{"id":16730,"date":"2018-11-16T16:14:23","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T16:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=16730"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:57:52","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:57:52","slug":"great-misery-un-poverty-austerity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=16730","title":{"rendered":"‘Great misery’"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The British government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s austerity campaign is \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpunitive, mean-spirited, and often callous\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and has caused \u00e2\u20ac\u015bgreat misery\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 not for any economic requirement but to satisfy a political aim of social re-engineering, the United Nations\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 poverty envoy has said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

UN special rapporteur on poverty, Philip Alston, submitted his damning 24 page report<\/a> at the end of a two-week countrywide investigation, in which Unite Community members assisted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a devastating rebuke of the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 austerity<\/a> driven policies, Alston said that despite being the globe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fifth biggest economy, the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s levels of child poverty<\/a> are \u00e2\u20ac\u015bnot just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alston pointed to research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that shows around 14m people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 20 per cent the population \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are living in poverty, while 1.5m are destitute and unable to support themselves in anyway.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He also cited estimates that child poverty could increase by 7 per cent in the seven years to 2022 and could even reach a rate of 40 per cent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The human rights lawyer said that in the UK \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpoverty<\/a> is a political choice\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, even though \u00e2\u20ac\u015bit is patently unjust and contrary to British values that so many people are living in poverty.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alston singled out Chancellor Philip Hammond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tax giveaway to the rich in this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget<\/a> as an example of the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s skewed priorities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAusterity could easily have spared the poor, if the political will had existed to do so.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alston visited towns and cities across the UK, including the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s poorest town, Jaywick in Essex, where he attended a meeting organised in conjunction with local Unite Community branches.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite Community Clacton branch chairman Rick Grogan spoke of the type of accounts Alston heard from people during his visit to Jaywick.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe were assisting one family who had to move out of their home during the summer and live on the beach at night because they had rats running across their beds \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been on to the landlord for months.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhen the council finally went in to have a look, the home wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even fit for human habitation. We managed to get that sorted and get the house refurbished, but slum landlords are a real problem here.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Grogan said although poverty was particularly acute in Jaywick, which he described as a tight knit and supportive community, it is also an issue in the surrounding areas.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bPeople are falling through the cracks and Universal Credit is making things worse. It was rolled out in this area in summer and even since then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been seeing the effects. When it goes out across the country it is going make poverty much much worse. The entire system is disaster,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Grogan explained that the root causes of poverty are multi-faceted and complex and include a lack of adequate housing<\/a>, a failing education system and the dismantling of the social safety net.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However he was clear at where the blame lies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the government from top to bottom. They have failed us and they need replacing urgently.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The UN rapporteur was just as damning in his assessment of growing poverty in the UK.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obvious to anyone who opens their eyes to see the immense growth in food banks 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.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alston said parts of the Universal Credit<\/a> system are \u00e2\u20ac\u015bOrwellian\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and that it was \u00e2\u20ac\u015bfast falling into universal discredit\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 austerity has always been a political choice. It was no accident that those who have paid the heaviest price for the cuts to our services and longest slump in wages in two centuries were the poor and the vulnerable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bBut while the emphatic conclusions of the UN cannot be avoided or denied yet even more cuts are on the way, making a nonsense of the PM\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s claim that `austerity is over\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bA government that has brought so much harm to so many people is not government for the people.\u00c2\u00a0 They should get out of the way and let the business of healing our country be done by a government that puts the people first.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The British government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s austerity campaign is \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpunitive, mean-spirited, and often callous\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and has caused \u00e2\u20ac\u015bgreat misery\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 not for any economic requirement but to satisfy a political aim of social re-engineering, the United Nations\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 poverty envoy has said.   UN special rapporteur on poverty, Philip Alston, submitted his damning 24 page report at the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[76,1067],"wps_subtitle":"UN poverty envoy slams UK government austerity as \u00e2\u20ac\u0098punitive\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and \u00e2\u20ac\u0098mean-spirited\u00e2\u20ac\u2122","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16730"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25711,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16730\/revisions\/25711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}