Child Poverty, Fuel Poverty, Food Banks And An Early Death.

      Do you not get sick in your stomach, and very angry when you keep being fed this crap about how the economy is recovering and the UK is now doing well. That babbling brook of bullshit, the media, are always trotting out goody-goody figures of how things are now on the up and up, while the vast majority of us are facing the worst attack on our living conditions in living memory.

       In this Britain on the rise, we have the Trussell Trust which runs 400 food banks in the UK, claim that it has seen the numbers of those applying for food, triple in the last year. 2012-2013 saw 346,992 people relying on food banks to survive, of those 126,889 were children. In this prosperous growing economy we have 13 million people living below the poverty line.

       In this land of growing opportunity we have 3.5 million children living below the poverty line, that is 27% of all children. In some local areas that figure is dwarfed, by numbers like 50%-70%. Another interesting figure regarding child poverty is the fact that 66% of those children in poverty, are in homes where at least one person is working.

      From child poverty to adults relying on food banks, to fuel poverty, that is the  true picture of the UK's growing economy. It is estimated that 24,000 people in the UK will die from the cold this winter, simply because they can't afford to heat their homes. Cold homes bring on increased blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, respiratory problems and a host of other problems. More than 6 million people in the UK are worried that they may not be able to heat their homes properly this winter. Millions of pensioners face the winter with dread and anxiety, as they know the dangers of a cold home, but can't afford to heat theirs.

 

       With this depressing picture of the real UK, we get those arrogant, pompous, parasitic millionaire MP's claiming that poverty is due to those scroungers and drug users living on benefit, however the facts don't bear that out. According to G Hay and L Bauld, Population estimates of problematic drug users in England who access DWP benefits, Department for Work and Pensions, 2008, suggest that 6.6 per cent of the total number of benefit claimants in England were problem drug users. While drug misuse may prove to be a key reason this group of people finds it hard to escape poverty, it clearly has no explanatory power for the other 93.4 per cent of claimants.

     The truth is the system is designed to syphon wealth upwards and it is working exceedingly well at the moment. If we want to eradicate child poverty, fuel poverty, and the need for food banks, and the attendant misery, then we have to destroy the system of capitalism. Turning to the managers of this exploitative system and asking them to share a little bit more of their wealth, (which we created) with us, may temporarily get you a few more crumbs, but they will keep the cake. and we will keep our poverty.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk