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Amongst the comments to my earlier post, several people have raised questions about the definitions of poverty and their validity; especially that covered by Oxfam, which defines poverty as less than 60 of the national median disposable income.
According to the national office of statistics, after rent, bills and necessities are paid, this figure is £194 per week per household. If you're living on less than that, Oxfam says you're living in poverty; they don't appear to differentiate between households of people living alone and households with a dozen squalling children crammed into the front room because, as we all know, there's no difference in living costs between the two.
According to the national office of statistics, after rent, bills and necessities are paid, this figure is £194 per week per household. If you're living on less than that, Oxfam says you're living in poverty; they don't appear to differentiate between households of people living alone and households with a dozen squalling children crammed into the front room because, as we all know, there's no difference in living costs between the two.
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Anyone smart enough to spend time calculating their statistics is smart enouh to realise that any mathematical measurement of poverty is meaningless in face of the complexity of the issue of poverty, and that some statistics should not be poked.
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I believe in truth in advertising myself.
And it's not the people who are smart enough to do the maths I'm worried about; it's the ones who aren't, and who are instead emotionally blackmailed into supporting something based upon false premises.
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*cough*. You're about to regret that.
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What strikes me as odd about the UK poverty debate is that the vast majority of people raising it as a problem are not themselves poor.
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And a mathematical measurement of distance is piss simple. A mathematical measurement of something as human and complex as poverty is ridiculous, it's like someone trying to mathematically measure attraction.
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That's the most patronising thing I've heard in politics in weeks - well done. Why can they not speak for themselves?
Attraction is immesurable because it is based on feelings. Poverty is about easily determinable things like not having enough to eat or not having clean water, widespread problems in the third world but very rare in this country, except among people recently arrived from third world countries with nothing.
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Poverty is not a simple equation. A man who counts himself rich in one country is a pauper in another. It's not just about physical things, it's about education and freedom and rights. Any mathematical measure will fall short of these things. You can create guidelines, but a mathematical scale is meaningless. Hell, Dave's point is that this mathematical measure, which probably works fairly well in sub-saharan Africa,
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Until we can give them a voice then we need to defend their needs and speak for them. It's as simple as that. They can't speak for themselves.
This is language appropriate for talking about children, not adults. Adults have their own voices.
it's about education and freedom and rights
Now we're getting closer. We're pretty good on the freedoms and rights. Where things are going wrong in this country are education and rule of law.
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That last bit, the inability to express oneself, can lead to all sorts of nasty problems - if you are desperate, living hand to mouth, then you don't have time to lobby your MP, to run around badgering people, or to aquire enough information to know you are being led by the nose.
You may be told by an agency 'sorry, nothing to do with us' and go away - too tired to do more leg work, too little time to read up and find that actually they SHOULD be helping you.
Without a computer you cannot search the internet.
Without free time you cannot go to the library to read up.
Without the education to know HOW to find the information you need.
having a voice is not about telling someone they can speak if they want to, it is about ensuring the quietest are heard and understood, even when they mumble or seem to be speaking rubbish - just because you can't hear them, or don't understand them, doesn't mean there isn't something to be heard.
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Go to several areas around Britan (lets say- Ayelsbury Estates, South London; Deneby, South Yorkshire; the main council estate (name escapes me now), Durham; Devenport, Plymouth).
Look around.
These people can all vote.
They are also disenfranchised.
Not in a political way (they have the RIGHT to vote)- but anyone who cannot see the under-class (and note- NOT working class, under-class) of British society- with its own heroes and its own culture and language, cannot help but feel this is what they are.
Having a society that DOES grant people a feeling of dispair, helplessness and boredom towards politics (based upon cynicism) so that they really couldn't give a damn about voting is disenfranchisement.
Do you honestly think that the areas in Britain with the lowest voter turn out in national elections would be like that if people actually, genuinely felt they could make a differance?
Or is the reason they do not vote simply because they are poor and therefore 'stupid' (the most common implication)?
When the political leaders and their values and their policies are unable to convince societies poorest/least valued members of society that they can make any change, they remove from them the ability/desire to vote. But can mew that it is the voters choice.
If it looks like it and smells like it, it is what it is... disenfranchised/disempowered/disembodied... (grins)
Both left and right wing say the poor is ignorant and uninterested in politics.
Both ignore the fact that history proves them wrong. Both sides go out of their way to keep the poor silenced and disenfranchised.
Both sides then accuse the other of letting down the under-class of society.
So, he's kinda right...
...in a way.
I don't speak for the under-class by the way. If I tried it- they'd probably kick my head in.
:)
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I still rather like the unit of measurement of beauty sufficient to launch one ship: a Millihelen.
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I liked the measurement of coolness from Futurama The megafonzie.
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Shelter
Potable water
Nutricious food
Education
Healthcare
In the main, this is a definition I'll agree with. I will never sign up to any definition of the word 'poverty' which involves me and my current standard of living within in for the simple reason that I do not live in poverty, and it's offensive to the people who do to suggest as much.
I'm brassic, yes, but I'm a Yorkshireman and thus careful enough with my money to be able to have treats when I want them, by and large. I'm the person who made an annual profit whilst on the dole.
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Potable water
Nutricious food
Education
Healthcare"
Sounds right to me.
You have that, you are not in poverty.
Although...
Does living near an Albi count as Nutricious food?
"'Cos I only go there when I am too pikey to go ta Iceland!"