(This is neoliberalism, savage capitalism, this is what it does everywhere it goes.)
by
Steven Preece
The UN’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human
rights, Professor Philip Alston, has delivered a scathing attack against
the UK Government, claiming that austerity measures are a “political
choice” that are responsible for causing endemic poverty and hardship
across the country.
Below is a detailed and unedited copy of his damning report. This is a
VERY long read, so you may want to bookmark this page to return to
later.
“The UK is the world’s fifth largest economy, it contains many areas
of immense wealth, its capital is a leading centre of global finance,
its entrepreneurs are innovative and agile, and despite the current
political turmoil, it has a system of government that rightly remains
the envy of much of the world. It thus seems patently unjust and
contrary to British values that so many people are living in poverty.
This is obvious to anyone who opens their eyes to see the immense
growth in foodbanks and the queues waiting outside them, the people
sleeping rough in the streets, the growth of homelessness, the sense of
deep despair that leads even the Government to appoint a Minister for
suicide prevention and civil society to report in depth on unheard of
levels of loneliness and isolation. And local authorities, especially
in England, which perform vital roles in providing a real social safety
net have been gutted by a series of government policies. Libraries have
closed in record numbers, community and youth centers have been shrunk
and underfunded, public spaces and buildings including parks and
recreation centers have been sold off. While the labour and housing
markets provide the crucial backdrop, the focus of this report is on the
contribution made by social security and related policies.
The results? 14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in
poverty. Four million of these are more than 50% below the poverty line,
and 1.5 million are destitute, unable to afford basic essentials. The
widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts a 7% rise in
child poverty between 2015 and 2022, and various sources predict child
poverty rates of as high as 40%. For almost one in every two children
to be poor in twenty-first century Britain is not just a disgrace, but a
social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one...
[read more
here]
