I think it is funny, in a perverse kind of way, how words get twisted around and come to mean different things to different people. Now we also see that words can have geographical changes.
I have been thinking about poverty. The pictures of the victims of Typhoon Haiyan, in the Philippine Islands, showed that before their lives became so sorely affected by this powerful force of nature, they lived, in many cases, in what a Westerner, applying a 'Third World' perspective, would call poverty. They often lacked basic amenities such as clean water, sewage systems, regular access to food, etc..
Rightly, the World is stepping-up efforts to provide relief to these people and we should all make our own contributions rather than just relying on governments to do it.
Thinking on this got me on to the mis-use of the word poverty, within the UK. (This probably also applies in other Western countries).
In the UK poverty becomes defined as not having the latest I-phone or wide-screen TV or fashion label. Poverty sometimes means having to choose between beer, cigarettes, drugs or food for the table.
In the real-world of real poverty, these choices simply don't exist. And exist is the word. In the real-world of poverty, the only choice is can I put bread on the table. Can I put food into the belly of my children? Whether to go for an I-phone 5S or go for the lesser but, 'hey the colours are really nice' 5C doesn't enter the mind of these people.
I lived in South Africa for a while. The beautiful city of Cape Town. I remember being told a story of people from the townships - both parents working - who for them, the daily struggle was really about putting bread on the table. Not bread and jam or bread and butter, just bread. I have also traveled throughout Asia and other parts of Africa and as I have done so, I have seen similar examples of poverty. And I am sure that in my western-cosseted lifestyle, I missed a whole lot more and a whole lot worse, during my travels. So I don't consider myself an expert, but...............
I cannot help contrast this real-world poverty with the way the UK media and Socialists and similar types apply double standards - so we have 'poverty in the UK', which has come to mean not being able to survive on a capped benefit level of £26,000 a year and then we have 100's of millions of people who get by (or tragically, sometimes don't) on less than a $1 a day.
In the eyes and twisted minds of some, these two levels of poverty have equivalence. Except, they don't.
The poverty I have seen a first hand is what most sane people would consider to be real poverty. These people suffer the lack of access to basics like clean water and food and, above all, opportunities. They often have no real chance to break-out of their ugly life-cycle. They are born into poverty, struggle through an often overly-short life of it and cannot escape. Those in so called poverty in the UK, do have the opportunity to escape. There are opportunities to 'get on'. There are opportunities to make choices - 'I-phone or dinners for a month?' Many of the poor in Britain think though that they are 'entitled' to both but given the choice would choose the I-phone because the 'state' will take care of the food, won't they?
Socialists and liberals, who have the temerity to call themselves, progressives, love to have social experiments. Remember all of those social housing tower blocks provided by councils up and down the UK? ''Vertical communities or 'communities in the sky' they were sometimes called. These replaced real communities, where people were born and lived 'cheek by jowl', with cells where people could live and eventually die, in isolation.
Anyway, I wonder if I could interest them in a truly enlightening experiment. Let's take number of Britain's 'poor' - let's say 100,000 and transplant them into a Third World poor environment. Doesn't matter where. Let's then take the same number of people from that host country/city and put them into the homes of the UK transplantees and give them state benefits but, since they are used to existing on a lot less, let's make these capped at £13,000 a year or 50% of the current welfare cap. Before any 'lefties' start howling, consider that the current welfare cap is higher than the national average, pre-tax and national insurance, wage of £25,000. That means that there are a lot of people in the UK who work and earn less than £25,000 a year.
Somehow, I would see the British 'poor' struggling in the host country, while the 'real' poor would thrive in the UK. There is an old saying about a poor man 'not needing a hand-out but a hand-up'. Maybe such an experiment would do just that!
Of course there is poverty in the UK but to my mind, the real poverty in the UK is government made. And specifically, the work of the last Labour government. And now maintained by the Liberal Democrats in the current coalition government. This poverty is fuel poverty. People are being forced to make choices between heating a home or feeding their family. I am talking here of working people and pensioners facing these choices.
Why? Well Labour and the Lib Dems would have you believe that this is all the fault of the energy companies that are working in concert to fleece the British fuel consumer. Acting in concert would be illegal but because Labour and the Lib Dems know that there is no evidence to support their claims that just make them as soundbites rather than pursuing through legal channels.
Labour and the Lib Dems know, categorically and absolutely, that the so called 'green taxes' that they love - greater than life itself - contribute far more to fuel poverty (3 to 4 times as much), than the so called excessive profits of the energy companies. And these taxes are set to continue rising, year on year, for the foreseeable future.
If we want to eradicate poverty in the UK, then abolish these 'green taxes'. End the subsidy for 'renewables' and lift people who are suffering genuine hardship, out of fuel poverty. Pensioners who have paid into a system, all of their working lives, shouldn't have to be making the kind of choices that they will face this winter. Neither should low-waged working people.
I strongly dislike the idea of taxes but while we are at it, why not put a tax on the mis-use of the word poverty? Charge the Socialists every time that they bang on about the poor in the UK. Ed Miliband is a millionaire, he can afford it!
I have been thinking about poverty. The pictures of the victims of Typhoon Haiyan, in the Philippine Islands, showed that before their lives became so sorely affected by this powerful force of nature, they lived, in many cases, in what a Westerner, applying a 'Third World' perspective, would call poverty. They often lacked basic amenities such as clean water, sewage systems, regular access to food, etc..
Rightly, the World is stepping-up efforts to provide relief to these people and we should all make our own contributions rather than just relying on governments to do it.
Thinking on this got me on to the mis-use of the word poverty, within the UK. (This probably also applies in other Western countries).
In the UK poverty becomes defined as not having the latest I-phone or wide-screen TV or fashion label. Poverty sometimes means having to choose between beer, cigarettes, drugs or food for the table.
In the real-world of real poverty, these choices simply don't exist. And exist is the word. In the real-world of poverty, the only choice is can I put bread on the table. Can I put food into the belly of my children? Whether to go for an I-phone 5S or go for the lesser but, 'hey the colours are really nice' 5C doesn't enter the mind of these people.
I lived in South Africa for a while. The beautiful city of Cape Town. I remember being told a story of people from the townships - both parents working - who for them, the daily struggle was really about putting bread on the table. Not bread and jam or bread and butter, just bread. I have also traveled throughout Asia and other parts of Africa and as I have done so, I have seen similar examples of poverty. And I am sure that in my western-cosseted lifestyle, I missed a whole lot more and a whole lot worse, during my travels. So I don't consider myself an expert, but...............
I cannot help contrast this real-world poverty with the way the UK media and Socialists and similar types apply double standards - so we have 'poverty in the UK', which has come to mean not being able to survive on a capped benefit level of £26,000 a year and then we have 100's of millions of people who get by (or tragically, sometimes don't) on less than a $1 a day.
In the eyes and twisted minds of some, these two levels of poverty have equivalence. Except, they don't.
The poverty I have seen a first hand is what most sane people would consider to be real poverty. These people suffer the lack of access to basics like clean water and food and, above all, opportunities. They often have no real chance to break-out of their ugly life-cycle. They are born into poverty, struggle through an often overly-short life of it and cannot escape. Those in so called poverty in the UK, do have the opportunity to escape. There are opportunities to 'get on'. There are opportunities to make choices - 'I-phone or dinners for a month?' Many of the poor in Britain think though that they are 'entitled' to both but given the choice would choose the I-phone because the 'state' will take care of the food, won't they?
Socialists and liberals, who have the temerity to call themselves, progressives, love to have social experiments. Remember all of those social housing tower blocks provided by councils up and down the UK? ''Vertical communities or 'communities in the sky' they were sometimes called. These replaced real communities, where people were born and lived 'cheek by jowl', with cells where people could live and eventually die, in isolation.
Anyway, I wonder if I could interest them in a truly enlightening experiment. Let's take number of Britain's 'poor' - let's say 100,000 and transplant them into a Third World poor environment. Doesn't matter where. Let's then take the same number of people from that host country/city and put them into the homes of the UK transplantees and give them state benefits but, since they are used to existing on a lot less, let's make these capped at £13,000 a year or 50% of the current welfare cap. Before any 'lefties' start howling, consider that the current welfare cap is higher than the national average, pre-tax and national insurance, wage of £25,000. That means that there are a lot of people in the UK who work and earn less than £25,000 a year.
Somehow, I would see the British 'poor' struggling in the host country, while the 'real' poor would thrive in the UK. There is an old saying about a poor man 'not needing a hand-out but a hand-up'. Maybe such an experiment would do just that!
Of course there is poverty in the UK but to my mind, the real poverty in the UK is government made. And specifically, the work of the last Labour government. And now maintained by the Liberal Democrats in the current coalition government. This poverty is fuel poverty. People are being forced to make choices between heating a home or feeding their family. I am talking here of working people and pensioners facing these choices.
Why? Well Labour and the Lib Dems would have you believe that this is all the fault of the energy companies that are working in concert to fleece the British fuel consumer. Acting in concert would be illegal but because Labour and the Lib Dems know that there is no evidence to support their claims that just make them as soundbites rather than pursuing through legal channels.
Labour and the Lib Dems know, categorically and absolutely, that the so called 'green taxes' that they love - greater than life itself - contribute far more to fuel poverty (3 to 4 times as much), than the so called excessive profits of the energy companies. And these taxes are set to continue rising, year on year, for the foreseeable future.
If we want to eradicate poverty in the UK, then abolish these 'green taxes'. End the subsidy for 'renewables' and lift people who are suffering genuine hardship, out of fuel poverty. Pensioners who have paid into a system, all of their working lives, shouldn't have to be making the kind of choices that they will face this winter. Neither should low-waged working people.
I strongly dislike the idea of taxes but while we are at it, why not put a tax on the mis-use of the word poverty? Charge the Socialists every time that they bang on about the poor in the UK. Ed Miliband is a millionaire, he can afford it!
