Tough Times Ahead

Charities have warned that more Scots will be forced into poverty by soaring prices after the Governor of the Bank of England said inflation could reach 5% by the end of the year. Mervyn King said Britain faces a long slow recovery from its financial woes. Families and pensioners will be among the worst hit as fuel, food and clothing costs soar should the prediction by Mervyn King come true. With consumer spending being squeezed and wages failing to keep pace with the rising cost of living, charities believe many families and pensioners will be the worst hit.

The Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland claimed many children could suffer as parents struggle to make ends meet. “If prices continue to rise, we’re going to see a significant increase in child poverty and this is going to have an impact on factors such as children’s health and education outcomes. Families are really struggling as living costs are rising rapidly and incomes aren’t moving to match them. Lots of families are worried about the future, they’re struggling to make ends meet and that’s going to lead to a lot of debt”.

Charity Age Scotland said that more older people could be facing poverty if bills continue to rise. Doug Anthoney, of Age Scotland, said: “If inflation reaches that point, it will have a significant impact on older people, many of whom are really struggling to pay for energy and food. “This is coming on the back of massive increases in fuel costs and it could well mean that more older people are found to be living in poverty.”

Peter Kelly, director of The Poverty Alliance, claimed that the poor would be the worst affected. “Not surprisingly higher rates of inflation will hit some of our poorest families hardest. The increases in fuel costs will make life increasingly tough for these families. When we add to this the fact that the costs of many other basic goods and services are rising, then it is clear our economic and social policies are not protecting those most in need."

A survey conducted by information management firm Nielsen showed that almost one-third of householders claim that they have no spare cash due to rising prices and the Consumer Confidence Survey also showed that 65% of shoppers are switching to cheaper grocery brands in a bid to save money.

Taking the pain

A report showed 43% of Scots say they struggle to make it to pay day.
The report by insolvency trade body R3 showed that, over the past three months, 539,000 Scots have taken on additional debt through credit cards, loans and increased overdraft facilities. According to the quarterly personal debt snapshot that equates to 13% of the Scottish population.

More than 200,000 Scots had taken out a high interest payday loan in the last year. But one in five Scots say that after receiving payday loans they then struggle to repay them.

R3 Scottish council member John Hall said: “It is extremely worrying that such a large percentage of people are struggling to make it to pay day and that many are using pay day loans to bridge the gap. These loans tend to have high interest rates and often those who use this type of credit find themselves in a vicious debt cycle, especially if they then experience a sudden job loss.”

John Dickie, head of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said: “With Government policies slashing family incomes and food and fuel prices soaring it’s not surprising that Scots are racking up more debt."

The Scottish anti-poverty network, Poverty Alliance, said there were issues surrounding the 400,000 Scots who are earning less than what is considered a living wage, estimated to be around £7 per hour, at a time when living costs are rising. Eddie Follan of Poverty Alliance said: “It is clear that increasing numbers of Scots are under pressure to make ends meet as the price of essentials like food and energy continue to rise. At the same time low pay continues to be a blight on too many of our citizens. The number of people who are in work and live in poverty is increasing.” He said those on low pay were “no doubt supplementing their low incomes with unsustainable and expensive debt”.

CAS chief executive Lucy McTernan said: “Our evidence shows that across Scotland, debt levels increased by 50% over the period of the recession, with the average debt among our clients reaching more than £20,000.”

Citizens Advice Scotland says four out of five young Scots have been in debt by the age of 21, and a third have owed more than £5000.

poverty porn

Last year Socialist Courier posted about The Scheme now the Onthank housing scheme in Kilmarnock, featured in the BBC Scotland's documentary series The Scheme has become a tourist destination.

At one point residents erected a sign charging "all scheme tourists £1 entry" - with a view to erecting a children's playground with the proceeds (only for East Ayrshire Council to haul it down within hours as illegal "fly-tipping" and as one resident said the fastest response to dumping "rubbish" ever recorded in the scheme.)

"The reason we put up the first sign is you will pay to go into a zoo or safari park, and they are coming here likes it's a safari park but with human beings on show. That's why we put up the sign, as a joke," said Karen McLean

Author and social commentator Peter York said it was understandable that the television programme would draw in spectators: "...the white working class has become the one group that can be baited and no-one complains as they would any other social class, and you have a situation where people want to see these people as they would animals in a zoo."

The Scotsman commentator Mark Smith writes "The characters in The Scheme are the alter ego of the filthy rich. They are the casualties of our capitalist society, the flawed consumers, those who, through little fault of their own, cannot step up to the plate at the altar of the free market. Yet still we deride them for reaching out to grasp some of the spoils from the rich man's table: the mobile phones, the 40in televisions, the designer gear." He goes on to say "To identify the human misery apparent in The Scheme as a symptom of the unequal nature of society is uncomfortable. It requires that we look at ourselves and at our positioning within that unequal society. It is far easier to cast judgments, to bemoan the depravity of the poor."

A bankrupt society

A record number of Scots will be made bankrupt in 2011, according to accountant and business adviser PKF. Accountancy firm RSM Tenon also predicts that personal insolvencies in the UK will set new records in 2010 and 2011.

PKF predicts that final figures will show about 22,000 Scots were sequestrated (the Scottish term for bankruptcy) or took out a Protected Trust Deed (PTD) in 2010, or 425 a week, and that this year will see even higher levels of personal insolvency. Personal bankruptcy during 2011 will be impacted by the Comprehensive Spending Review (the full impact of the CSR is yet to be felt) , which is likely to result in higher levels of unemployment among public sector employees, and potentially by the effects on mortgage-payers of rising interest rates.

“Many people are only able to cling on to their homes as long as their mortgage payments are being kept at an historicallly low level due to the 0.5% base rate. Once interest rates start to rise, I believe we will begin to see a considerable growth in what might be termed the “middle class insolvent” Bryan Jackson, corporate recovery partner, explained. It was likely that interest rates would have to start rising this year, whereas the housing market was unlikely to start a recovery until 2012 at the earliest, which meant “there will not be the escape route of rising equity to reduce debts which has been used by thousands of individuals in the recent past”.

The VAT increase, coupled with rising utility costs, would pile further pressure on those who were staving off insolvency. There is already evidence of an increased take-up of payday loans and other products from high-interest lenders which only temporarily put off the inevitable.

A challenge to debate

Harvey Duke, Organiser at Dundee Unemployed Support Centre, said: “Iain Duncan-Smith says he wants to cut all benefits, just as thousands of jobs are to be cut. Dundee Unemployed Support Centre challenges him to come to Dundee, where 24% of families already live in poverty, and debate his cuts in a public meeting. It's one thing to attack the poorest families from the comfort of a London club. It's another thing to look in the eyes of those whose incomes he will slash.Unemployed workers are fed up being told we are all scroungers. Some of us have worked for decades. We don't need threats or slave labour. We need and demand real jobs with a living wage.”

Dundee has the highest levels of poverty in Scotland with 24% of families officially classed as poor.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said; “Iain Duncan-Smith should have the guts to stand up in front of the communities at the sharp end of his welfare cuts, like the people of Dundee. If he refuses to meet with the Unemployed Centre it will show in the clearest terms that this ConDem Government doesn’t have the bottle to justify their cuts plans to those who will be hit hardest.”

the poor decay

A third of three-year-olds living in poverty in Scotland suffer from poor dental health, a new study has suggested. The research team from the University of Glasgow Dental School assessed children living in Greater Glasgow for decayed, missing or filled teeth. They found evidence of decay in at least 25% of cases. However, amongst those from deprived areas, the incidence of decay was even higher, with a third of those surveyed exhibiting evidence of cavities.

Andrew Lamb, Scottish director of the British Dental Association, said "...this study highlights the depressing fact that poor dental health and inequality are closely linked from very early in life... it's unacceptable that social deprivation is still such a strong marker of poor dental health."

poverty and disability

The charity Contact a Family, which supports and advises families who have a child with a disability, said the impact of the global recession meant families who were already under strain were now at "breaking point".

The charity asked 88 families in Scotland about their financial situation as part of a UK-wide survey.
A total of 19% said they had gone without food to try and make ends meet, while 14% said they had sacrificed heating. Three-quarters missed out on days out, while two-thirds said they did not go on holidays. Nearly half - 46% - said they had fallen behind with loan payments, with 24% saying they needed to borrow money for basic household goods.
42% admitted borrowing money from family and friends to pay for groceries, household goods and heating. Meanwhile 44% of those surveyed said they feared their future financial situation would get worse. The charity said there were a number of reasons why families with a child with a disability were likely to suffer financial hardship, but a key reason was the difficulty of juggling caring and work.

"Time and time again research shows that families with disabled children have an above-average risk of living in poverty. Steps must be taken to address this imbalance..." Ellenor Anwyl, director of Contact a Family Scotland said

Its always the poor who pay

The poorest people in Scotland are being penalised by unfair overdraft charges, according to a report by Citizens Advice Scotland.

It said the banks' poorest customers were subsidising the richest by paying a higher part of their income in fees. Despite talk about being more responsible, banks were still imposing heavy charges on vulnerable people.

Citizens Advice Scotland chief executive Susan McPhee said "...the people who are worst hit by these charges are those who can least afford to pay them.Indeed these charges mean that the poor are actually subsidising the rich, like a reverse Robin Hood effect."

One pensioner was charged £66 for going overdrawn by 60p.

The Scheme - Poverty Porn ?

The Scheme , a 4--part series ( the final two episodes of the series have been postponed indefinitely because a 17-year-old male resident featured in the shows had been charged with assault) is a fly-on-the-wall documentary of life in half a dozen households in Onthank, a housing estate in Kilmarnock. Condemned by some as little more than "poverty porn", it has provoked debate.
In its depiction of six families in the Ayrshire community, a myriad range of social problems have been shown on screen, from poverty and unemployment through to addiction and anti-social behaviour. In the north-west pocket of Kilmarnock where Onthank lies, the statistics make for even more alarming reading. There, compared with other parts of East Ayrshire, four times as many children live in households where no adults work; almost three times as many adults are unable to work due to disability or illness; and nearly twice as many adults die as a result of heart disease.

Douglas Hamilton, head of Save The Children in Scotland explains "The face of child poverty in Scotland has been brutally exposed in The Scheme. For many viewers, I am sure that this programme has been an eye-opener to the experience of some of the poorest children growing up in Scotland..." he added "It is shameful that 95,000 children in Scotland live in families surviving on less than £33 per day."

However , many community leaders have called for The Scheme to be taken off air.
Social commentator and Herald columnist Pat Kane described it as 'poverty porn' and 'middle-class BBC television'. He told Newsnight Scotland: "I thought it was cartoonish. I thought it picked people who social work would clearly have to embrace over a long period of time and concentrated on them" .
Local MSP Willie Coffey condemned the series saying it lacked balance. He said: "The danger with programmes like this is that they give a misleading impression of an entire community..."

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that nearly two-thirds of the British public think poverty is either an inevitable part of life or related to an individual's own laziness but the organisation also predicts that, in any 10-year period, half the population will live in government-defined poverty for at least 12 months.

Similar deprivation and destitution can be experienced by other people on other housing estates in other cities and towns. Many people will readily condemn those who live off Social Security and the benefits system when they could be working, but yet will vigorously defend the rights of those people who live in luxury yet never work because they own capital.
We need a revolution because the reformers, social workers, charitable individuals, priests and other well-meaning folk have all failed. They are like medics on a battlefield, all they do is to keep wrapping on the bandages as the bloody slaughter continues around them.

The death of capitalism will be the beginning of a truly human society where we can relate to each other as members of a real community.

city of discovery

In an article ex-Labour MP , John McAllion , describes his home-town of Dundee that provides some interesting statistics.

In the 19th century, the High Court Judge Lord Cockburn described Dundee as a "sink of atrocity which no moral flushing seems capable of cleansing". James Cameron, who began a career in journalism in the city in the 1930s, described the east coast town as a "symbol of a society that had gone sour".

A national study, "A Divided Britain", identified residents in many of the city's working class neighbourhoods as suffering from the "worst financial hardship in Britain". This was backed up by a contemporary Scottish Executive report showing that 46 per cent of resident households in the city had a net income of less than £10,000 a year while 55 per cent of the same households contained no-one who was working. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report branded Dundee as a city of poverty, teenage mothers and poor mental health.Dundee GPs were issuing more prescriptions for mental health problems than anywhere else in Scotland. After Glasgow, Dundee had Scotland's next highest concentration of poverty, overcrowding and drug abuse. The city retained its title as the teenage pregnancy capital of Scotland.

At the beginning of 2009 an English-based research group published a report "Cities Outlook 2009" warning of the impact of the recession on 64 cities across Britain. It ranked Dundee 54th of the 64 cities, claiming that it lacked economic prosperity, suffered from a shrinking population and was scarred by stubbornly high levels of social deprivation and benefit. Only Liverpool had a higher level of benefit claimants as a proportion of its working age population.

Annual business statistics issued at the end of 2008, revealed Dundee losing 60 manufacturing firms and 3000 manufacturing jobs in the eight years following 1998. By 2006, the city had become a service sector economy with four times as many workers working in services as in manufacturing. The average annual salary in the service sector was £8,900 a year less than in manufacturing.

The Dundee story has been about low pay, persistent poverty, joblessness and benefit dependency in a city where the hard lives of thousands of its working class citizens have been erased from the official record.

Poor and fat

Studies about the predictors of obesity in the UK have shown that the poorest are most likely to be obese. For example, one University of Glasgow study found that residents of an impoverished Glasgow neighbourhood were more than twice as likely to be obese compared with residents of an affluent neighbourhood only miles away. This pattern holds among children, teenagers and adults; men and women; and across ethnic groups.

In places such as Ethiopia (a low-income country that has had several serious famines in recent decades), the cheapest foods are the least calorie-dense; therefore, the poor systematically lack access to energy-rich foods, and have a higher likelihood of suffering from undernutrition and starvation. By contrast, in a city such as Glasgow, the cheapest foods are the most calorie-dense – kebabs, chips, crisps, pies and puddings, fizzy drinks etc – so the poor there are more at risk from obesity.

Deprived areas in cities , termed "food deserts" in the academic literature about obesity, fundamentally limit the food choices that poor people can make, thereby promoting unhealthy lifestyles, and ultimately, obesity.A basket of healthy food would cost more in a poor part of east London, for example, than it would in somewhere like Fulham.

Another issue is what is termed "food insecurity", or lack of regular, dependable access to food. This can also promote obesity. Imagine that you didn't know where your next meal would come from, and you had a large meal in front of you at the time: what would you do? I would eat the whole thing (probably more than my fill), so that if, in fact, I didn't get a meal later, I would have eaten enough for the day. Now, what if the next meal did come (again, in the same setting of insecurity about where the next meal would come from)? A cycle of insecurity-based overconsumption can set in, ultimately leading to obesity.

A study in the International Journal of Obesity upon following over 11,000 Britons for 33 years, showed that low parental social class at age seven was a significant predictor of obesity at age 33. If a factor as intractable as parental social class can influence obesity risk 26 years later, it is hardly helpful to blame every obese individual for his or her condition.

Poverty breeds violence

Scots in poor areas are more than 30 times more likely to be killed in an assault than those in affluent parts of the country, a study has revealed. A woman in the most deprived area is 35 times more likely to die in an assault than one in the most affluent area with men 31.9 times likely to die - a rate similar to deaths from stroke.

The authors said: "Reducing mortality and inequalities depends on addressing the problems of deprivation as well as targeting known contributors, such as alcohol use, the carrying of knives and gang culture."

Violence against the person can be attributed to the everyday stresses and alienations that are part and parcel of our existence in capitalist society. We are conditioned into seeing our fellow workers, with whom, economically, we have everything in common, as rivals; as competitors for jobs and houses. The victims will all too frequently be fellow members of the working class. Where those fellow workers also happen to possess characteristics that proclaim the greater diversity of our species, be it skin pigmentation, accent, age, gender, sexual proclivity, disability; whatever then they are all the more readily identifiable as potential targets for abuse or violence.

cynicism and scepticism

The Big Issue carries an article on Edinburgh's rich/poor divide .JK Rowling has written about the shock of first moving to a council estate in the city and finding “violence, crime and addiction were part of everyday life in that part of Edinburgh… yet barely 10 minutes away was a different world, a world of cashmere and cream teas”.

Susan Carr, who runs the Craigmillar Neighbourhood Alliance explains how an ongoing regeneration project has stalled due to the economic downturn.“Given we’re only 10 minutes from parliament, in one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, the level of deprivation does seem outrageous...”
Carr’s colleague Norrie Davis, a lifelong Craigmillar man, says they are all “living in hope” that a new secondary school and library will be completed and that half-finished homes will be sold. “Everything’s slowed down because of the recession..."

Kirsty McLaron, 33, says “things have quietened down an awful lot, apart from one of two troublemakers”, but she doesn’t give Labour any of the credit. “They haven’t done anything for this area at all. I don’t really care if the Tory boy gets in – it can’t be any worse than Labour.”
One of her neighbours, 63-year-old Peter Kane, concurs. “The area’s got a hell of a lot better. A hell of a lot. I remember the days when you couldn’t even walk about safely in the daytime.” but he won’t put any of the improvement down to Labour politicians in London or Edinburgh. “The thing that sickened me was the MPs’ expenses,” he tuts. “They’ve been screwing us at every opportunity, and I don’t see any reason to vote for Labour now.”

As Socialist Courier says "Tweedledum or Tweedledee"

Health is Wealth

Men in the poorest parts of Scotland have a life expectancy more than 13 years shorter than males in the most affluent communities, according to the Register General Scotland report that highlighted the differences in life expectancy between different parts of the country.

It showed that men living in the poorest communities can expect to live 67.3 years - 13.5years less than those living in the richest areas, who can expect to reach the age of 80.8.

Similarly, with women, those living in the most well-off communities live longer than those in the most deprived, though in the case of females the gap is not so large.Females in the poorest communities can expect to live to the age of 75.1 while life expectancy for women in the most affluent areas is nine years higher at 84.1 years.

Men living in East Dunbartonshire have a life expectancy of 78, compared to 69.4 years in north Glasgow.For females, the difference in life expectancy between the two areas was six-and-a-half years, with life expectancy for women in East Dunbartonshire 82.5 years and 76 years in north Glasgow.

The cuts - the real meaning of cutting back

Clare Simpson, project manager, Parenting Across Scotland , said: "The results of our survey show that the recession is having an adverse effect on families.Some people are losing their jobs, others have less money to spend because hours are being cut or overtime is no longer available while, for many, there is fear and worry about what the future might hold."

A survey carried out by PAS found that 55% of families reduced their spending on food and heating as a result of the recession. Parents were also less likely to spend money on their children, the survey found.One third of parents also claimed the recession had put a strain on their relationships.

The Shame of Scotland

The number of children living in poverty in Scotland remains at an "unacceptably high" level. Save the Children found 95,000 young people, almost 10% of all children in Scotland, were living with families that had less than £33-a-day to spend. The charity found the poorest families were, on average, £113-a-week short of enough money to cover essential costs.Youngsters in single parent households were about three times more likely to live in severe poverty.More than two thirds of those included in the figures lived in families where no adults worked.

The charity described government promises to end child poverty by 2020 as "increasingly hollow"

Douglas Hamilton, Save the Children's programme director in Scotland, said: "We are absolutely outraged that so many children have to go without essentials - we're talking about winter coats and proper shoes, real basics that families just can't afford...."

No work , No hope

Almost one in three households in Glasgow have no wages coming in, official statistics have revealed.

Figures released by the Scottish Government show 62,000 households in the city - 28.9% of all homes - had no working-age adult in employment last year. That puts Glasgow behind the national average of 24%. The stats also reveal a shocking 22,900 children in Glasgow live in a workless home.

The director of the Glasgow-based Poverty Alliance, branded the figures a "scandal".

"There is little doubt that unemployment means that people will struggle to afford the basics in life. For these families heating their home and putting food on the table is the challenge. In the 21st century that is quite clearly a scandal. We know that children in workless households, living in poverty, will have less chance in life than children from better-off backgrounds.We know that their education will be adversely affected and they are more likely to suffer health problems. The danger is that we perpetuate a cycle of worklessness and limited opportunity."

Capitalism cannot be reformed for the benefit of the working class and sooner the well meaning realise this fact , the sooner , we can begin the dismantling of the capitalist system .

old and in the way

A quarter of UK pensioners feel their lives are getting worse.

Michelle Mitchell from Age Concern and Help the Aged said: "Loneliness, depression, poverty and neglect blight the lives of millions of older people and for many, evidence shows the situation is getting worse, not better...."

Yet all the charities can do is make plaintive pleas to government for reforms . To be frank, campaigning charities like Age Concern and Help the Aged have got no chance at all of getting governments to change their practice of putting profits before people. And it is not because they believe merely in lobbying that dooms them to failure. As long as the capitalist system continues to exist, its economic laws will operate to put profits before people, and governments will have no choice but to dance to this tune.

Malnutrition in the UK ?

“We think we are heading towards malnutrition happening here in the UK.” - Save the Children’s Colette Marshall told the BBC. "Benefits simply haven’t been enough and with rising food costs it means that families cannot afford to give children proper decent food. "

Children are being deprived of dietary staples and instead are being raised on cheap packaged food high in fat, salt and sugar. The Grocer magazine shows food prices rising by almost a fifth over the past year, with basic essentials such as rice and milk among the worst hit.

The Recession - it is a death sentence

The World Bank is issuing even bleaker warnings about rising poverty and hunger in the developing world. Initially, it estimated that 46 million people in developing countries could be pushed into poverty. Now, that level is up another 7 million.
“We estimate that about 130 million people were pushed into poverty from the food crisis and if you add the financial crisis on top of that we are estimating that about 53 million more people could be pushed into poverty as a result of the financial crisis,” World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said

The World Bank estimated that the current financial downturn may add between 200,000 and 400,000 additional infant deaths per year on average in the 2009 to 2015 period. That means a total of 1.4 million to 2.8 million more infant deaths, if the financial strain continues.

"...When you talk about the financial crisis becoming an unemployment crisis in the developed world, in the developing world for many poor people it’s not an issue of unemployment, it’s an issue of life and death.”