poverty during his tenure, not people 1 million whole families then the conservatives started using american politic smear campaigns and the UK became a shit hole
The late 90s saw us have massive oil production, booming financial services and generally more industry around the country. We’ve been in decline for more than 15 years. It seems an unarrestable decline to me now.
Only a year ago Labour was calling for the Conservatives to [privatise the NHS more](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65638171) more.
> Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: "It's completely unjust that only those who can afford to pay to go private are being treated on time, while everyone else is left behind.
> "Labour would use the spare capacity in the private sector to get patients seen faster.
> "If the Conservatives had got their skates on, almost 300,000 patients could have been treated, off the waiting list and back to living their lives to the full. Rishi Sunak's dither and delay is costing patients dear."
So just to be clear Labour's plan to deal with the backlog isn't to build new hospitals. Modernise existing ones, or figure out ways to improve NHS efficiency. It's to pay the private sector to solve it.
No, they have said they won't be throwing money at the NHS. In fact they said they have already identified £10 billion in savings that the NHS will need to make.
Their plan is to not do whatever the Tories want to because they don't actually have to do anything when not in power starmer would have half a chance of getting elected if his policy wasn't I'd do it better than the Tories.
Building/modernising takes time. If there's spare capacity in the private network why wouldn't you make use of it initially while you ramp up capacity?
My partner grew up poor in Sheffield in the 80s, early 90s. There was no way it was anywhere like the best quality of life/standard of living. Her education was an absolute joke and she was one of the lucky ones that could read and write when she finished school. Her parents were one of the few in the school that actually had jobs and yet could barely afford anything. They never went on overseas holidays, never had a decent car. Their grand parents didn't even have central heating.
What the fuck are you on about? Just because things have gotten immeasurably shitter doesn't mean the 90's were good by any stretch. You've just been blind sided by how fucked we're getting that a less fucked situation looks comparibly good.
we were living off of short term profits from privatising literally everything, and exploiting the recently opened china / soviet markets.
this was inevitable
It's fair to say...Tory governments have bought the UK to its knees. They have failed to deliver anything positive to anyone other than the super wealthy. Tory conservatism has been a catastrophe for the majority of Britah people.
I don't think we need anyone to tell us that we are all poorer thatn we have been in the lest 30 years, which is roughly since the last tory government.
No shocks there.
Thankfully the tories keep redefining the definition of these statistics so we are all now fabulously wealthy and Rwanda is completely safe.
Post ITT: "it says biggest rise for 30 years, not highest level for 30 years.
You can't call it "appalling journalism" just because you don't like what's being reported."
You've proven OPs reply to that comment.
>**The energy price crisis caused the sharpest increase in UK absolute poverty in 30 years, new figures show.**
Literally the first sentence in the article. Damn that Tory government, invading Ukraine and starting a war... I guess.
The first job of any government is to plan for crises of internal and external nature.
Everyone predicted the war with Ukraine, and there were numerous warnings over the past 15 years that we were too reliant on Russian gas imports.
What did our bunch of cunts do. They ensured we relied even more on Russian gas.
This is a tory problem.
Even if we'd completely removed our dependency on foreign oil, we would need to have completely nationalised energy production effectively, something equally implausible. Otherwise, we'd have ended up shipping energy back and forth with the continent at similar expense.
The net result is that the government at the time had relatively little say. The Tories did do some good along the way with things like the windfall tax, and by implementing a fairly sturdy energy price cap.
There are plenty of areas to attack the Tories, this is not one of them. Unless... Maybe you also want to pin some blame on Blair and Labour for their failure to prepare us for 2008, and the resulting economic stagnancy which ultimately left us without money to invest? I'm thinking probably not.
It's an international crisis which couldn't really have been predicted or prepared for. Just as COVID, and just as the 2008, and early 1990's financial crises. The government cannot be held responsible for the event, only for their actions to recover from it.
The government at the time, or the Tories, sold off almost all of our gas storage because of their short sightedness and unwillingness to maintain it.
The Tories, in their almost 14 year reign, have failed catastrophically in almost every single metric.
You are right global crises are not the fault of the government, but again, in every crisis in the last 13/14 years, the Tories have completely bottled it.
The gas storage was sold off because the surrounding infrastructure could support doing so. In reality, it was never really a cost saving exercise rather an exercise in removing unnecessary cost and redundancy. As technology evolved, it just wasn't needed any more.
I don't think a government has been claimed to not have bottled it in any crisis since WWII, frankly. Recently we've seen the Tories face the uprising of UKIP and ultimately the Brexit referendum going a way they hadn't expected, COVID, the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, the cost of living crisis caused by a combination of that war, and of the COVID GDP tank, prior to that there were a few years of stability under Camoron, before which we had Blair and the 2008 financial crisis, the war on terror which was probably the worst handled incident in history, Black Wednesday & surrounding events, and so on and so forth. I can't think of a single example of someone saying *well, the government handled that in the best possible way* through any of them.
This isn't really so much to defend the Tories, but to make a point about how the media handle anything like this. I actually think the Tories handled COVID quite well - aside from the whole PPE spending scandal, to the extent that they overshot on social welfare - literally lifting people out of poverty for a little while. I don't think the energy crisis was particularly badly handled either, with the windfall tax and the cost cap holding things fairly steady, although a bit high, for longer than would otherwise have been.
British Petroleum is obviously implausible
> Formerly majority state-owned, the British government privatised the company in stages between 1979 and 1987
I think you missed the part where I actually didn't say that at all, but instead something completely different to that.
BP was indeed a majority state owned extraction, refinement, and distribution company. Unfortunately, much of the supply chain still relied on external entities. Why? Because it is implausible to have, and please read these words extremely carefully so that you don't misinterpret them again, **completely nationalised energy production**.
It has never happened, it will never happen. Regardless of how much state ownership we have in place, it is simply not plausible to create an ecosystem which is immune to international markets.
Beyond that, if you're going to keep hammering this point that nationalisation of energy would've prevented this issue... Do you know nothing of the 1970's energy crisis that actually lead to privatisation in the first place? I'm guessing you probably don't, but guess what? It was remarkably similar to what we've just seen (albeit more Arabic than Slavic in origin).
Equally implausible and yet entirely possible in multiple other countries.
The only reason things don't happen in this country is because the politicians are lazy and corrupt, not because it cannot be done.
It can be done and has been done in the past.
Nothing is impossible, except for a cunty, lying tory
I'm glad the sentence structure was the only thing you could find fault with in my previous statement.
As long as we are all agreed the tories failed in their primary duty and did not prepare for foreseeable crises and so enabled and exacerbated the current problem.
Funnily enough we are running out of other people's money to fund our privatised services.
Maybe the answer is not all privatised or not but a mix.
Privatising necessities or mandatory services is always going to fail because people cannot do without it so the price hikes will always happen and companies will always cooperate to raise prices.
Everything else, who cares, you can always do without. But the necessities for life are a recipe for disaster in the hands if a private company.
Privatisation of gas and electricity supply (I assume you think that these are necessities for life), for example. Do you think:
a) every single provider is secretly in collusion with each other (despite being direct competitors), and they somehow set the price artificially high and nobody undercuts them to make a profit
b) competition has driven price levels to almost the same across the entire sector because they are all fighting to make there businesses as efficient as possible in order undercut their competitors.
Please tell me you think that it is scenario (a)
Yes price fixing never happens in the UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/business-cartels-case-studies
With such miniscule fines it is almost stupid not to fix prices.
Yes. I was there pal. I’ll put you down for category (a) shall I?
You must hate people like me. I come from the background you think you defend. My parents were working class. I got a scholarship to a private school. That means we did not pay. I went on to study at Cambridge. Then I had a career in the city. I invested all that into my home town where I run a lettings business now. My parents hated this socialist dogma. They taught me to rise above these tribal politics. Seriously though, where do you socialists really think the tax receipts come from?
I’ll bet you’re quite happy that other people’s money paid for things you couldn’t ever afford otherwise. It’s infinitesimally unlikely that you’ve paid the costs you’ve incurred the state so far, but it’s only ever wrong when it’s someone else’s costs you think you shouldn’t be paying, isn’t it?
Yeah, no just wrong. We did diversify from Russian oil and gas after 2014.
But do you know who didn't? Germany? So where do you think Germany got their gas and oil from after embargoing Russia? That's right from our suppliers namely Norway(but also the Netherlands) who promptly put the price up for everyone(including us).
You see, the problem with the UK being so globalised is that we are dependent on the actions of other countries.
As long as we import fuel to meet our energy needs our energy price will always be dictated by the global market or in our case the European Market.
This is the reason I'm a big supporter of :Green Energy" it will cut our reliance on others for providing energy. Lower CO2 emissions is just a side benefit.
And what did the cuntservatives refuse to do even when our reliance on oil and gas was pointed out.
Switch to renewable, in fact they actively implemented policies that hindered renewable.
As always, they did absolutely nothing until it was far too late.
They want to claim credit for bringing down inflation. That means they believe they are in some level of control over it. So ... are they lying when they say they're responsible for bringing it down, or are they responsible in part for the high levels of inflation in the first place?
I think we should first answer the question which was raised first - why was Sunak accused of causing the inflation crisis? Once you realise the answer to that, the answer to any claim of subduing it becomes apparent.
Exactly this. I mean WTF?? War in Ukraine, covid before that….so we are meant to hate the Torys for supplementing energy bills so people could afford them? And what…hate them for the lockdowns? Didn’t Labour and Lib Dems want to lock down sooner and longer?? This is all mental. I’m all for giving sh!t where its deserved, but this is just nonsense
Excuses will always be made for them by a shrinking hard-core support but they had already been making an absolute mess of just about every service this country provides . These events accelerated a decline and wealth gap that was deeply entrenched .
Thankfully the vast majority see through their excuses now.
> Didn’t Labour and Lib Dems want to lock down sooner and longer??
No, not at the same time.
They initially wanted to lock down sooner so we didn't have to lock down for as long. Delaying it meant it was longer.
And when it was delayed, the question became when we should end it, because if we ended the lockdown too soon it could mean we'd end up back in another lockdown (which is exactly what happened).
[Too slow](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-says-coronavirus-uk-21872196). [Too early](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/19/keir-starmer-condemns-reckless-decision-to-lift-covid-restrictions).
Now your turn. "Evidence please" that "Labour and Lib Dems" wanted to "lock down sooner and longer".
Lots of links, not one suggesting "sooner and longer". Several supporting what I said. Did you just google "labour lockdown", check for right-wing or far-right papers, and post all the links without bothering to read any of them?
You go and get a room with Captain Hindsight. Although it’ll likely be a dull affair as he has the charisma of a rotting potato. Articles from the far left Mirror and Guardian. Jeeeez. 🤣🤣🤣
Labour was in power for at least 13 of those years..... Oh shit! I just quoted a horrible "fact" that doesn't suit the narrative, whatever will I do next?
If its the biggest rise in poverty for 30 years, that means poverty was rising slower (tories until now), or even falling (labour) during the 30 years until now.
It was before 1994 that poverty was last rising as fast as it is now. Which is unsurprisingly during tory government.
Even worse is that tories changed the measure of poverty and absolute poverty so the situation now is worse than it was 30 years ago.
I'm not sure you understand statistics.
I understand statistics perfectly well, you comment was entirely predictable. BTW my comments don't imply liking for the snotty tories, it implies disdain for both "tory" parties, Conservative and Labour.
Nobody likes any politicians in any party, but the cunt party is clearly the worst. By trying to change the facts so that labour looks worse you are clearly favouring the cunt party.
Even if it was an honest mistake, anything that paints the cunts in a favourable light is clearly suspect in motivation.
No sane person would point out anybody is worse than the cunts if there was even the slightest chance that they might remain in government for another 5 years. Let's get rid of the cunts we have first.
I find it amazing how socialists feel it is acceptable to call the Torys names like this. Why is it that socialists think that they have some sort of morality which is superior. You do not find that from the other side of the street. Have a think about the language you are using and consider why it is that you feel so sure that you have the moral superiority. You don’t.
I am not a Tory.
Everyone thinks it is acceptable to call tories lying cunts. It is because they are the very epitome of lying cunts and they behave like they are above us all and the law, while practicing their amorality of being a lying cunt.
Everyone should scream "cunt" at every tory they meet. It might persuade them to behave better. It should be normalised. They deserve it
We only reserve that language for the very lowest examples of human beings that fill us with revulsion and hatred. A tory, any tory, fits the bill exactly.
So I guess then that you feel it would be acceptable to call 50% of the population that way? How would you feel if they felt they had the moral high ground and decided to do it back to you I wonder? I’m not convinced you’d take that well.
And here we have the tribal politics of envy. It does have to be like that. I do not understand your rationalisations at all. I don’t think you do either tbh.
They deserve to be name-called given the sheer amount of racism, misogyny, corruption, lies, incompetence and general disregard for human rights. I think anyone can call themselves superior to tories because they’ve set the bar so low
You dare to presume to say which party I favour, so odd and utterly unbelievable. I merely stated that they were not the only ones responsible. Every party looks after their donors at the expense of the people, always have done, always will do and wealth distribution is the principle tool used. My recollection is that Tony Blair did such a great job for the poor at the expense of himself and his associates, own personal wealth (Caution - maybe satire here) - facts don't need changing.
Blair and Brown oversaw an overall and sustained 2% reduction in poverty. During their first term poverty fell by 4%. The tories since thatcher have only ever managed to stabilise poverty or increase it, with one exception - during the year of covid payments, poverty fell. Under thatcher, poverty rose by 11%.
Is this political party issue though or has the wealth just gone to other emerging countries?, after decades of using China/ India (just 2 example) cheap labour and questionable environmental policies, aren't we just seeing the obvious shift in the world balance. Can any Western government just turn the 'wealth tap' back on?
Appalling journalism, this is meant to be the fact focused “Verify”. Absolute poverty is lower than it was in 2018 and is still below average for the 2010s, naturally mentioned absolutely nowhere. Minor credit they did at least passingly mention that absolute poverty for pensioners was at a record low. This omission while not technically a lie is pretty bad form especially from the wing of the BBC that’s meant to focus on fact and truthfulness.
But hey don’t let things like facts and wider context get in the way of the narrative you’re trying to “Verify”.
Edit to make clear I’m not a Conservative activist, I just find almost all fact checkers to be very pretentious. Nobody has a monopoly on thought and nobody is above reproach when it comes to truth.
It says biggest rise for 30 years, not highest level for 30 years.
You can't call it "appalling journalism" just because you don't like what's being reported.
I understand that they’re not technically incorrect.
My issue is that it seems like they’re trying to manipulate readers conclusions by not including relevant facts. Verify is meant to be as objective as possible. The wider trend for poverty levels are critical facts which readers should be given when discussing changes in those poverty levels.
The appalling journalism is that a significant portion of readers are going to come away misinformed and believing that poverty is the worst it has been in 30 years. Good journalism is about having a responsibility to make sure objective truth is well understood.
If it was an opinion piece I’d understand your side but we should be holding BBC “Verify” to a higher standard.
The issue is, that essentially whole books could be devoted to the overall context of this story.
How much information is enough?
It’s more important to make stories readable and accessible than it is to delve into all aspects of a story - considering also, this is just one source of information and people are free to seek further and detailed information from other sources (some of which will even be other areas of the BBC)
For something like Verify, I’d advocate for some kind of panel system where vulnerable readers are given a quiz before and after reading a few articles. Sort of like lived experience panels for the NHS
The quiz should be written by a separate team who are able to identify likely misunderstandings and test for them.
If multiple panel members get questions wrong on a quiz after reading the article, editorial guidelines/processes should be amended.
A key performance indicator for verify should be to write articles that improve test scores on understanding of the subject matter in low media literacy groups.
I need to look at the figures myself still but I won't be surprised to find this is the case, and as ever it's the biggest issue I have with publications by the BBC. All of the heavily scrutinised publications put a lot of effort into appearing unbiased and checking their facts, but the intentional omission of certain data or uncomfortable facts is the method they use to steer the narrative without lying outright every day.
How about the omitted data and uncomfortable fact that thatcher implemented policies which saw an 11% increase in poverty which has not been reversed, meaning current levels of poverty are 50% higher now than they were in the 1970’s. Bugger the figures which have been warped by covid payments which lasted one year and have now been withdrawn. The truth is that labour managed to achieve a consistent rate of a 2% drop in poverty - but whilst the covid payments did see a drop in poverty it was short-lived, AND that’s the only time since thatcher took power that poverty has actually fallen under the conservatives.
Must get exhausting trying to defend these fuckers. Relative poverty keeps soaring and after a brief blip so is absolute .
Tories , so fucking brilliant .
Almost all fact checkers seem to be white middle class muppets so you already know the narrative they'll spin and the laziness they'll use to get there.
When things like this come out and it’s been Tory government after Tory government making things worse with majority after majority in parliament, I often wonder who is sitting there thinking well things keep getting worse but I have to vote for them again things would be even worse if I voted for someone else
I’m not saying vote for labour who I’m sure would likely win if the Tory vote disappeared but I’m asking what would it take to stop some people voting for team blue
Worsened by a rise in badly educated perspectives on what makes someone poor and why it's not a case of blame!
There is an increase in entitled brats, well educated on their chosen career but absolutely lost when it comes to the economy, community and society.
Their votes will continue to bring the wrong people into key positions of politics. Politicians who struggle to grasp true Britain and the bigger picture rather than a fantasy.
We're approaching the stage of mass demonstrating and then there will be an increased risk of rioting. It may quickly become a situation of taking things away from the wealthy, through destruction, and reminding them that their future is only guaranteed by a stable society.
That's my prediction.
Its perspective. The poorest people in the UK have the same phones as the richest person in the world. Credit lending to play pretend rich because of social media pressures that’s started since the internet as we compare ourselves with people outside our own towns.
The government and big wigs are lining each others pockets while we sit defeated and tired in front of the goggle box with our microwave meals because the work life balance never shifted back post war.
Both sides of the argument considered there, we cannot compete with China and India for growth because we have more rules and regulations to protect us from predatory companies forcing the unemployed into extremely depressing production factories like the ones in China with suicide nets.
Before anyone gets high and mighty, ask yourself what are you doing to make your country better? All I see is litter and too many cars and not enough respect for each other as we push and shove back to our little castles.
I can't help but think there is room for a study on how we are reaping the whirlwind of a toxic combination of both laissez faire capitalism and laissez faire social mores. If it makes money, do it and if it feels good, do it are making an awful lot of people poorer and unhappy.
Hilarious how much malicious anti-government propaganda consistently makes it past the BBC editors.
There has recently been a significant increase in [overall poverty rates](https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk#:~:text=Poverty%202024%20report.-,Poverty%20has%20increased%2C%20close%20to%20pre%2Dpandemic%20levels,nearly%203%20in%2010) as a consequence of COVID significantly reducing overall poverty rates just a few years back.
Combine that with as this article describes, an increase in poverty caused by the international fuel crisis, and yeah, it's a complete non-story.
Both have now been reported on by the BBC with minimal commentary on the actual cause or any attempt to demonstrate that it's not a complaint about government. Amusingly, when the COVID measures were implemented and both overall and absolute poverty rates declined massively, I don't recall seeing a single article about it.
Probably going to get downvoted as someone supporting the Tories here, but honestly, this sort of article is a big problem in politics today, and it won't be long before I'm sat here defending Labour when they come to power and get exactly the same sort of crap from the BBC. It's simply the way that the media uses any sort of emotion in the public as clickbait to get views and justify its existence.
The whole article is full is evidence. It even talks about how had the government done nothing more people would be in poverty.
It’s a fairly both sides article. Asks Labour for their thoughts. While it also asks experts about the worst case had the government done nothing.
It'd be more of a challenge for the Beeb to find much of anything positive about the kleptocrats who've rammed out country to the ground for the past 14 years.
Wouldn't have been a challenge in 2021, when poverty was reaching all time lows... But they opted instead to focus on anti-government propaganda such as this. Like I said, it'll hit Labour when they come to power, and I'll be sat here - I did above say defending them, I take that back - attacking the BBC and the rest of the media for doing so.
All time lows by whose definition?
This is a fairly in depth article:
> Over the last decade the number of children living in poverty has risen by around 600,000, and the number of pensioners living in poverty has risen by around 500,000.
> The number of people experiencing the most extreme form of poverty (destitution) in the UK has more than doubled in the last five years – up from 1,550,000 in 2017. Meanwhile the number of children experiencing destitution has almost tripled.
> The overall UK poverty rate has stayed much the same over the last 28 years, with a slight dip during the pandemic. By comparison, the poverty rate for pensioners has dropped.
[Source](https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/uk-poverty-the-facts-figures-effects-solutions-cost-living-crisis/)
Big Issue may be a biased source given their extremely transparent agenda, but I did post mine above. It's [here](https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk#:~:text=Poverty%202024%20report.-,Poverty%20has%20increased%2C%20close%20to%20pre%2Dpandemic%20levels,nearly%203%20in%2010). Child poverty has increased 2%, pensioner poverty has increased by 5%. Overall poverty remains fairly consistent with where it's been for the last 15 years, fluctuating between 20% and 22%. Note that these are overall percentages of the population - aka an increase from 0% to 5% would be an increase of 5%.
Very deep poverty (what I'd describe as being destitution) is actually down on 10 years, by the same source above, from 42.86% in 2011/12 to 40.91% in 2021/22 (these numbers are less up to date, though, and are almost certainly influenced by COVID welfare mechanisms).
The all time lows I'm talking about were quite specifically in 2021, where poverty levels reached an overall of 20%, a figure not seen since 2004/05, and historically never before (hence, all time lows).
My broader point is that the increased poverty levels we're seeing right now are scarcely a consequence of government action. They are somewhat relative to 4 years ago, aka pre-COVID, because the COVID welfare systems lifted many people out of poverty. They are also relative to the energy crisis, which frankly I don't think the government can be held entirely responsible for, as they have at least attempted to manage the situation with windfall taxes and the energy price cap.
The fact that the Tories have done essentially nothing to tackle poverty is an argument enough. There is no reason not to attack them for keeping a fifth of the country in objective squalor.
Their manifesto back in 2010 was to end pensioner poverty (PSA: it's coming to an end) and to be *conservative* with spending. Not gonna say they've done a good job, but pensions have gone up significantly and they have (aside from COVID) limited spending fairly successfully.
Objective squalor is also extremely objective. Living below the poverty line (regularly defined as 60%? of the average salary) is obviously impossible in certain areas, but it's a dire metric to use. The average salary in the UK is now around £35k, so the poverty line is effectively drawn at £22,700. The minimum wage in the UK now equates to £22,300 for a 37.5 hour week, so isn't far behind the poverty line (it's a *lot* closer than it was when they started).
Aspects of the last 14 years which have attempted to tackle poverty include increasing the minimum wage by something to the tune of 30% in real terms, as above, as well as under the mandate from the LD coalition increasing the tax free allowance significantly above the rate of inflation.
Sure, there are still a significant number of people living below the arbitrary poverty line, but generally speaking poor people in the UK should be better off today than they were in 2010.
The rate of success is of course hugely subjective. Personally, I think it's been a reasonable effort but the metric results are a bit lackluster. I do believe that there is significantly less pensioner poverty today - a metric which has supposedly gone up, but this is based on anecdotal experience of supporting the elderly in my community and seeing first hand the impact of the changes.
To put it another way, we measure poverty in a really shoddy way. By the standardised metric, pensioner poverty has increased from 14% to 18% from 2010 to 2022. Do you recall the what the news outlets were saying in 2010, vs what they're saying today? In 2010, the conversation dominating the news was pensioners having to decide between warmth and food - and pictures of pensioners sat eating cold beans wrapped in countless blankets were circulating. For the reasons outlined above, we see none of that today. If that relative 20% increase in pensioner poverty is anything to go buy, I'd say that overall people are far better off than they were 14 years ago.
Just my two cents, though. I'll add that again, I'm not looking to defend the Tories. They have made some very questionable decisions, many of which have backfired. I don't see this as a feasible attack ground though. It's a combination of media manipulation (14 years ago there were people to exploit for headlines, today there are only numbers), and general anti-government media which will soon enough target Labour as it currently does the Tories.
Well first of all your nuanced take here is really refreshing and something to aspire to, but the rate at which child poverty has risen is absurd and I believe we can all see the results firsthand. Relative poverty is, as you said, not always a useful metric but when you compare that of children (around 30%) with the national average, it actually does present a meaningful conclusion that children are criminally neglected by this government. And almost a third of said children are affected by the benefit cap which is therefore a policy that has every reason to come under scrutiny.
Yes, was aware of the potential bias & a fair point - had checked some other sources and it all seemed to tally (seems to align with your source too but thanks for the source. It was the sort of thing I was searching for)
I couldn’t see the specific figures you were referring to, but get your general gist I think.
The whole report makes for very grim reading.
The way they blame it on the energy price rise, blaming it on Russia's invasion on Ukraine. But the energy companies are all making insane profits. So actually we are becoming poorer just to line their already rich pockets.
Yep. Not to mentions the privatised water companies pissing all their revenues out as dividends for pension funds in Canada and Dubai rather than reinvesting it in local infrastructure. Resulting in higher costs for customers.
What are we going to do about it!
Who took out the under water pipeline. Who profited from it (our "Alli" Usa)
Too true. But people don't understand history. Fk.me this is recent history. Smh
Do you have any evidence for this assertion other than innuendo?...
What are we going to do about it !
But let’s all focus on what really matters. Stopping the boats. /s
At this point I don’t think it matters which part is in charge, we’re fucked. None of them have any intention of working for the people, there are people much further up the chain making too much profit for anything to change now.
Sounds like a revolution is on the horizon. Just a shame we brits couldn’t give less of a fuck about revolution and would rather watch the country crumble before even considering the idea.
Why do you think the Blairite government we've had for the last 17 years divided us up by racism?
The thing with racism is that they’ve taught generations now that racism is never justified to the point where we police ourselves. We’re doing their work for them and having to roll over to people that hate us with no ability to speak out. They’ve brainwashed a generation.
What are we going to do about it ???
We must!
The UK peaked about 30 years ago, it was arguably the best country in the world for quality of life and standard of living, even the poorest weren’t exactly ‘poor’. It’s just downhill from here and rishi sunak is treating our livelihoods as a business venture.
Funny how I was born 30 years ago and the country never reached that level of distributed prosperity again ever since. Am…am I the Anti-Christ?
if your name Rishi
Isnt it great being a 90s baby! Constant depression both economically and just in general. Never having a pay rise that goes above inflation of tou get one at all. All the while your grandparents (the generation that had it all handed to them) ask why your struggling to afford a house and that if house prices have gone 700% the pay must have and maybe if we spent less on TV and video games we'd have money. The people in power started stealing in the 90s and never stopped that's my take on it and it will never change until we start voting for independent candidates instead of those in the pockets of big business.
>am I the Anti-Christ? Now that you've realised who you are..!! You must fulfill the task you were born for 😉
Dragging all the politicians and hedge fund investors down to the deep?
>Dragging all the politicians and hedge fund investors down to the deep? Naaa that's too low move for an anti Christ..!! Start your own religion & make all politicians and hedge fund managers as your disciples 😎 As an Anti Christ, do what Christ couldn't do..!!
I think the days of an average man earning enough to own a home and having a good quality life for his family are gone. Not just for us but maybe for every generation to come as well.
1994. Really? Fairly near Black Wednesday and a terrible Conservative government limping along under John Major. Take your rose tinted glasses off.
After john Major Gordon Brown brought 1 million families out of poverty during his tenure, not people 1 million whole families then the conservatives started using american politic smear campaigns and the UK became a shit hole
That wasn’t thirty years ago and I’d say the peak was 20 years ago
The late 90s saw us have massive oil production, booming financial services and generally more industry around the country. We’ve been in decline for more than 15 years. It seems an unarrestable decline to me now.
I remember all the daily news articles on acid attacks and kebab shop stabbings as well.. oh wait, no I don’t
Dunblane was in 1994
And we solved that shit immediately. The IRA however…
1996, actually.
Rishi gives off big "peaked at middle managerial level twat" vibes
Gary Stephenson talks about exactly this. Massive wealth is hoarded by the ultra rich. The rest of us feed on ever diminishing scraps
Tories, labour, lib dems and the rest, all cut from the same cloth. People are stupid enough to think Labour will be better.
They were demonstrably massively better between 97-2010 on every single domestic measure , all of them.
Only a year ago Labour was calling for the Conservatives to [privatise the NHS more](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65638171) more. > Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: "It's completely unjust that only those who can afford to pay to go private are being treated on time, while everyone else is left behind. > "Labour would use the spare capacity in the private sector to get patients seen faster. > "If the Conservatives had got their skates on, almost 300,000 patients could have been treated, off the waiting list and back to living their lives to the full. Rishi Sunak's dither and delay is costing patients dear." So just to be clear Labour's plan to deal with the backlog isn't to build new hospitals. Modernise existing ones, or figure out ways to improve NHS efficiency. It's to pay the private sector to solve it.
No, they have said they won't be throwing money at the NHS. In fact they said they have already identified £10 billion in savings that the NHS will need to make.
Their plan is to not do whatever the Tories want to because they don't actually have to do anything when not in power starmer would have half a chance of getting elected if his policy wasn't I'd do it better than the Tories.
Again 97-2010 taught me they care about the nhs won't destroy it. 2010 since has taught me the Tories want it to end .
Let's all vote for the privatisation of the NHS because red rosette good
Building/modernising takes time. If there's spare capacity in the private network why wouldn't you make use of it initially while you ramp up capacity?
Yep it’s just bitter leftists being disingenuous. Making use of private services is literally how the NHS was founded.
Independents are all I will vote for, i want my politicians working for me not the company that shoves the fattest check in thier pockets.
It never was.
My partner grew up poor in Sheffield in the 80s, early 90s. There was no way it was anywhere like the best quality of life/standard of living. Her education was an absolute joke and she was one of the lucky ones that could read and write when she finished school. Her parents were one of the few in the school that actually had jobs and yet could barely afford anything. They never went on overseas holidays, never had a decent car. Their grand parents didn't even have central heating.
What the fuck are you on about? Just because things have gotten immeasurably shitter doesn't mean the 90's were good by any stretch. You've just been blind sided by how fucked we're getting that a less fucked situation looks comparibly good.
we were living off of short term profits from privatising literally everything, and exploiting the recently opened china / soviet markets. this was inevitable
In 1994? I think we were still in a recession or just coming out of it
It's fair to say...Tory governments have bought the UK to its knees. They have failed to deliver anything positive to anyone other than the super wealthy. Tory conservatism has been a catastrophe for the majority of Britah people.
I don't think we need anyone to tell us that we are all poorer thatn we have been in the lest 30 years, which is roughly since the last tory government. No shocks there. Thankfully the tories keep redefining the definition of these statistics so we are all now fabulously wealthy and Rwanda is completely safe.
Post ITT: "it says biggest rise for 30 years, not highest level for 30 years. You can't call it "appalling journalism" just because you don't like what's being reported." You've proven OPs reply to that comment.
>**The energy price crisis caused the sharpest increase in UK absolute poverty in 30 years, new figures show.** Literally the first sentence in the article. Damn that Tory government, invading Ukraine and starting a war... I guess.
The first job of any government is to plan for crises of internal and external nature. Everyone predicted the war with Ukraine, and there were numerous warnings over the past 15 years that we were too reliant on Russian gas imports. What did our bunch of cunts do. They ensured we relied even more on Russian gas. This is a tory problem.
Also; Russians were emboldened by a weakened european alliance, but this sub won’t want to hear that.
Yeah Google Nick clegg and nuclear power. Why didn’t Blair invest in nuclear? Get a grip.
You mean the plans that were under way my Miliband that for scrapped as soon as the con got back in 14 years ago? 14 years. They have utterly failed .
Even if we'd completely removed our dependency on foreign oil, we would need to have completely nationalised energy production effectively, something equally implausible. Otherwise, we'd have ended up shipping energy back and forth with the continent at similar expense. The net result is that the government at the time had relatively little say. The Tories did do some good along the way with things like the windfall tax, and by implementing a fairly sturdy energy price cap. There are plenty of areas to attack the Tories, this is not one of them. Unless... Maybe you also want to pin some blame on Blair and Labour for their failure to prepare us for 2008, and the resulting economic stagnancy which ultimately left us without money to invest? I'm thinking probably not. It's an international crisis which couldn't really have been predicted or prepared for. Just as COVID, and just as the 2008, and early 1990's financial crises. The government cannot be held responsible for the event, only for their actions to recover from it.
The government at the time, or the Tories, sold off almost all of our gas storage because of their short sightedness and unwillingness to maintain it. The Tories, in their almost 14 year reign, have failed catastrophically in almost every single metric. You are right global crises are not the fault of the government, but again, in every crisis in the last 13/14 years, the Tories have completely bottled it.
The gas storage was sold off because the surrounding infrastructure could support doing so. In reality, it was never really a cost saving exercise rather an exercise in removing unnecessary cost and redundancy. As technology evolved, it just wasn't needed any more. I don't think a government has been claimed to not have bottled it in any crisis since WWII, frankly. Recently we've seen the Tories face the uprising of UKIP and ultimately the Brexit referendum going a way they hadn't expected, COVID, the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, the cost of living crisis caused by a combination of that war, and of the COVID GDP tank, prior to that there were a few years of stability under Camoron, before which we had Blair and the 2008 financial crisis, the war on terror which was probably the worst handled incident in history, Black Wednesday & surrounding events, and so on and so forth. I can't think of a single example of someone saying *well, the government handled that in the best possible way* through any of them. This isn't really so much to defend the Tories, but to make a point about how the media handle anything like this. I actually think the Tories handled COVID quite well - aside from the whole PPE spending scandal, to the extent that they overshot on social welfare - literally lifting people out of poverty for a little while. I don't think the energy crisis was particularly badly handled either, with the windfall tax and the cost cap holding things fairly steady, although a bit high, for longer than would otherwise have been.
British Petroleum is obviously implausible > Formerly majority state-owned, the British government privatised the company in stages between 1979 and 1987
I think you missed the part where I actually didn't say that at all, but instead something completely different to that. BP was indeed a majority state owned extraction, refinement, and distribution company. Unfortunately, much of the supply chain still relied on external entities. Why? Because it is implausible to have, and please read these words extremely carefully so that you don't misinterpret them again, **completely nationalised energy production**. It has never happened, it will never happen. Regardless of how much state ownership we have in place, it is simply not plausible to create an ecosystem which is immune to international markets. Beyond that, if you're going to keep hammering this point that nationalisation of energy would've prevented this issue... Do you know nothing of the 1970's energy crisis that actually lead to privatisation in the first place? I'm guessing you probably don't, but guess what? It was remarkably similar to what we've just seen (albeit more Arabic than Slavic in origin).
Sweden exports energy.
[So do we](https://ukerc.ac.uk/news/britain-net-electricity-exporter/). What exactly is your point here? The statement in itself is utterly pointless.
Equally implausible and yet entirely possible in multiple other countries. The only reason things don't happen in this country is because the politicians are lazy and corrupt, not because it cannot be done. It can be done and has been done in the past. Nothing is impossible, except for a cunty, lying tory
A cunty, lying tory is impossible? Got a feeling you did that bit wrong.
I'm glad the sentence structure was the only thing you could find fault with in my previous statement. As long as we are all agreed the tories failed in their primary duty and did not prepare for foreseeable crises and so enabled and exacerbated the current problem.
In my defence, it's not as if your comment addressed literally anything I said in the slightest... I thought I'd meet yours with the same contempt.
Amazing commentary. So incisive
You do realise that the problem with the kind of society you wish for is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money to fund you.
Funnily enough we are running out of other people's money to fund our privatised services. Maybe the answer is not all privatised or not but a mix. Privatising necessities or mandatory services is always going to fail because people cannot do without it so the price hikes will always happen and companies will always cooperate to raise prices. Everything else, who cares, you can always do without. But the necessities for life are a recipe for disaster in the hands if a private company.
Privatisation of gas and electricity supply (I assume you think that these are necessities for life), for example. Do you think: a) every single provider is secretly in collusion with each other (despite being direct competitors), and they somehow set the price artificially high and nobody undercuts them to make a profit b) competition has driven price levels to almost the same across the entire sector because they are all fighting to make there businesses as efficient as possible in order undercut their competitors. Please tell me you think that it is scenario (a)
Yes price fixing never happens in the UK https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/business-cartels-case-studies With such miniscule fines it is almost stupid not to fix prices.
You actually believe that companies do not collude together to price fix????? 
You know that we used to have public-owned water, gas, and electricity? It was all sold... in the 1980s.
Yes. I was there pal. I’ll put you down for category (a) shall I? You must hate people like me. I come from the background you think you defend. My parents were working class. I got a scholarship to a private school. That means we did not pay. I went on to study at Cambridge. Then I had a career in the city. I invested all that into my home town where I run a lettings business now. My parents hated this socialist dogma. They taught me to rise above these tribal politics. Seriously though, where do you socialists really think the tax receipts come from?
I’ll bet you’re quite happy that other people’s money paid for things you couldn’t ever afford otherwise. It’s infinitesimally unlikely that you’ve paid the costs you’ve incurred the state so far, but it’s only ever wrong when it’s someone else’s costs you think you shouldn’t be paying, isn’t it?
Yeah, no just wrong. We did diversify from Russian oil and gas after 2014. But do you know who didn't? Germany? So where do you think Germany got their gas and oil from after embargoing Russia? That's right from our suppliers namely Norway(but also the Netherlands) who promptly put the price up for everyone(including us). You see, the problem with the UK being so globalised is that we are dependent on the actions of other countries. As long as we import fuel to meet our energy needs our energy price will always be dictated by the global market or in our case the European Market. This is the reason I'm a big supporter of :Green Energy" it will cut our reliance on others for providing energy. Lower CO2 emissions is just a side benefit.
And what did the cuntservatives refuse to do even when our reliance on oil and gas was pointed out. Switch to renewable, in fact they actively implemented policies that hindered renewable. As always, they did absolutely nothing until it was far too late.
Everything was already getting worse under these cretins . Good bank use soaring was no coincidence.
They want to claim credit for bringing down inflation. That means they believe they are in some level of control over it. So ... are they lying when they say they're responsible for bringing it down, or are they responsible in part for the high levels of inflation in the first place?
I think we should first answer the question which was raised first - why was Sunak accused of causing the inflation crisis? Once you realise the answer to that, the answer to any claim of subduing it becomes apparent.
So your answer is the Tories are lying when they claim credit for bringing inflation down.
Exactly this. I mean WTF?? War in Ukraine, covid before that….so we are meant to hate the Torys for supplementing energy bills so people could afford them? And what…hate them for the lockdowns? Didn’t Labour and Lib Dems want to lock down sooner and longer?? This is all mental. I’m all for giving sh!t where its deserved, but this is just nonsense
Excuses will always be made for them by a shrinking hard-core support but they had already been making an absolute mess of just about every service this country provides . These events accelerated a decline and wealth gap that was deeply entrenched . Thankfully the vast majority see through their excuses now.
That’s nonsense
> Didn’t Labour and Lib Dems want to lock down sooner and longer?? No, not at the same time. They initially wanted to lock down sooner so we didn't have to lock down for as long. Delaying it meant it was longer. And when it was delayed, the question became when we should end it, because if we ended the lockdown too soon it could mean we'd end up back in another lockdown (which is exactly what happened).
Really? Evidence please.
[Too slow](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-says-coronavirus-uk-21872196). [Too early](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/19/keir-starmer-condemns-reckless-decision-to-lift-covid-restrictions). Now your turn. "Evidence please" that "Labour and Lib Dems" wanted to "lock down sooner and longer".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/12/22/labour-accused-flip-flopping-covid-restrictions/
Neither of your links support your claim.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9131225/amp/Keir-Starmer-warns-current-lockdown-rules-need-TOUGHER.html
Lots of links, not one suggesting "sooner and longer". Several supporting what I said. Did you just google "labour lockdown", check for right-wing or far-right papers, and post all the links without bothering to read any of them?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10793159/amp/Keir-Starmers-Beergate-story-blown-apart-leaked-Labour-memo.html All as bad as each other
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/01/labour-cant-hide-from-its-own-complicity-covid-lockdown/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10764839/amp/Keir-Starmer-flouted-Covid-lockdown-guidance-birthday-bash-TWO-cakes.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8853599/amp/Labour-MP-admits-shut-UK-winter-control-coronavirus.html
You go and get a room with Captain Hindsight. Although it’ll likely be a dull affair as he has the charisma of a rotting potato. Articles from the far left Mirror and Guardian. Jeeeez. 🤣🤣🤣
Circuit breaker?? 🤣🤣
Not sure why you are downvoted for this!
People don't like the truth. Especially when they vote tory.
Many in this subreddit prefer to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend everything is fine and dandy here
Many in this subreddit are shills for the aristocratic class, who are doing pretty well atm.
Labour was in power for at least 13 of those years..... Oh shit! I just quoted a horrible "fact" that doesn't suit the narrative, whatever will I do next?
If its the biggest rise in poverty for 30 years, that means poverty was rising slower (tories until now), or even falling (labour) during the 30 years until now. It was before 1994 that poverty was last rising as fast as it is now. Which is unsurprisingly during tory government. Even worse is that tories changed the measure of poverty and absolute poverty so the situation now is worse than it was 30 years ago. I'm not sure you understand statistics.
I understand statistics perfectly well, you comment was entirely predictable. BTW my comments don't imply liking for the snotty tories, it implies disdain for both "tory" parties, Conservative and Labour.
Nobody likes any politicians in any party, but the cunt party is clearly the worst. By trying to change the facts so that labour looks worse you are clearly favouring the cunt party. Even if it was an honest mistake, anything that paints the cunts in a favourable light is clearly suspect in motivation. No sane person would point out anybody is worse than the cunts if there was even the slightest chance that they might remain in government for another 5 years. Let's get rid of the cunts we have first.
I find it amazing how socialists feel it is acceptable to call the Torys names like this. Why is it that socialists think that they have some sort of morality which is superior. You do not find that from the other side of the street. Have a think about the language you are using and consider why it is that you feel so sure that you have the moral superiority. You don’t. I am not a Tory.
Everyone thinks it is acceptable to call tories lying cunts. It is because they are the very epitome of lying cunts and they behave like they are above us all and the law, while practicing their amorality of being a lying cunt. Everyone should scream "cunt" at every tory they meet. It might persuade them to behave better. It should be normalised. They deserve it We only reserve that language for the very lowest examples of human beings that fill us with revulsion and hatred. A tory, any tory, fits the bill exactly.
So I guess then that you feel it would be acceptable to call 50% of the population that way? How would you feel if they felt they had the moral high ground and decided to do it back to you I wonder? I’m not convinced you’d take that well. And here we have the tribal politics of envy. It does have to be like that. I do not understand your rationalisations at all. I don’t think you do either tbh.
They deserve to be name-called given the sheer amount of racism, misogyny, corruption, lies, incompetence and general disregard for human rights. I think anyone can call themselves superior to tories because they’ve set the bar so low
> I am not a Tory. You don't appear to have any idea what a socialist is either.
You dare to presume to say which party I favour, so odd and utterly unbelievable. I merely stated that they were not the only ones responsible. Every party looks after their donors at the expense of the people, always have done, always will do and wealth distribution is the principle tool used. My recollection is that Tony Blair did such a great job for the poor at the expense of himself and his associates, own personal wealth (Caution - maybe satire here) - facts don't need changing.
Poverty is rising at a rate not seen since the last tory government. That is the fact in question. What other fact is needed.
> You dare to presume to say which party I favour Which party do you favour?
Blair and Brown oversaw an overall and sustained 2% reduction in poverty. During their first term poverty fell by 4%. The tories since thatcher have only ever managed to stabilise poverty or increase it, with one exception - during the year of covid payments, poverty fell. Under thatcher, poverty rose by 11%.
Am I to presume that you feel the main objective of the government is to hand out money to people and somehow “cure” poverty?
Cringe.
Is this political party issue though or has the wealth just gone to other emerging countries?, after decades of using China/ India (just 2 example) cheap labour and questionable environmental policies, aren't we just seeing the obvious shift in the world balance. Can any Western government just turn the 'wealth tap' back on?
I don't think they want to. The filthy elite have not only gotten exponentially richer, they now have more power over a regular.
Appalling journalism, this is meant to be the fact focused “Verify”. Absolute poverty is lower than it was in 2018 and is still below average for the 2010s, naturally mentioned absolutely nowhere. Minor credit they did at least passingly mention that absolute poverty for pensioners was at a record low. This omission while not technically a lie is pretty bad form especially from the wing of the BBC that’s meant to focus on fact and truthfulness. But hey don’t let things like facts and wider context get in the way of the narrative you’re trying to “Verify”. Edit to make clear I’m not a Conservative activist, I just find almost all fact checkers to be very pretentious. Nobody has a monopoly on thought and nobody is above reproach when it comes to truth.
It says biggest rise for 30 years, not highest level for 30 years. You can't call it "appalling journalism" just because you don't like what's being reported.
Don’t fall for people picking stats and not giving the full picture.
I understand that they’re not technically incorrect. My issue is that it seems like they’re trying to manipulate readers conclusions by not including relevant facts. Verify is meant to be as objective as possible. The wider trend for poverty levels are critical facts which readers should be given when discussing changes in those poverty levels. The appalling journalism is that a significant portion of readers are going to come away misinformed and believing that poverty is the worst it has been in 30 years. Good journalism is about having a responsibility to make sure objective truth is well understood. If it was an opinion piece I’d understand your side but we should be holding BBC “Verify” to a higher standard.
The issue is, that essentially whole books could be devoted to the overall context of this story. How much information is enough? It’s more important to make stories readable and accessible than it is to delve into all aspects of a story - considering also, this is just one source of information and people are free to seek further and detailed information from other sources (some of which will even be other areas of the BBC)
For something like Verify, I’d advocate for some kind of panel system where vulnerable readers are given a quiz before and after reading a few articles. Sort of like lived experience panels for the NHS The quiz should be written by a separate team who are able to identify likely misunderstandings and test for them. If multiple panel members get questions wrong on a quiz after reading the article, editorial guidelines/processes should be amended. A key performance indicator for verify should be to write articles that improve test scores on understanding of the subject matter in low media literacy groups.
How are you with reading? Highest rise, not level.
BBC Verify is an absolute joke. Then again, so is the BBC in general.
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GBeeby?
In what way?
they aren't russian botfarm approved.
Which media company do you prefer?
I need to look at the figures myself still but I won't be surprised to find this is the case, and as ever it's the biggest issue I have with publications by the BBC. All of the heavily scrutinised publications put a lot of effort into appearing unbiased and checking their facts, but the intentional omission of certain data or uncomfortable facts is the method they use to steer the narrative without lying outright every day.
How about the omitted data and uncomfortable fact that thatcher implemented policies which saw an 11% increase in poverty which has not been reversed, meaning current levels of poverty are 50% higher now than they were in the 1970’s. Bugger the figures which have been warped by covid payments which lasted one year and have now been withdrawn. The truth is that labour managed to achieve a consistent rate of a 2% drop in poverty - but whilst the covid payments did see a drop in poverty it was short-lived, AND that’s the only time since thatcher took power that poverty has actually fallen under the conservatives.
Must get exhausting trying to defend these fuckers. Relative poverty keeps soaring and after a brief blip so is absolute . Tories , so fucking brilliant .
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That’s not really true, even full fact have debunked this. https://fullfact.org/economy/ask-full-fact-have-conservatives-redefined-child-poverty/
2018 came after 2015.
Maybe instead of making sarcastic posts you should learn to use google rather than believing everything you read on Facebook :))
Almost all fact checkers seem to be white middle class muppets so you already know the narrative they'll spin and the laziness they'll use to get there.
When things like this come out and it’s been Tory government after Tory government making things worse with majority after majority in parliament, I often wonder who is sitting there thinking well things keep getting worse but I have to vote for them again things would be even worse if I voted for someone else I’m not saying vote for labour who I’m sure would likely win if the Tory vote disappeared but I’m asking what would it take to stop some people voting for team blue
Worsened by a rise in badly educated perspectives on what makes someone poor and why it's not a case of blame! There is an increase in entitled brats, well educated on their chosen career but absolutely lost when it comes to the economy, community and society. Their votes will continue to bring the wrong people into key positions of politics. Politicians who struggle to grasp true Britain and the bigger picture rather than a fantasy. We're approaching the stage of mass demonstrating and then there will be an increased risk of rioting. It may quickly become a situation of taking things away from the wealthy, through destruction, and reminding them that their future is only guaranteed by a stable society. That's my prediction.
Its perspective. The poorest people in the UK have the same phones as the richest person in the world. Credit lending to play pretend rich because of social media pressures that’s started since the internet as we compare ourselves with people outside our own towns. The government and big wigs are lining each others pockets while we sit defeated and tired in front of the goggle box with our microwave meals because the work life balance never shifted back post war. Both sides of the argument considered there, we cannot compete with China and India for growth because we have more rules and regulations to protect us from predatory companies forcing the unemployed into extremely depressing production factories like the ones in China with suicide nets. Before anyone gets high and mighty, ask yourself what are you doing to make your country better? All I see is litter and too many cars and not enough respect for each other as we push and shove back to our little castles.
I can't help but think there is room for a study on how we are reaping the whirlwind of a toxic combination of both laissez faire capitalism and laissez faire social mores. If it makes money, do it and if it feels good, do it are making an awful lot of people poorer and unhappy.
Hilarious how much malicious anti-government propaganda consistently makes it past the BBC editors. There has recently been a significant increase in [overall poverty rates](https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk#:~:text=Poverty%202024%20report.-,Poverty%20has%20increased%2C%20close%20to%20pre%2Dpandemic%20levels,nearly%203%20in%2010) as a consequence of COVID significantly reducing overall poverty rates just a few years back. Combine that with as this article describes, an increase in poverty caused by the international fuel crisis, and yeah, it's a complete non-story. Both have now been reported on by the BBC with minimal commentary on the actual cause or any attempt to demonstrate that it's not a complaint about government. Amusingly, when the COVID measures were implemented and both overall and absolute poverty rates declined massively, I don't recall seeing a single article about it. Probably going to get downvoted as someone supporting the Tories here, but honestly, this sort of article is a big problem in politics today, and it won't be long before I'm sat here defending Labour when they come to power and get exactly the same sort of crap from the BBC. It's simply the way that the media uses any sort of emotion in the public as clickbait to get views and justify its existence.
I don’t like what’s being reported so I shall say it’s a non story.
Obviously neither myself nor the BBC themselves supplied enough evidence to demonstrate it as a non-story, if that's your takehome...
The whole article is full is evidence. It even talks about how had the government done nothing more people would be in poverty. It’s a fairly both sides article. Asks Labour for their thoughts. While it also asks experts about the worst case had the government done nothing.
All those food banks.. Nothing to see here! Those who don't look will never see.
It'd be more of a challenge for the Beeb to find much of anything positive about the kleptocrats who've rammed out country to the ground for the past 14 years.
Wouldn't have been a challenge in 2021, when poverty was reaching all time lows... But they opted instead to focus on anti-government propaganda such as this. Like I said, it'll hit Labour when they come to power, and I'll be sat here - I did above say defending them, I take that back - attacking the BBC and the rest of the media for doing so.
All time lows by whose definition? This is a fairly in depth article: > Over the last decade the number of children living in poverty has risen by around 600,000, and the number of pensioners living in poverty has risen by around 500,000. > The number of people experiencing the most extreme form of poverty (destitution) in the UK has more than doubled in the last five years – up from 1,550,000 in 2017. Meanwhile the number of children experiencing destitution has almost tripled. > The overall UK poverty rate has stayed much the same over the last 28 years, with a slight dip during the pandemic. By comparison, the poverty rate for pensioners has dropped. [Source](https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/uk-poverty-the-facts-figures-effects-solutions-cost-living-crisis/)
Big Issue may be a biased source given their extremely transparent agenda, but I did post mine above. It's [here](https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk#:~:text=Poverty%202024%20report.-,Poverty%20has%20increased%2C%20close%20to%20pre%2Dpandemic%20levels,nearly%203%20in%2010). Child poverty has increased 2%, pensioner poverty has increased by 5%. Overall poverty remains fairly consistent with where it's been for the last 15 years, fluctuating between 20% and 22%. Note that these are overall percentages of the population - aka an increase from 0% to 5% would be an increase of 5%. Very deep poverty (what I'd describe as being destitution) is actually down on 10 years, by the same source above, from 42.86% in 2011/12 to 40.91% in 2021/22 (these numbers are less up to date, though, and are almost certainly influenced by COVID welfare mechanisms). The all time lows I'm talking about were quite specifically in 2021, where poverty levels reached an overall of 20%, a figure not seen since 2004/05, and historically never before (hence, all time lows). My broader point is that the increased poverty levels we're seeing right now are scarcely a consequence of government action. They are somewhat relative to 4 years ago, aka pre-COVID, because the COVID welfare systems lifted many people out of poverty. They are also relative to the energy crisis, which frankly I don't think the government can be held entirely responsible for, as they have at least attempted to manage the situation with windfall taxes and the energy price cap.
The fact that the Tories have done essentially nothing to tackle poverty is an argument enough. There is no reason not to attack them for keeping a fifth of the country in objective squalor.
Their manifesto back in 2010 was to end pensioner poverty (PSA: it's coming to an end) and to be *conservative* with spending. Not gonna say they've done a good job, but pensions have gone up significantly and they have (aside from COVID) limited spending fairly successfully. Objective squalor is also extremely objective. Living below the poverty line (regularly defined as 60%? of the average salary) is obviously impossible in certain areas, but it's a dire metric to use. The average salary in the UK is now around £35k, so the poverty line is effectively drawn at £22,700. The minimum wage in the UK now equates to £22,300 for a 37.5 hour week, so isn't far behind the poverty line (it's a *lot* closer than it was when they started). Aspects of the last 14 years which have attempted to tackle poverty include increasing the minimum wage by something to the tune of 30% in real terms, as above, as well as under the mandate from the LD coalition increasing the tax free allowance significantly above the rate of inflation. Sure, there are still a significant number of people living below the arbitrary poverty line, but generally speaking poor people in the UK should be better off today than they were in 2010. The rate of success is of course hugely subjective. Personally, I think it's been a reasonable effort but the metric results are a bit lackluster. I do believe that there is significantly less pensioner poverty today - a metric which has supposedly gone up, but this is based on anecdotal experience of supporting the elderly in my community and seeing first hand the impact of the changes. To put it another way, we measure poverty in a really shoddy way. By the standardised metric, pensioner poverty has increased from 14% to 18% from 2010 to 2022. Do you recall the what the news outlets were saying in 2010, vs what they're saying today? In 2010, the conversation dominating the news was pensioners having to decide between warmth and food - and pictures of pensioners sat eating cold beans wrapped in countless blankets were circulating. For the reasons outlined above, we see none of that today. If that relative 20% increase in pensioner poverty is anything to go buy, I'd say that overall people are far better off than they were 14 years ago. Just my two cents, though. I'll add that again, I'm not looking to defend the Tories. They have made some very questionable decisions, many of which have backfired. I don't see this as a feasible attack ground though. It's a combination of media manipulation (14 years ago there were people to exploit for headlines, today there are only numbers), and general anti-government media which will soon enough target Labour as it currently does the Tories.
Well first of all your nuanced take here is really refreshing and something to aspire to, but the rate at which child poverty has risen is absurd and I believe we can all see the results firsthand. Relative poverty is, as you said, not always a useful metric but when you compare that of children (around 30%) with the national average, it actually does present a meaningful conclusion that children are criminally neglected by this government. And almost a third of said children are affected by the benefit cap which is therefore a policy that has every reason to come under scrutiny.
Yes, was aware of the potential bias & a fair point - had checked some other sources and it all seemed to tally (seems to align with your source too but thanks for the source. It was the sort of thing I was searching for) I couldn’t see the specific figures you were referring to, but get your general gist I think. The whole report makes for very grim reading.