Hello,
I see The Independent has made the grave error of publishing an article on the subject of social housing. I expect the author is lying in a darkened room muttering 'all I did was relay the results of a report on social housing'. The response is incredible and prompts me to propose a social experiment. Why don't we all find a member of the underclass, beat the shit out them until they become as wealthy as Bill Gates, in which case we'll know they were skiving all along. Of course should any of us beat one to death, it will be unfortunate but at least we'll know they were a proper pov and couldn't help it. Most important of all it will save the tax payer money. Let's not forget that money rules and any life without monetary value is worthless.
Let's have a few quotes shall we?
'I definitely think the idea of social housing mixed with private is an utter disgrace. Why on earth should someone who has worked damned hard to save for a home and buy one at great expense and pay the bills be two or three doors away from some single youngster with her noisy brood of ear ringed 6 year old brats and pack of barking dogs.' -Mekap
For the love of God lets find out where this tit lives, gang up and set a gypsy camp on his front lawn. Does it not occur to him that the last thing a merry woman of pleasure needs is a pursed lipped puritan for a neighbour when she's busy grabbing life by the throat. Dear Lord there are standards but one simply can't live up to them without being a total bore. Some of us have cats others have mouths like cat's arses it's the way of the world.
'There is a simple answer to avoiding the phenomenon of generation upon generation of benefit dependents on these council estates: don't allow those who are benefits to get pregnant. You want benefits? Then you receive a contraceptive implant. You want to have children? Get a job so you can support them.' -RobertCLondon
Yes Robert, that would work. Let's implant women with a contraceptive that carries fairly unpleasant side effects whether or not they get themselves pregnant. God forbid a man should ever be asked to regulate his own fertility by using a condom or having the snip. Of course the fact that the majority of claimants are on benefits for six months or less is neither here nor there. As indeed the existance of childless benefit claimants who have no intention of breeding.
'We should follow the concentration camp idea through toa logical conclusion and exterminate the roaches and spongers who live on estates. They are nothing but human garbage.' -Bobsilentio
Well the granny and papa Clairwils (scheme scum) have already gone so it's too late to make them pay for having the effrontery to be born in poverty. It's too late to make maternal granny Clairwil pay for being forced to leave school at thirteen because 'she was needed in the house'. On the plus side both my parents are still alive so they can be killed for the grave sin of being born in council houses or do they get off for repenting and becoming home owners.
I get the distinct impression that the people who submit these comments don't actually know anyone who lives in social housing which is odd. I get the whiff of so painfully lower middle class it hurts. Rather than comment they'd be as well typing 'WHY CANT EVERYONE BE LIKE ME?'.
It would save time and let the casual reader get to the root of the problem.
Right I'm off to count my money because I'm worth it.
Cheerio
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
5/03/2009
3/16/2009
Oh My Sainted Aunt!
Hello,
I seem to recall not so long ago writing a post mocking hysteria over the reccession, merrily chuckling that it would all sort itself out. Clearly that was bollocks. I knew things were bad from the amount of newly unemployed people turning up in my work including folk from senior management to the office cleaner. However the moment I grasped that the folk in charge really didn't have a clue what they were doing was when having buggered about with interest rates to no avail they started printing money.
Anyway naturally folk viewing this crisis ask the question what should be done? I'm fucked if I know but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the folk at Birkbeck College have not stumbled on the answer. Their somewhat surprising suggestion being communism! Well it was such a rip roaring success last time around. Look I want to see Fred Goodwin and pals dragged from their homes and shot as much as anyone but for God's sake communism? I have never been so surprised in my life.
This should of course be the paragraph where I detail my proposals for sorting the whole mess out but I haven't the foggiest idea nor am I convinced anyone else has. Something will turn up eventually but I suspect it will be more by accident than design.
Cheerio
I seem to recall not so long ago writing a post mocking hysteria over the reccession, merrily chuckling that it would all sort itself out. Clearly that was bollocks. I knew things were bad from the amount of newly unemployed people turning up in my work including folk from senior management to the office cleaner. However the moment I grasped that the folk in charge really didn't have a clue what they were doing was when having buggered about with interest rates to no avail they started printing money.
Anyway naturally folk viewing this crisis ask the question what should be done? I'm fucked if I know but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the folk at Birkbeck College have not stumbled on the answer. Their somewhat surprising suggestion being communism! Well it was such a rip roaring success last time around. Look I want to see Fred Goodwin and pals dragged from their homes and shot as much as anyone but for God's sake communism? I have never been so surprised in my life.
This should of course be the paragraph where I detail my proposals for sorting the whole mess out but I haven't the foggiest idea nor am I convinced anyone else has. Something will turn up eventually but I suspect it will be more by accident than design.
Cheerio
8/13/2008
I'm Off On A Bender!
Hello,
I'm off for the next two days to a conference tackling important issues like poverty, inequality and for all I know hatpins. This primarily involves a big dinner dance where one is seated against one's will next to a lunatic and lots of drink.
In other words I'm off on a decadent, hypocrisy jolly, which as I found out on Monday that I am being made redundant I intend to enjoy to the full. I will behave like a conquering Viking throughout or perhaps Henry VIII, I haven't quite decided yet.
Still at least I'll be in the right place to get help adjusting to a life of leisurely poverty.
Cheerio
I'm off for the next two days to a conference tackling important issues like poverty, inequality and for all I know hatpins. This primarily involves a big dinner dance where one is seated against one's will next to a lunatic and lots of drink.
In other words I'm off on a decadent, hypocrisy jolly, which as I found out on Monday that I am being made redundant I intend to enjoy to the full. I will behave like a conquering Viking throughout or perhaps Henry VIII, I haven't quite decided yet.
Still at least I'll be in the right place to get help adjusting to a life of leisurely poverty.
Cheerio
8/03/2008
Education, Education, Education
'Where there is no vision, the people perish' Proverbs 29:18
Hello,
When I introduced my series of posts on the subject of UK poverty I aroused a minor controversy in the comments with the following; 'The one area where there is true poverty, and I'm prepared to believe worse than anything you'll encounter in any other country in the world, is in the moral, spiritual, -philosophical and educational.' Which rather surprisingly led to me being accused of preparing to deliver a David Cameron style lecture to the poor. I concede I haven't read the full text of his recent speech in Glasgow but if what I'm going on to say resembles it in anyway then allow me to extend my apologies to Dave for thinking he was just the openly Tory Tony Blair. At present the comments beneath the post are debating the relative merits of youth fashion. For the record I think fashion has being going through a rather dull, derivative phase for decades now, which I wouldn't mind if I had time to make all my own clothes.
However returning to the whole point of this post I wanted to have a go at the role education played in perpetuating poverty, crime and a general sense of hopelessness. I would argue that far from being 'hell in a handcart bollocks' it is a personal assessment of the the problems we currently face.
Society has always had problems and always will but telling some blighted community mourning the latest stabbing that this type of thing happened in Ancient Rome is like rolling up at a funeral with a bumper book of sports facts. It's the arrogance and chilling lack of feeling that gets me. In my experience it's the residents of the roughest areas that have the greatest understanding of the darker side of human nature. Let's face it -it wasn't the poor that proved a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing by falling for all that Rousseauian state of nature hogwash. I may be doing the slums of pre-revolutionary Paris a great disservice but I doubt most of the rioters were concerned with philosophy when they rampaged. They spotted a toff squabble and saw the opportunity to improve their meagre lot by getting involved.
Anyway to return to the point of my post whilst we in the west at least have enjoyed an almost unprecedented rise in material standards we have also witnessed the decline of organised religion and the rise and fall of socialism and communism. Whilst this has undeniably brought many benefits in particular to individual freedoms, there is also the downside of having nothing much to replace these philosophies with. For all their flaws they did at least provide a code of ethics and something for the unbeliever to scratch their claws against. Consumerism is pretty thin gruel in comparison to the promise of eternal life or a future workers paradise.
Similarly the feminist denigration of the traditional role of women in the home has produced winners and losers. The winners being those who wanted a career, the losers being those that saw motherhood and the running of a home as a career. As an obvious beneficiary of women's liberation I'm not about to start suggesting a ban on women working. I just point out that in rightly seeking to expand the options available to women, feminists of which I regard myself one (even if no one else does) have devalued a very valuable and worthwhile option for women.
Nevertheless the clock can't be turned back, we are where we are and probably none the wiser. The effects of these changes can be clearly seen in middle class women who have taken to believing in Indigo children, faeries, tarot cards and sitting under a pyramid. See folks reading can expose you to some wonderful things! Personally speaking I adore tarot cards, horoscopes and the like. My only beef with the new age is, it's religion without consequences stance. Come on we all want to see the wicked punished. A religion without hell is for babies.
Less amusingly the effect of all this on the less affluent has been appalling. Coupled with the loss of heavy industry, a culture of trade unionism that believed in the right to work has vanished. Given the tough treatment dished out to them over the last thirty years or so every member of the UK poor that works, that tries to keep their area decent represents a huge triumph of the human spirit and is proof that whilst one can't always choose one's circumstances one can choose how one deals with them. If the belief that is going to unite us as a society in the 21st century is pursuit of individual success then we've got to either accept the exclusion of the poorest and take the consequences or embark on a mass redistribution of opportunity and aspiration.
Whilst I still believe in a welfare state, I don't believe the one we have is working any more. It has in the past done a good job, I only need to glance at my own family tree to see that and I may add the benefits of abandoning organised religion. Great, great, great papa Clairwil died at 83 senile and infirm in a poorhouse after literally working till he dropped. Great granny Clairwil had eleven children (nine survived) until getting permission from the local priest to retire her exhausted womb. This is a woman who came into the world only to live with the shame of having 'illegitimate' stamped across her birth certificate, who didn't have the vote and could only look forward to a life of scrimping and scraping. Granny Clairwil was educated in a Catholic school at the cost of 1p per week along with her siblings a few of whom were lucky enough to win scholarships and progress to university. Granny Clairwil despite being a brainy old bird had to leave school at thirteen because she was 'needed in the house' and was promptly sent out to work. I don't have to look too far back to see what a force for good free healthcare, education and state benefits have been. Nor do I have to look to far to see the downside. Our current squandering of them when we consider what went before and the state of poorer parts of the world is obscene.
We cannot choose our inheritance we can only choose what we make of our tarnished treasure and paste jewels. Another thing we cannot choose is who gives birth. Much as it pains me, morons do have children. Unless we accept state control of our breeding which I sincerely hope will never happen, then that's what we're stuck with.
Our main tool for repairing the damage done by idiot parents and governments is mass education. It will not solve every problem, some folk will be bastards whatever you do with them however the gullible, the stupid, the damaged and the easily led are a far bigger constituency than the truly wicked and can with a bit of effort be set on a course more productive than long term benefit dependency. The first and most important thing is that everyone with the sole exception of those with disabilities which prevent it should be able to read, write and articulate themselves to a reasonable standard. As far as reading and writing go I don't think any gimmicks or new ideas are required as far as I can tell repetition and a teacher with the time and patience to correct errors should be sufficient. I would also restrict the use of computers in teaching basic English -just because we can use spellcheck doesn't mean to say we should be unable to get by without it.
For this reason I'd like to see class sizes at their very smallest in the primary school to ensure the basics are in place before progressing on to anything else at secondary school. In addition to this elocution lessons should be added to the curriculum from Primary One onwards. Not to produce children who talk with plums in their mouth or to stamp out regional accents but to prevent children limping through life with the same junkie whine as their moronic parents. The importance of good manners should also be emphasized. Oh and before some total bore starts this isn't about imposing 'middle-class' manners on anyone, it's about ensuring that everyone no matter where they were born can abide by generally accepted standards and are not put at a disadvantage by lack of socialisation. Should they find the straightjacket of manners oppressive in later life they'll be endowed with enough knowledge of the rules to build a coherent case against them. More importantly they'll be able to carry themselves with complete confidence in any social circle in later years thus widening their horizons.
Secondly but as important is numeracy. Again the basics should be in place before leaving primary. It comes in handy down the shops and I'm told mathematics is very useful for engineering and so on. It also teaches folk like me the value of boredom. Until you've learned to cope with being bored to the point of insanity you can't hope to learn anything. With most things you have to start of being hopeless, progress to mediocre and if you have a dash of natural talent or determination progress to excellent. All flippancy aside it is a valuable subject and there are folk that excel at it who should be given every opportunity to develop that talent. It's just that I am so very hopeless at it and in truth uninterested in it I find it almost impossible to make a strong case for dear old maths. I shall leave maths to the experts and move on.
I remember enough from my primary school days not to wish a curriculum of nothing but English and sums on any child, though they should take up the largest part of the day. I would also like to see history, comparative religion and anthropology at a basic introductory level play a strong role. It may be one of my many eccentricities but I genuinely believe that some knowledge of these subjects at a young age would help tackle the moral, philosophical and spiritual problems that blight the poorest amongst us. People with short memories and little knowledge are more inclined towards self-pity than self reliance.
What continually alarms, frightens and upsets me to the point of tears is how small the universe is to some of my clients. Incapable of counting their blessings or seeing that compared to many they're well off they slip into depression, hopelessness, petty feuds over sod all and lives based around immediate gratification because mentally that's all they've got. Their frame of reference is so small that to them they really are the poorest. These are people who think that their street is the centre of the universe. It is unthinkable to them to move even to another part of Glasgow. I have lost count of the number of people who have expressed quite genuine horror that I've 'jumped the river' (moved from the South to the central northeast of Glasgow). This is seriously followed up with enquiries about family feuds. It takes roughly 45-50 minutes to walk to my mothers house from here, 10 minutes by train and about 15 minutes by bus. By the time they realise that that this also means I travel to work they are utterly flabbergasted.
That vast swathes of our population are so lacking in confidence they truly believe moving to another district is a big deal is horrifying. When viewed in this context the gang battles over 'territory' suddenly become comprehensible. The belief that the scheme you live on is surrounded by hostile snobs who hate you for where you live more than anything else keeps people down. Anyone ever harassed by a ned for being a weirdo should realise they are in
fact on the receiving end of someone who truly can't believe that anyone would think, behave or express themselves differently to them. In truth they really are more frightened of you than you are of them.
With no sense of being part of wider society, the inheritor of great traditions and achievements and genuinely privileged in life when viewed in the context of history and internationally, poorly educated and surrounded by ugliness what hope is there for a child born into such squalor? For any government to preside over this then swagger about 'getting tough' is little better than amputating a man's arms and calling him lazy because he won't open a jar for you. People need to be taught that there are other ways to live, that they are part of society, that they are not the centre of the universe and that frankly some of these things are just interesting to know. The notion that everything that doesn't turn a profit is worthless is one of the few things that have trickled down to the poor in recent years, an acknowledgement that there are other laws and values would go some way to countering that. More so certainly than parenting classes, sex education for five year olds and compulsory classroom teeth brushing.
The chronic lack of confidence and low self esteem amongst the children of the poor must also be tackled if we are to end this poverty of aspiration and sense of hopelessness. For those of you bristling at this I am not suggesting hugging children every hour on the hour or telling them they're superb when clearly they're not. Instead I want to give the little blighters a hobby to go along with their education. Some of the following could realistically be part of the main curriculum, some would be better suited to after school care, clubs and the like. I would like to see everyone leave primary school with a talent at best or at worst a bumbling amateurs interest in something be it sport, dance, music, art, crafts, cookery, horticulture or games. There are only so many hours in the day and all these cannot be realistically incorporated into a normal school day at least at any meaningful level. Still they're all ways of broadening ones horizons, trying, failing and succeeding and in that lies the development of real confidence. Some of course will develop exceptional talent and opportunities should exist for nurturing of nascent talent. For the majority most will be good enough but not exceptional. That is still good enough to have a rewarding hobby a small business, a relatively interesting job or at the very least an occupied mind that isn't always dwelling on the next stairheid rammy.
It would also be a wonderful thing if we dropped this obsession with university education. Higher education is a wonderful thing as indeed is further education but it's not for everyone. In any case we have a perfectly fine Open University in this country for anyone regardless of their previous educational achievements who fancies a go at a degree. Oh and before anyone gets snooty I should point out that I am a graduate of the OU, not because I was too thick for 'real university' but because I chose to spend my late teens and early twenties enjoying myself and starting a business. Trades and skills are equally important. When we see a beautiful building we rightly praise the vision of the architect but none of it would have been possible without the skill of the builders who desrve equal praise for bringing the architects vision to life. Similarly entrepreneurs whether social like John Bird or commercial like Duncan Bannatyne aren't just 'trade' they're an important part of our economy and good role models for anyone poor who wishes to prosper. With the obvious exception of PR most jobs are valuable and our education system should acknowledge that. You can't run a theatre without stagehands, lighting technicians or ushers they're all in their roles part of the show. I've always rather admired the Hindu caste system for it's holistic view of everyones role in society but loathed it in equal measure for demanding they stay there. If someone could come up with a better version of it with the aim of ending this notion that everyone without a degree is trash I'd be prepared to do a jig in public.
None of this stands a cat in hells chance of working without a degree of discipline. Face facts corporal punishment fans, the belt has gone and it's not coming back. Oh and before anyone starts about political correctness it was in my opinion the nonces that enjoyed using it that got it banned. No one will convince me that for some middle aged men belting underage girls and boys with canes and belts wasn't for the most part perverted sexual gratification dressed up as a moral duty.
Anyway as I was saying you can't go hitting them these days which for the skilled teacher shouldn't mean mayhem. Instead children who are continually violent or disruptive should be removed from mainstream school to give children who actually want to learn something the opportunity to do so and give all present a reminder that actions do have consequences. It does unruly children no good at all to let them run riot. Bad behaviour left unchallenged just gets worse and worse -a reference to the lives of dictators will confirm that. I would stress that I am not advocating giving up on children because they are disruptive in school, quite the opposite. A firm line and investigation into their behaviour will separate the ill disciplined from the genuinely troubled and mentally disabled. Their education should continue separate from the rest of the school and for the merely badly behaved should incorporate an element of punishment -daily litter duty or something in that vein. Those who perform well should be given the chance to work their way back into the mainstream. Carrots and sticks.
As I've said education will not and cannot solve all our ills. There is other work to be done. However I remain convinced that it is our biggest and best weapon in countering at worst total social collapse and at best harbouring an unseen and igorned underclass.
Cheerio
Hello,
When I introduced my series of posts on the subject of UK poverty I aroused a minor controversy in the comments with the following; 'The one area where there is true poverty, and I'm prepared to believe worse than anything you'll encounter in any other country in the world, is in the moral, spiritual, -philosophical and educational.' Which rather surprisingly led to me being accused of preparing to deliver a David Cameron style lecture to the poor. I concede I haven't read the full text of his recent speech in Glasgow but if what I'm going on to say resembles it in anyway then allow me to extend my apologies to Dave for thinking he was just the openly Tory Tony Blair. At present the comments beneath the post are debating the relative merits of youth fashion. For the record I think fashion has being going through a rather dull, derivative phase for decades now, which I wouldn't mind if I had time to make all my own clothes.
However returning to the whole point of this post I wanted to have a go at the role education played in perpetuating poverty, crime and a general sense of hopelessness. I would argue that far from being 'hell in a handcart bollocks' it is a personal assessment of the the problems we currently face.
Society has always had problems and always will but telling some blighted community mourning the latest stabbing that this type of thing happened in Ancient Rome is like rolling up at a funeral with a bumper book of sports facts. It's the arrogance and chilling lack of feeling that gets me. In my experience it's the residents of the roughest areas that have the greatest understanding of the darker side of human nature. Let's face it -it wasn't the poor that proved a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing by falling for all that Rousseauian state of nature hogwash. I may be doing the slums of pre-revolutionary Paris a great disservice but I doubt most of the rioters were concerned with philosophy when they rampaged. They spotted a toff squabble and saw the opportunity to improve their meagre lot by getting involved.
Anyway to return to the point of my post whilst we in the west at least have enjoyed an almost unprecedented rise in material standards we have also witnessed the decline of organised religion and the rise and fall of socialism and communism. Whilst this has undeniably brought many benefits in particular to individual freedoms, there is also the downside of having nothing much to replace these philosophies with. For all their flaws they did at least provide a code of ethics and something for the unbeliever to scratch their claws against. Consumerism is pretty thin gruel in comparison to the promise of eternal life or a future workers paradise.
Similarly the feminist denigration of the traditional role of women in the home has produced winners and losers. The winners being those who wanted a career, the losers being those that saw motherhood and the running of a home as a career. As an obvious beneficiary of women's liberation I'm not about to start suggesting a ban on women working. I just point out that in rightly seeking to expand the options available to women, feminists of which I regard myself one (even if no one else does) have devalued a very valuable and worthwhile option for women.
Nevertheless the clock can't be turned back, we are where we are and probably none the wiser. The effects of these changes can be clearly seen in middle class women who have taken to believing in Indigo children, faeries, tarot cards and sitting under a pyramid. See folks reading can expose you to some wonderful things! Personally speaking I adore tarot cards, horoscopes and the like. My only beef with the new age is, it's religion without consequences stance. Come on we all want to see the wicked punished. A religion without hell is for babies.
Less amusingly the effect of all this on the less affluent has been appalling. Coupled with the loss of heavy industry, a culture of trade unionism that believed in the right to work has vanished. Given the tough treatment dished out to them over the last thirty years or so every member of the UK poor that works, that tries to keep their area decent represents a huge triumph of the human spirit and is proof that whilst one can't always choose one's circumstances one can choose how one deals with them. If the belief that is going to unite us as a society in the 21st century is pursuit of individual success then we've got to either accept the exclusion of the poorest and take the consequences or embark on a mass redistribution of opportunity and aspiration.
Whilst I still believe in a welfare state, I don't believe the one we have is working any more. It has in the past done a good job, I only need to glance at my own family tree to see that and I may add the benefits of abandoning organised religion. Great, great, great papa Clairwil died at 83 senile and infirm in a poorhouse after literally working till he dropped. Great granny Clairwil had eleven children (nine survived) until getting permission from the local priest to retire her exhausted womb. This is a woman who came into the world only to live with the shame of having 'illegitimate' stamped across her birth certificate, who didn't have the vote and could only look forward to a life of scrimping and scraping. Granny Clairwil was educated in a Catholic school at the cost of 1p per week along with her siblings a few of whom were lucky enough to win scholarships and progress to university. Granny Clairwil despite being a brainy old bird had to leave school at thirteen because she was 'needed in the house' and was promptly sent out to work. I don't have to look too far back to see what a force for good free healthcare, education and state benefits have been. Nor do I have to look to far to see the downside. Our current squandering of them when we consider what went before and the state of poorer parts of the world is obscene.
We cannot choose our inheritance we can only choose what we make of our tarnished treasure and paste jewels. Another thing we cannot choose is who gives birth. Much as it pains me, morons do have children. Unless we accept state control of our breeding which I sincerely hope will never happen, then that's what we're stuck with.
Our main tool for repairing the damage done by idiot parents and governments is mass education. It will not solve every problem, some folk will be bastards whatever you do with them however the gullible, the stupid, the damaged and the easily led are a far bigger constituency than the truly wicked and can with a bit of effort be set on a course more productive than long term benefit dependency. The first and most important thing is that everyone with the sole exception of those with disabilities which prevent it should be able to read, write and articulate themselves to a reasonable standard. As far as reading and writing go I don't think any gimmicks or new ideas are required as far as I can tell repetition and a teacher with the time and patience to correct errors should be sufficient. I would also restrict the use of computers in teaching basic English -just because we can use spellcheck doesn't mean to say we should be unable to get by without it.
For this reason I'd like to see class sizes at their very smallest in the primary school to ensure the basics are in place before progressing on to anything else at secondary school. In addition to this elocution lessons should be added to the curriculum from Primary One onwards. Not to produce children who talk with plums in their mouth or to stamp out regional accents but to prevent children limping through life with the same junkie whine as their moronic parents. The importance of good manners should also be emphasized. Oh and before some total bore starts this isn't about imposing 'middle-class' manners on anyone, it's about ensuring that everyone no matter where they were born can abide by generally accepted standards and are not put at a disadvantage by lack of socialisation. Should they find the straightjacket of manners oppressive in later life they'll be endowed with enough knowledge of the rules to build a coherent case against them. More importantly they'll be able to carry themselves with complete confidence in any social circle in later years thus widening their horizons.
Secondly but as important is numeracy. Again the basics should be in place before leaving primary. It comes in handy down the shops and I'm told mathematics is very useful for engineering and so on. It also teaches folk like me the value of boredom. Until you've learned to cope with being bored to the point of insanity you can't hope to learn anything. With most things you have to start of being hopeless, progress to mediocre and if you have a dash of natural talent or determination progress to excellent. All flippancy aside it is a valuable subject and there are folk that excel at it who should be given every opportunity to develop that talent. It's just that I am so very hopeless at it and in truth uninterested in it I find it almost impossible to make a strong case for dear old maths. I shall leave maths to the experts and move on.
I remember enough from my primary school days not to wish a curriculum of nothing but English and sums on any child, though they should take up the largest part of the day. I would also like to see history, comparative religion and anthropology at a basic introductory level play a strong role. It may be one of my many eccentricities but I genuinely believe that some knowledge of these subjects at a young age would help tackle the moral, philosophical and spiritual problems that blight the poorest amongst us. People with short memories and little knowledge are more inclined towards self-pity than self reliance.
What continually alarms, frightens and upsets me to the point of tears is how small the universe is to some of my clients. Incapable of counting their blessings or seeing that compared to many they're well off they slip into depression, hopelessness, petty feuds over sod all and lives based around immediate gratification because mentally that's all they've got. Their frame of reference is so small that to them they really are the poorest. These are people who think that their street is the centre of the universe. It is unthinkable to them to move even to another part of Glasgow. I have lost count of the number of people who have expressed quite genuine horror that I've 'jumped the river' (moved from the South to the central northeast of Glasgow). This is seriously followed up with enquiries about family feuds. It takes roughly 45-50 minutes to walk to my mothers house from here, 10 minutes by train and about 15 minutes by bus. By the time they realise that that this also means I travel to work they are utterly flabbergasted.
That vast swathes of our population are so lacking in confidence they truly believe moving to another district is a big deal is horrifying. When viewed in this context the gang battles over 'territory' suddenly become comprehensible. The belief that the scheme you live on is surrounded by hostile snobs who hate you for where you live more than anything else keeps people down. Anyone ever harassed by a ned for being a weirdo should realise they are in
fact on the receiving end of someone who truly can't believe that anyone would think, behave or express themselves differently to them. In truth they really are more frightened of you than you are of them.
With no sense of being part of wider society, the inheritor of great traditions and achievements and genuinely privileged in life when viewed in the context of history and internationally, poorly educated and surrounded by ugliness what hope is there for a child born into such squalor? For any government to preside over this then swagger about 'getting tough' is little better than amputating a man's arms and calling him lazy because he won't open a jar for you. People need to be taught that there are other ways to live, that they are part of society, that they are not the centre of the universe and that frankly some of these things are just interesting to know. The notion that everything that doesn't turn a profit is worthless is one of the few things that have trickled down to the poor in recent years, an acknowledgement that there are other laws and values would go some way to countering that. More so certainly than parenting classes, sex education for five year olds and compulsory classroom teeth brushing.
The chronic lack of confidence and low self esteem amongst the children of the poor must also be tackled if we are to end this poverty of aspiration and sense of hopelessness. For those of you bristling at this I am not suggesting hugging children every hour on the hour or telling them they're superb when clearly they're not. Instead I want to give the little blighters a hobby to go along with their education. Some of the following could realistically be part of the main curriculum, some would be better suited to after school care, clubs and the like. I would like to see everyone leave primary school with a talent at best or at worst a bumbling amateurs interest in something be it sport, dance, music, art, crafts, cookery, horticulture or games. There are only so many hours in the day and all these cannot be realistically incorporated into a normal school day at least at any meaningful level. Still they're all ways of broadening ones horizons, trying, failing and succeeding and in that lies the development of real confidence. Some of course will develop exceptional talent and opportunities should exist for nurturing of nascent talent. For the majority most will be good enough but not exceptional. That is still good enough to have a rewarding hobby a small business, a relatively interesting job or at the very least an occupied mind that isn't always dwelling on the next stairheid rammy.
It would also be a wonderful thing if we dropped this obsession with university education. Higher education is a wonderful thing as indeed is further education but it's not for everyone. In any case we have a perfectly fine Open University in this country for anyone regardless of their previous educational achievements who fancies a go at a degree. Oh and before anyone gets snooty I should point out that I am a graduate of the OU, not because I was too thick for 'real university' but because I chose to spend my late teens and early twenties enjoying myself and starting a business. Trades and skills are equally important. When we see a beautiful building we rightly praise the vision of the architect but none of it would have been possible without the skill of the builders who desrve equal praise for bringing the architects vision to life. Similarly entrepreneurs whether social like John Bird or commercial like Duncan Bannatyne aren't just 'trade' they're an important part of our economy and good role models for anyone poor who wishes to prosper. With the obvious exception of PR most jobs are valuable and our education system should acknowledge that. You can't run a theatre without stagehands, lighting technicians or ushers they're all in their roles part of the show. I've always rather admired the Hindu caste system for it's holistic view of everyones role in society but loathed it in equal measure for demanding they stay there. If someone could come up with a better version of it with the aim of ending this notion that everyone without a degree is trash I'd be prepared to do a jig in public.
None of this stands a cat in hells chance of working without a degree of discipline. Face facts corporal punishment fans, the belt has gone and it's not coming back. Oh and before anyone starts about political correctness it was in my opinion the nonces that enjoyed using it that got it banned. No one will convince me that for some middle aged men belting underage girls and boys with canes and belts wasn't for the most part perverted sexual gratification dressed up as a moral duty.
Anyway as I was saying you can't go hitting them these days which for the skilled teacher shouldn't mean mayhem. Instead children who are continually violent or disruptive should be removed from mainstream school to give children who actually want to learn something the opportunity to do so and give all present a reminder that actions do have consequences. It does unruly children no good at all to let them run riot. Bad behaviour left unchallenged just gets worse and worse -a reference to the lives of dictators will confirm that. I would stress that I am not advocating giving up on children because they are disruptive in school, quite the opposite. A firm line and investigation into their behaviour will separate the ill disciplined from the genuinely troubled and mentally disabled. Their education should continue separate from the rest of the school and for the merely badly behaved should incorporate an element of punishment -daily litter duty or something in that vein. Those who perform well should be given the chance to work their way back into the mainstream. Carrots and sticks.
As I've said education will not and cannot solve all our ills. There is other work to be done. However I remain convinced that it is our biggest and best weapon in countering at worst total social collapse and at best harbouring an unseen and igorned underclass.
Cheerio
7/15/2008
Housing
Hello,
As promised in my last post I was going to look poverty in the context of the UK and based on my own experiences dealing with it and it's attendant problems in work. The first area I'd like to look at is housing.
'Asquith' in the comments below raises the financial havoc wrought in a household of benefit claimants if an adult child commits the sin of getting a job. Depending on the child's earnings an amount will be deducted from the parents housing and council tax benefit to make up for what the state decides the child should be contributing. The benefits system is riddled with this sort of disincentive to work. There is nothing like an angry mother to get a workshy teenager out of bed of a morning the least we could do is back her up.
I have no doubt the majority of people in this situation just get on and cut their cloth accordingly but a rummage through my case files indicates that there is a significant minority that don't. Often taking a job prompts the parent to ask the child to leave home -adding to the pressure on an already oversubscribed housing system and saddling the low waged child with a tenancy they can ill afford.
Given the low wages generally involved in these cases and the mountains of paperwork generated I wonder if it's worth it, does it lead to any significant savings? Not only the new housing benefit forms that need to be completed but if the application is delayed and arrears build up to the point where court action is taken then legal aid can be added to the cost.
I'm not convinced that non dependant deductions should be done away with altogether but they could be a little more generous to the low paid, perhaps only kicking in once net earnings pass £250 per week. In any case penalising people for keeping their adult children at home when house prices and private rents are so high and social housing is so scarce doesn't make much sense.
Part of the problem with the majority of social housing lies with planning. The planners of the schemes couldn't foreseen that one day the homes they were building would one day be the empty, depressed areas they are today. Nevertheless whilst it might once have been convenient to to house the poor in the one place, it has been disastrous. I'm always struck by the contrast between the state of social housing in purpose built schemes and the small pockets of it in more affluent areas. The large council schemes of Glasgow were devastated by the closure of heavy industry and subsequent high unemployment. Had these areas been more mixed they would at least have been able to maintain some local amenities and avoided the downward spiral that brings us to where we are today.
In Glasgow following the demolition of some of tower blocks plans are underway to rebuild the areas affected. I have no idea what is planned but I hope there will be a mix of social and private housing suited to a range of incomes, rather than another bleak lets hide the poor monstrosity. A good social mix in an area would go someway to removing the stigma mainly unfairly attached to living in some of the more notorious schemes as well as making it worthwhile for businesses like shops, cafes, restaurants, pubs, markets and the like to come to the area.
I am not advocating breaking up existing communities, one of the most impressive things about schemes is the strong sense of community. If you doubt anyone would be willing to build in these areas then might I draw your attention to the catchily named Greater Easterhouse Housing Partnership Area Housing Plan which describes demand for home ownership in the area as healthy and points to the level of recent sales as evidence of this. I would also note the current level of new private housing currently being built as evidence that demand is there. Easterhouse and it's problems are by no means unique, there is no reason why this couldn't be duplicated elsewhere.
There is I believe another benefit to having areas of mixed housing. It gives people from the area who've done well financially the option of remaining in the area should they wish. Not only does this help families and communities stay together but provides something other than the local drug dealer as an example of local success. It would also go some way to addressing the pessimism and hopelessness felt by many people in the schemes. It's easy to believe you've no hope in life when you are surrounded by at best people struggling on low wages and at worst people who've never worked at all.
Cheerio
As promised in my last post I was going to look poverty in the context of the UK and based on my own experiences dealing with it and it's attendant problems in work. The first area I'd like to look at is housing.
'Asquith' in the comments below raises the financial havoc wrought in a household of benefit claimants if an adult child commits the sin of getting a job. Depending on the child's earnings an amount will be deducted from the parents housing and council tax benefit to make up for what the state decides the child should be contributing. The benefits system is riddled with this sort of disincentive to work. There is nothing like an angry mother to get a workshy teenager out of bed of a morning the least we could do is back her up.
I have no doubt the majority of people in this situation just get on and cut their cloth accordingly but a rummage through my case files indicates that there is a significant minority that don't. Often taking a job prompts the parent to ask the child to leave home -adding to the pressure on an already oversubscribed housing system and saddling the low waged child with a tenancy they can ill afford.
Given the low wages generally involved in these cases and the mountains of paperwork generated I wonder if it's worth it, does it lead to any significant savings? Not only the new housing benefit forms that need to be completed but if the application is delayed and arrears build up to the point where court action is taken then legal aid can be added to the cost.
I'm not convinced that non dependant deductions should be done away with altogether but they could be a little more generous to the low paid, perhaps only kicking in once net earnings pass £250 per week. In any case penalising people for keeping their adult children at home when house prices and private rents are so high and social housing is so scarce doesn't make much sense.
Part of the problem with the majority of social housing lies with planning. The planners of the schemes couldn't foreseen that one day the homes they were building would one day be the empty, depressed areas they are today. Nevertheless whilst it might once have been convenient to to house the poor in the one place, it has been disastrous. I'm always struck by the contrast between the state of social housing in purpose built schemes and the small pockets of it in more affluent areas. The large council schemes of Glasgow were devastated by the closure of heavy industry and subsequent high unemployment. Had these areas been more mixed they would at least have been able to maintain some local amenities and avoided the downward spiral that brings us to where we are today.
In Glasgow following the demolition of some of tower blocks plans are underway to rebuild the areas affected. I have no idea what is planned but I hope there will be a mix of social and private housing suited to a range of incomes, rather than another bleak lets hide the poor monstrosity. A good social mix in an area would go someway to removing the stigma mainly unfairly attached to living in some of the more notorious schemes as well as making it worthwhile for businesses like shops, cafes, restaurants, pubs, markets and the like to come to the area.
I am not advocating breaking up existing communities, one of the most impressive things about schemes is the strong sense of community. If you doubt anyone would be willing to build in these areas then might I draw your attention to the catchily named Greater Easterhouse Housing Partnership Area Housing Plan which describes demand for home ownership in the area as healthy and points to the level of recent sales as evidence of this. I would also note the current level of new private housing currently being built as evidence that demand is there. Easterhouse and it's problems are by no means unique, there is no reason why this couldn't be duplicated elsewhere.
There is I believe another benefit to having areas of mixed housing. It gives people from the area who've done well financially the option of remaining in the area should they wish. Not only does this help families and communities stay together but provides something other than the local drug dealer as an example of local success. It would also go some way to addressing the pessimism and hopelessness felt by many people in the schemes. It's easy to believe you've no hope in life when you are surrounded by at best people struggling on low wages and at worst people who've never worked at all.
Cheerio
1/12/2008
Chickens
Hello,
Being irrationally sentimental about animals I tuned in with interest to Jamie Oliver's chicken killing show last night. I freely admit to crying like a baby when the poor chicks copped it. I was going to blog about it last night but I thought I'd sleep on it to see if my murderous feelings towards an audience member had subsided but they haven't.
It was during the first part of the programme about eggs. Jamie asked some grotesque fat woman if the audience if she would consider buying free range eggs or barn eggs rather than battery farmed eggs having seen how awful conditions are in battery farms. To which she responded no because they were too expensive and lots of people don't have money. When Jamie, who is too nice to deal with the public got a bit daring and accused her of being too stingy to spring an extra 7p a box for a more decently produced egg she remained unmoved. Why does Channel Four never ask me to do these things? Whilst Jamie just left it there I wouldn't have. I would have asked that given she is clinically obese would she not consider buying free range and eating less eggs? If she'd still said no. I would have asked her if she'd be willing to to torture and kill chickens for 7p a go? If she'd said yes I'd have got her to do it live in the studio then reported her for animal cruelty. If she'd said no I'd have called her a big fat revolting hypocrite and spent the rest of the programme making her the (vast) butt of my jokes and catty asides.
To be fair to fatty at least she was honest about not caring a jot about animal welfare. I am confident that the chicken killing in the programme will generate loads of complaints from morons that think they eat magic chickens that flutter onto their plate without any of that awful slaughterhouse business.
This food poverty crap that keeps coming up whenever any issue regarding food is debated really gets my goat. If food was too expensive the poor would be skin and bone and the rich would be as fat as houses. It would also be impossible for me to make healthy meals for 50p a head but it isn't. There's a lot of debate about poverty in Britain but the one thing we do not have is food poverty. Cultural and educational poverty certainly but no-one is too poor to eat. In the context of the chicken welfare debate it is perfectly possible even on the tightest budget to avoid eating ill-treated chicken and eggs which have spent too long lying in excrement and urine to be edible in my opinion. All you need to do is reject the absurd consumerist idea that not getting what you want at every second of every day means you are deprived. Eat less chicken and eggs and buy free range only. Not only are you being kind to the chickens and getting tastier eggs and meat but they'll feel like even more of a treat when you do get them. Embrace anticipation! Look forward to things!
Cheerio
Being irrationally sentimental about animals I tuned in with interest to Jamie Oliver's chicken killing show last night. I freely admit to crying like a baby when the poor chicks copped it. I was going to blog about it last night but I thought I'd sleep on it to see if my murderous feelings towards an audience member had subsided but they haven't.
It was during the first part of the programme about eggs. Jamie asked some grotesque fat woman if the audience if she would consider buying free range eggs or barn eggs rather than battery farmed eggs having seen how awful conditions are in battery farms. To which she responded no because they were too expensive and lots of people don't have money. When Jamie, who is too nice to deal with the public got a bit daring and accused her of being too stingy to spring an extra 7p a box for a more decently produced egg she remained unmoved. Why does Channel Four never ask me to do these things? Whilst Jamie just left it there I wouldn't have. I would have asked that given she is clinically obese would she not consider buying free range and eating less eggs? If she'd still said no. I would have asked her if she'd be willing to to torture and kill chickens for 7p a go? If she'd said yes I'd have got her to do it live in the studio then reported her for animal cruelty. If she'd said no I'd have called her a big fat revolting hypocrite and spent the rest of the programme making her the (vast) butt of my jokes and catty asides.
To be fair to fatty at least she was honest about not caring a jot about animal welfare. I am confident that the chicken killing in the programme will generate loads of complaints from morons that think they eat magic chickens that flutter onto their plate without any of that awful slaughterhouse business.
This food poverty crap that keeps coming up whenever any issue regarding food is debated really gets my goat. If food was too expensive the poor would be skin and bone and the rich would be as fat as houses. It would also be impossible for me to make healthy meals for 50p a head but it isn't. There's a lot of debate about poverty in Britain but the one thing we do not have is food poverty. Cultural and educational poverty certainly but no-one is too poor to eat. In the context of the chicken welfare debate it is perfectly possible even on the tightest budget to avoid eating ill-treated chicken and eggs which have spent too long lying in excrement and urine to be edible in my opinion. All you need to do is reject the absurd consumerist idea that not getting what you want at every second of every day means you are deprived. Eat less chicken and eggs and buy free range only. Not only are you being kind to the chickens and getting tastier eggs and meat but they'll feel like even more of a treat when you do get them. Embrace anticipation! Look forward to things!
Cheerio
11/25/2007
Why Is Everyone Telling Lies?
Hello,
Several incidents have occurred this week which have led me to the conclusion that there is a vast conspiracy to turn me into a rabid fascist. I shan't bore you with the details just now as I may return to them in another post, instead I shall draw your attention to a story in today's Sunday Herald before going off on one about food and poverty.
Apparently the Scottish Prison service has been warned that it is likely to be sued by inmates because they aren't getting their 'five a day'.
By a strange coincidence I have just finished reading an essay written by Theodore Dalrymple, himself a prison doctor on the subject of malnutrition in prisons. In it he tells us that on an average day around six out of twenty inmates admitted to prisons are malnourished on arrival.
Naturally he is surprised as the rest of us that so many people in the worlds fourth richest country at a time when food is cheap and readily available should be in such a condition. If the inmates are to be believed and on this I see no reason to doubt them they do not eat meals, instead snacking on crisps and chocolate when hungry. This follows a childhood during which they were not served meals at home but instead ate whatever was in the fridge.
I have no idea what food is served in prisons but I find it hard to believe that it could be less nutritious than many of the inmates pre-prison diets. Of course the cry will go up that this poor diet is caused by poverty but it isn't and a walk round any supermarket supplies all the evidence you could wish for.
On leaving work on Thursday I was shattered and in no mood to cook. I hopped into Morrisons in Easterhouse and purchased the following 1 tin of chickpeas (45p), 1 tin of tomatoes with chopped peppers (48p) and 1 lemon (20p) . On arriving home I lobbed the chickpeas and tomatoes into a pot added 1 tablespoon of curry paste (1.45 for 283g) heated it up, squeezed a a quarter of a lemon over it and ate it with some couscous (70p for 500g). Whilst I can't say it was the most exciting meal I've ever had it filled a hole on Thursday and Friday night was healthier and cheaper than chocolate and crisps and the final two portions are sat in the freezer waiting to be scoffed at a later date. If I without even trying can prepare a meal containing two of the required five a day for less than 50p a portion, I fail to see why the chocolate and crisps mob cannot do so. More so when one considers than I spent more than I had to on the above. Had I been planning the meal I could have soaked some dried chickpeas or used dried lentils instead, I could have made my own curry paste which would have been much cheaper and better. Alternatively I could have visited a branch of Lidl or Aldi and paid even less. If I was being really clever I could have popped into one of the many ethnic grocers around Glasgow and got yet more for my money.
Had I decided to have chocolate and crisps instead one meal would have cost me roughly 80p per portion. To equal the four portions I managed to make at less than 50p a shot I would have to have spent £3.20 in total . Had I spent £3.20 on my meal I could have added an onion (18p), a sweet potato (52p) and a pepper (43p) and had a few pence change to play with. I've taken the prices for these extra items from the Tesco website, however could have easily obtained all these items more cheaply. In any case the £3.20 budget can provide an evening meal that just falls short of the five a day requirement.
Oddly enough the asylum seekers I work with have 20% less to spend each week that a UK benefit claimant but manage to eat healthily. Surely if poverty were causing bad diets in the UK they'd all be munching crisps and chocolate for dinner every night. Instead having a lot of time on their hands they make everything from scratch.
I have no doubt that there are many problems caused by poverty, indeed I fear poverty and take steps to avoid it. In fact the only reason I do any work at all is to avoid poverty but if I were poor I'd have to look at my spending. Cut my cloth accordingly as my granny would have put it. Curiously all the food I'd have to give up is not terribly good for you and more expensive than healthy food. No more ready meals or takeaways when I'm too tired through working and late night reading. No more red wine. No more pre-packed sandwiches. Actually the pre-packed sandwiches are one instance of bad diet caused by poverty in that the vast numbers of poor folk visiting my office leave me no time to make a proper lunch.
Whilst I appreciate that people in prison are not free to make choices about what is served up to them I'd be amazed if many inmates can legitimately claim that their health has suffered as a result of the prison diet. If anything I'd guess their physical health at least would be vastly improved by a spell inside. Personally I suspect most of the prisoners would find it more of a punishment to be given their five a day and deprived of their unhealthy food of choice. To that end I propose that the prison authorities switch immediately to an all vegan diet with the money saved on meat and dairy products being spent on extra fruit and veg. By my reckoning they could probably exceed the five a day requirement under such a system and teach the inmates a valuable lesson about playing the wide eyed victim in front of human rights lawyers.
All this is part of a wider phenomenon which seems to have gripped well intentioned, reasonably intelligent people working in the poverty racket. It is no wonder I've had bother with my mental health when I am surrounded by folk who are in complete denial of the evidence in front of them. Every night as I leave work I pass the chippy out of which snakes a massive queue of mothers and children buying their evening meal usually chips and curry sauce which will be consumed at the bus stop with the left over food and packaging thrown on the ground despite the presence of three large bins. This meal will be washed down with Coke or Irn-bru. What is peculiar about this is that the same faces are there night after night. I'm on nodding terms with most of them. If their diet is as a result of poverty then why are they spending more on an evening meal each night than I do? The bins are free to use so why is the rubbish thrown on the ground.
If I make this point to someone in the same line of work as I am they get upset and use the word poverty over and over again. If I really push it I am then told it's lack of education. I learned to cook by helping out my granny in the kitchen, doing the opposite of anything my mother has ever done in a kitchen and trial and error. I did get Home Economics for three years in school and learned to make stews, soups and salads. I attended a perfectly ordinary state school which as far as I'm aware offered the same curriculum as the others. I also know a bit about nutrition from being bombarded with government adverts about eating vegetables. So even if no-one in my family ever showed me how to cook I would have an idea how to get about a kitchen from school, a million government adverts, free recipes in supermarket magazines and hundreds of cookery programmes on TV to help me out. In addition were I living in the area where I work in I could make use of the subsidised fruit and veg on sale in one of several fruit co-ops that have sprung up in recent years or join up for the free healthy cookery classes on offer. I might even get myself a library ticket and read up on the subject. However I cannot conceive of anything that would lead me to think eating out the chippy every night is nutritious. Nor can I fathom why I would go chucking litter on the ground in my own district.
In my really bold moments I suggest to my colleagues that perhaps people who eat unhealthily do so through choice. If someone is behaving in a particular way when there are alternatives freely available then its hard to see their behaviour as being forced on them by circumstance. Needless to say this does not go down well. As to why I cannot say. It does strike me as peculiar that people who claim to be concerned about deprivation are so eager to deprive the poor of the one thing the do have, that is the ability to make choices, including bad choices. Why when someone is acting against their own interests does someone else always have to be to blame? I like a go at the government as much as anyone else but I really cannot see what else can be done to improve the diet of the poor short of force feeding them the 'right' sort of foods -a move that I suspect would lead to an uprising. School meals have been made healthier and the kiddiewinks have voted with their lunch money to the delight of fast food sellers throughout the land, cheap fruit and veg is sold in supermarkets, grocers and community centres throughout Glasgow. The government has killed countless trees producing, posters, leaflets and information packs about healthy eating but to no avail. Why then are people who know better lying? One wonders how many poor folk having swallowed this nonsense about the price of healthy food do not even bother to look at it in the supermarket and instead waste money on overpriced muck?
Cheerio
Several incidents have occurred this week which have led me to the conclusion that there is a vast conspiracy to turn me into a rabid fascist. I shan't bore you with the details just now as I may return to them in another post, instead I shall draw your attention to a story in today's Sunday Herald before going off on one about food and poverty.
Apparently the Scottish Prison service has been warned that it is likely to be sued by inmates because they aren't getting their 'five a day'.
By a strange coincidence I have just finished reading an essay written by Theodore Dalrymple, himself a prison doctor on the subject of malnutrition in prisons. In it he tells us that on an average day around six out of twenty inmates admitted to prisons are malnourished on arrival.
Naturally he is surprised as the rest of us that so many people in the worlds fourth richest country at a time when food is cheap and readily available should be in such a condition. If the inmates are to be believed and on this I see no reason to doubt them they do not eat meals, instead snacking on crisps and chocolate when hungry. This follows a childhood during which they were not served meals at home but instead ate whatever was in the fridge.
I have no idea what food is served in prisons but I find it hard to believe that it could be less nutritious than many of the inmates pre-prison diets. Of course the cry will go up that this poor diet is caused by poverty but it isn't and a walk round any supermarket supplies all the evidence you could wish for.
On leaving work on Thursday I was shattered and in no mood to cook. I hopped into Morrisons in Easterhouse and purchased the following 1 tin of chickpeas (45p), 1 tin of tomatoes with chopped peppers (48p) and 1 lemon (20p) . On arriving home I lobbed the chickpeas and tomatoes into a pot added 1 tablespoon of curry paste (1.45 for 283g) heated it up, squeezed a a quarter of a lemon over it and ate it with some couscous (70p for 500g). Whilst I can't say it was the most exciting meal I've ever had it filled a hole on Thursday and Friday night was healthier and cheaper than chocolate and crisps and the final two portions are sat in the freezer waiting to be scoffed at a later date. If I without even trying can prepare a meal containing two of the required five a day for less than 50p a portion, I fail to see why the chocolate and crisps mob cannot do so. More so when one considers than I spent more than I had to on the above. Had I been planning the meal I could have soaked some dried chickpeas or used dried lentils instead, I could have made my own curry paste which would have been much cheaper and better. Alternatively I could have visited a branch of Lidl or Aldi and paid even less. If I was being really clever I could have popped into one of the many ethnic grocers around Glasgow and got yet more for my money.
Had I decided to have chocolate and crisps instead one meal would have cost me roughly 80p per portion. To equal the four portions I managed to make at less than 50p a shot I would have to have spent £3.20 in total . Had I spent £3.20 on my meal I could have added an onion (18p), a sweet potato (52p) and a pepper (43p) and had a few pence change to play with. I've taken the prices for these extra items from the Tesco website, however could have easily obtained all these items more cheaply. In any case the £3.20 budget can provide an evening meal that just falls short of the five a day requirement.
Oddly enough the asylum seekers I work with have 20% less to spend each week that a UK benefit claimant but manage to eat healthily. Surely if poverty were causing bad diets in the UK they'd all be munching crisps and chocolate for dinner every night. Instead having a lot of time on their hands they make everything from scratch.
I have no doubt that there are many problems caused by poverty, indeed I fear poverty and take steps to avoid it. In fact the only reason I do any work at all is to avoid poverty but if I were poor I'd have to look at my spending. Cut my cloth accordingly as my granny would have put it. Curiously all the food I'd have to give up is not terribly good for you and more expensive than healthy food. No more ready meals or takeaways when I'm too tired through working and late night reading. No more red wine. No more pre-packed sandwiches. Actually the pre-packed sandwiches are one instance of bad diet caused by poverty in that the vast numbers of poor folk visiting my office leave me no time to make a proper lunch.
Whilst I appreciate that people in prison are not free to make choices about what is served up to them I'd be amazed if many inmates can legitimately claim that their health has suffered as a result of the prison diet. If anything I'd guess their physical health at least would be vastly improved by a spell inside. Personally I suspect most of the prisoners would find it more of a punishment to be given their five a day and deprived of their unhealthy food of choice. To that end I propose that the prison authorities switch immediately to an all vegan diet with the money saved on meat and dairy products being spent on extra fruit and veg. By my reckoning they could probably exceed the five a day requirement under such a system and teach the inmates a valuable lesson about playing the wide eyed victim in front of human rights lawyers.
All this is part of a wider phenomenon which seems to have gripped well intentioned, reasonably intelligent people working in the poverty racket. It is no wonder I've had bother with my mental health when I am surrounded by folk who are in complete denial of the evidence in front of them. Every night as I leave work I pass the chippy out of which snakes a massive queue of mothers and children buying their evening meal usually chips and curry sauce which will be consumed at the bus stop with the left over food and packaging thrown on the ground despite the presence of three large bins. This meal will be washed down with Coke or Irn-bru. What is peculiar about this is that the same faces are there night after night. I'm on nodding terms with most of them. If their diet is as a result of poverty then why are they spending more on an evening meal each night than I do? The bins are free to use so why is the rubbish thrown on the ground.
If I make this point to someone in the same line of work as I am they get upset and use the word poverty over and over again. If I really push it I am then told it's lack of education. I learned to cook by helping out my granny in the kitchen, doing the opposite of anything my mother has ever done in a kitchen and trial and error. I did get Home Economics for three years in school and learned to make stews, soups and salads. I attended a perfectly ordinary state school which as far as I'm aware offered the same curriculum as the others. I also know a bit about nutrition from being bombarded with government adverts about eating vegetables. So even if no-one in my family ever showed me how to cook I would have an idea how to get about a kitchen from school, a million government adverts, free recipes in supermarket magazines and hundreds of cookery programmes on TV to help me out. In addition were I living in the area where I work in I could make use of the subsidised fruit and veg on sale in one of several fruit co-ops that have sprung up in recent years or join up for the free healthy cookery classes on offer. I might even get myself a library ticket and read up on the subject. However I cannot conceive of anything that would lead me to think eating out the chippy every night is nutritious. Nor can I fathom why I would go chucking litter on the ground in my own district.
In my really bold moments I suggest to my colleagues that perhaps people who eat unhealthily do so through choice. If someone is behaving in a particular way when there are alternatives freely available then its hard to see their behaviour as being forced on them by circumstance. Needless to say this does not go down well. As to why I cannot say. It does strike me as peculiar that people who claim to be concerned about deprivation are so eager to deprive the poor of the one thing the do have, that is the ability to make choices, including bad choices. Why when someone is acting against their own interests does someone else always have to be to blame? I like a go at the government as much as anyone else but I really cannot see what else can be done to improve the diet of the poor short of force feeding them the 'right' sort of foods -a move that I suspect would lead to an uprising. School meals have been made healthier and the kiddiewinks have voted with their lunch money to the delight of fast food sellers throughout the land, cheap fruit and veg is sold in supermarkets, grocers and community centres throughout Glasgow. The government has killed countless trees producing, posters, leaflets and information packs about healthy eating but to no avail. Why then are people who know better lying? One wonders how many poor folk having swallowed this nonsense about the price of healthy food do not even bother to look at it in the supermarket and instead waste money on overpriced muck?
Cheerio
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