Thursday, November 23, 2006

TORIES AND POVERTY

IAIN AND COMPANY RANTING


I normally read The Guardian online, this stemmed from when the paper was huge and it used to hurt my wee arms! However, I missed the one big story on the comment section that Poly Tonybee was recently praised for by The Conservatives! Yup that is right you heard correctly well it turns out that the worms are turning, if you look in on Iain Dale's blog they are going nuts about it! They are suggesting that relative poverty doesn't matter that it is a non entity and that it should be removed from official government language.

I cannot help but think that is because they have probably never met someone who lives below the poverty line, or if they have they do not consider them worthy of their time. In today's comment Tonybee points out that although 'relative poverty' is indeed relative it does not make it any less real for those children and parents who suffer with it, trying to avoid the PE lessons because you don't have the right kit might sound frivolous but it wouldn't be if it was your child!

Tonybee also doubts -as do we all- that Cameron and the Tories are taking this seriously, I agree with her assessment of the situation that the figures don't add up, you cannot cut spending on the social justice agenda and still lift people out of poverty, she suggests they will be looking to the voluntary sector to come up with the cash, but they get a lot of the funding for their projects from Government be it Central or Local so the idea that they would be able to sustain this type of spending without the assistance of government is ridiculous and I am sure Tonybee agrees.

I like the fact that she attacks the Government for their language on this, it should not be about the deserving and undeserving poor but about what we can do for ALL society and the injustices and inequalities that exist to make a more just and tolerant society. The tolerance debate seems to have been left out of this particular issue but it is relevant, tolerance is fostered by equality of rights and responsibilities and social policy should equally assist all sections in society.

1 comment:

Serf said...

Social mobility is lower under Labour than it was under the Conservatives. The Polly Toynbee way, just makes class differences permanent.

As for Torys not understanding poverty, I have been jobless and homeless & know a thing or two about the subject, and I am far from the only one.


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