This Government Seems to Hate the Poor. Do We?

“History is written by the rich and so the poor get blamed for everything” – Jeffrey D Sachs

Now that the general hysteria, euphoria and inevitable dysphoria accompanying the election of the racist tin of Tango and the Brexit vote has mildly abated and a new ‘reality’ makes its unwelcome introduction to the masses, it seems as good a time as any to reflect on what this could mean for ordinary people. And let me add this caveat in advance - what follows are opinions since everything is suppositious. If you want the ‘reassurance’ of opinions disguised as facts then you’re in the wrong place. You might want to indulge in the Daily (Hate)Mail, Fox News, the Daily Express, Sky News or The Sun for that.

The age of austerity has been with us for so long that it seems as if we don’t know anything else. And throughout this period we have had successive politicians and their spin–doctors reliably informing us that despite apparent looming financial Armageddon, they had the solution that would prove to be our collective salvation. We had to learn to live within our means, tighten our belts so that the sins of this generation would not be visited upon our children. But we were all in it together so it was okay. And across the pond, a man created a clarion call of false solidarity with a disenfranchised core of (primarily white) people struggling to access lifestyles that they once took for granted. Consequently, it now seems pretty obvious that the message of ‘Make America Great Again’ would resonate with them. Because despite significant numbers of people questioning when America was great, they knew exactly when it was. It was when they were great. And now they were competing with cheap foreign labour, migrant workers and deunionisation, they were poorer for it; they were proud people but they were victims. After all, there’s a certain nobility in poverty and the solidarity that stems from having a shared pain. Victims will always occupy the moral high ground. And the demagogues of the populist political movement know this on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bizarrely enough, plenty of people in the UK who weren’t rich bought the message delivered by extremely wealthy politicians. A vote for Brexit was a vote against elitism and a means to ‘take back control of our country’; despite the fact that the UK rejected the Euro, had it’s immigration border control on France’s sovereign territory in Calais and the message of elitism was being promulgated by some of the most elite members of society. Think Boris is a man of the people? **** off. Think our unelected Prime Minister is a champion of equality and diversity as she has intimated? Well, with the aggressive attempts to ‘rid’ the UK of the Human Rights Act 1998 (watch out minorities) and her enthusiastic response to the election of Oberste Fuhrer Drumpf, focussing on potential economic benefits whilst disregarding his obvious deficiencies, let’s just say the jury is still out. But we the UK sheeple – or at least 52% of us – bought the lies and uncertainty that our economy would benefit immensely and that was far more important than stupid little things like wage parity or human rights.

Suddenly, everyone seemed to be concerned about the economy without having a clue what they were referencing and completely forgetting that in our disproportionately service-based economy, the economy is us. Despite the fact that whilst telling us that we needed to live within our means, it was almost our duty to go out and spend in order to create a robust economy. Buy a house even though the mortgage repayments placed you in greater financial peril should interest rates change (and they will by the way – it’s inevitable). Take that holiday on the never-never of credit. Buy a car. Do all or any of the above but for God’s sake buy something. And if you couldn’t then there was someone to blame. And for this government, that someone to blame is the poor.

I can’t recall the myriad conversations I had with friends, colleagues and associates about the assault on the poor. Bedroom taxes. Welfare reforms. Zero hours contracts. Benefit caps. The ever-increasing numbers of unemployed young people. The extremely rapid proliferation of food banks and the fact that the highest proportion of users of food banks are people who are working. It seemed I was talking about the lack of fairness in society on a perpetual basis with people who were despairing that as a country, we seemed to be totally ambivalent about the poor, desperate and destitute. Hundreds dying as a result of benefit changes, migrants dying in their thousands, young people whose prospects were diminishing daily being funnelled in to cheap labour disguised as Apprenticeships and other Government sponsored programmes.

This government is presiding over the greatest assault on the poor in over a century. This week alone, Shelter announced that child homelessness has risen by 71% under the Tories. That’s over 120,000 people. The UK trade deficit rose to £5.2 billion for the most recent month. And ironically the deficit with the EU rose to £8.7 billion, which I don’t think will improve as a result of Brexit! Over 64% of those hit with the Benefits Cap are single parents that often have children under 4 years old. This week, a private health company (Virgin) won an NHS contract valued at £700 million – but of course the Tories insist they aren’t privatising the NHS. Our prisons are increasingly unsafe after years of underinvestment, disproportionately unfair sentencing practices that pander to the right-wing press and a resultant explosion in the prison population alongside a decimation in the number of prison/probation officers. And these officers, stressed to breaking point, take a call to action that the Government responds to by taking them to court and forcing them to tolerate the intolerable conditions that they are responsible for. All this shit has happened in just one week, while we’ve been distracted at what may seem like an even greater threat in Amerikkka.

Is this what people voted for? Really? If we judge ourselves by how we treat the most vulnerable then we are damned, because any society that doesn’t help the poor won’t be able to save the rich from their wrath. It’s time to create a new political paradigm – revolution is in the air.

Because the kind words of rich people don't fill up the stomachs of poor people.