Stirring rhetoric
Government targets have got a bad name but they don't half focus the minds of politicians. Labour's ambitious child poverty targets are making life hard for the chancellor in the days before his Budget. A good thing too, child poverty campaigners will no doubt retort.
Today the published a report pointing out, as others have done before, that the . The Committee says the target is likely to be missed by one million children (1.5 million on an after housing costs basis) if nothing further is done.
Clearly, though, something further is about to be done. Why do I say that? Because the prime minister himself said so in which I have just got around to reading:
"This government must end child poverty in this generation and in the next few weeks we will move further towards our goal".
This came after some stirring rhetoric about the importance of tackling poverty:
"Child poverty is the scar that demeans Britain. When we allow just one life to be degraded or derailed by early poverty, it represents a cost that can never be fully counted. What difference could that child have made?
"What song will not be written; what flourishing business will not be founded; what classroom will miss out on a teacher who can awaken aspiration? Because just one child's life wasted haunts us with the thoughts of what might have been.鈥
The chair of the , Barnado's chief executive Martin Narey, has claimed that Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report used money set aside for helping poor children to cut inheritance tax for the rich.
The PM appears to be signalling that he won't be doing the same again. Not, of course, that he is has very much money to splash about.
I'm 
Comments
And of course the last Budget increased income tax rates for the poor...
Nick
Put money on the target being achieved,though not necessarily the objective. To achieve the target means producing statistics to show that it has happened.
Guess what? One way or another child poverty will be halved - statistically - irrespective of the reality.
Cynical? Maybe, in the case of this lot's past record, cynicism is the product of experience.
Andy
I watched Gordon's speech on Saturday, when he made his pledge on child poverty. At first I have to say that I was pretty impressed when he gave what to me was a good understanding of the current economic environment. It then went wrong. Nearly everything he seemed to be proposing solutons for he (ie the Government) was to blame for causing in the first place or could have fixed in the last 10 years if they had wanted to. He even said that English is "now the language of business", perhaps forgetting that a couple of hundred years ago we had an Empire that covered one third of the globe. It was noticeable that the applause for his succession of commitments was not overly enthusiastic, as was evident from early pictures of his audience (I gave upo half way through). He even pledged to have GPs surgeries open longer - forgetting that as part of a previous pay settlement under his Government it meant they could close earlier! In any event, in 1999 Tony Blair said he would eliminate child poverty by 2020 and he announced then the target of a 50% reduction by 2010. So, it's old news, and was suspect at the time it was first made - ie nearly 10 years ago. But you never know, the odd familiar tweak here and there with the way the statistics are calculated (get advice from the NHS) could mean the target is achieved.
So New Labours targets and policies have failed, but GB thinks that we will be taking New New Labours targets and policies seriously. Isn't the only promise we want to hear 鈥淚鈥檓 calling an election鈥
Another target. Another flurry of hot air. Another frenzy of social ministers and charity workers.... How tedious.
Besides, what is this child poverty we are all supposed to be concerned about? Not more than one plasma screen TV? No new mobile phone? No cool trainers?
Does any child really go hungry or shoeless in our society? (Unless, of course, it's feckless mother - there won't be a father around - uses all the ample benefits lavished on her for, um, other purposes).
The truth is that were we to be honest and announce that there is very little real child poverty in the UK, countless charity workers and assorted busy-bodies would have to transfer into the real world and get a productive job.
Are we sure we know what poverty is ? Real poverty is, no home, no food, no clothes, as experienced by peoples around the world, poverty is not the lack of a plasma TV, expensive training shoes or other gadgets. If there is poverty in Britain then it is purely relative and a wider issue than the acquisition of goods; poverty of direction; hope and future are all rampant. Fundamental changes have robbed us of the certainty of a life plan that was available to many (but never all). Unless we are able as a nation to realise that we have to know what we want, who we are, and how we are going to move to rebuild society, we will remain a failing nation.
There is little point in people in ivory towers (who are often not the experts that they think they are, and that the establishment holds them to be) ranting about the situation unless they are prepared to work on the solution, we need education, employment and a life plan for everybody at every level, not ignorance dressed in long words.
We need a modern workable future not a return to some point in the past that probably never existed.
There remain about 5 million unemployed people in this country who need real work (not schemes, part time work and 0 hours agency work). We could open factories and start to produce the things that we need rather than import so much.
A sense of pride comes from a sense of belonging, which requires a model of society with which to engage and belong to. We have squandered our inheritance and we are failing our children via the delusion of a sophisticated society, provided by the systematic removal of the social framework over the last 30 years.
We have a soporific horror story that can only be rewritten if we admit that what we have is not working and that key changes to law and of decision makers (at all levels) are required. We have difficult choices to make if the patient is to live. Our children need a future to aspire to, not yet another new pair of training shoes, often made by children who know the real meaning of poverty.
When will Labour politicians ever learn, Nick, that you do not help poor children by making life more difficult for the rich..?
Deae Nick,
The Governemt treats the young and elderly with contempt,they are the unacceptable face of socialism, and ever since Gordon Brown came to pwer Penstioners have always lost out.
Targets are the problem, because they force administrators to cook the books.The young in Britain have been ignored for years, and that is why they rebel.
Though nobody can deny the nobility of the cause it does seem worrying that responsibility be dumped on the governments door. More worrying is the approach that will be used to fix it:
focus groups
expanded government
twisted number and word crunching
changed statistic but undiminished problem
Are there not charities supported by business that can take up the challenge?
But surely this is ridiculous. By judging poverty purley on relative figures rather than absolute issues it means that if the majority get richer and the poorest don't move or only move slightly (as has happened over the last ten years) then poverty figures go up even though no one has got poorer. Whereas if everyone gets poorer but the poorest less so, then accordign to the way these figures are set, poverty goes down even though everyone is poorer.
Stirring rhetoric? I've listened to more inspiring dirges.
The tactic of the great leader is now becoming abundantly clear - to drone on and on about the high ground without any clear idae of when we will get there or why it's worth the effort.
Ending child poverty is one of those worthy goals that has New Labour written all over it. It is utterly meaningless except that it has 'interfering do-gooders' written all over it.
The reality is that Cilla Black, the Beatles, the dear leader himself and thousands of others would probably be reclassified today as being from an under privileged background. So what?
Que sera, sera.
Stirring rhetoric? I've listened to more inspiring dirges.
The tactic of the great leader is now becoming abundantly clear - to drone on and on about the high ground without any clear idae of when we will get there or why it's worth the effort.
Ending child poverty is one of those worthy goals that has New Labour written all over it. It is utterly meaningless except that it has 'interfering do-gooders' written all over it.
The reality is that Cilla Black, the Beatles, the dear leader himself and thousands of others would probably be reclassified today as being from an under privileged background. So what?
Que sera, sera.
Nick,
Would it not be very nice if once, just once,extensive TV programme time could be devoted to sitting Gordon Brown down in front of say four general members of the public. I suggest a young executive, a single mother,a Pensioner and a young
unemployed teenager. Then Gordon Brown should be made to reply to questions by giving proper answers. He should also be made to explain just how he arrives at his
un-ckeckable percentage figures that he claims proves New Labour has transformed this country for the better. Suggested topics,education Immigration, inflation, unemployment, benifit system, raid on Private pensions, crime and Council tax. This would be a proper TV programme instead of the artifical and stage managed drivel we have to accept from, among others Brown, Harman, Ed Balls, Straw, Livingstone and the most gringing rhetoric of all, from Hazel Blears.