Blair, Brown And Inequality
Tony Blair likes talking about inequality. It's something he does rather a lot of. He uses inequality as part of his argument for 'reforms' in public services which mean more 'choice' for consumers. For example, in this short speech from 2004 he uses the word four times: Here's an excerpt:
There are those who believe that the very idea of choice, of diversity and competition, of giving people a greater say in the services they receive must drive inequality of provision and outcome. But this is wrong on three counts.
First, it ignores the fact that the old monopolistic, paternalist model of public services failed to address inequalities, indeed in some cases worsened them. The privileged have always had choices.
Second, it is a view that patronises poorer people, says for example that they are not capable of choosing to invest in their own higher education, or aspire to the best school for their children - the evidence shows that this is simply wrong.
Third, it fails to see that by tackling exclusion, by supporting people through the system we can make choice and personalisation work for everyone. It is no accident that at the heart of many of our reforms - Job Centres, the Connexions service, to name two - is the development of the personal adviser role, a trained professional understanding the full needs of service users and helping them get the most of the system. We are exploring how we can apply the model of personal adviser to enhance the choices and rights we are providing to NHS patients.
There are plenty of other examples but the point is that Blair tries to persuade us that his policies reduce inequalities when in fact the opposite seems to be the case. How else could we explain this?
Rise in UK's child mortality rate is linked to inequality
Britain has the second highest child death rate among the 24 richest countries in the world, with infants in the UK twice as likely to die before the age of five as children in Sweden, a study has shown.
The researchers, from Dundee University, who link relatively high infant mortality with income inequality, found that in the UK the gap between the haves and the have-nots was the third biggest among the 24 countries. They calculated that the top 20 per cent of people in the UK have more than 2.5 times the income of the bottom 40 per cent, almost double the difference in Japan.
Their work, which is reported this week in the Journal of Public Health, analysed Unicef data on child mortality and income inequality. The study comes 14 years after the UK and other "Anglo-American" rich countries were strongly criticised in a Unicef study on child neglect in wealthy nations. That study did not report on child death rates but at that time the UK ranked 15th for child mortality;the new research shows it has now dropped to joint 22nd, just above the US.
After ten years in office he can hardly blame the Tories can he? Last week we learned that child poverty is increasing, last month we learned that according to a UNICEF report, Britain's children are the unhappiest, most neglected and poorly educated among the world's 21 richest countries. In another report we discover that Britain has one of the worst records for social mobility in the developed world. And yet rather than change direction, Gordon Brown is refusing to improve things and wants to carry on with the same disastrous policies which have caused such misery. Meanwhile, the party leaders are attempting to stifle any choice in the change of leadership which means we'll be stuck with the same problems and the same patronage as we have now. No wonder so there is so much apathy. It really instills a sense of pride doesn't it? We don't need to look just at Iraq to find evidence of Blair's glorious legacy, it's right here in Britain too - and it looks set to continue.
From the GBrown article in
From the GBrown article in the Times came these two sentences:
"Recent data shows that the number of children living in households with incomes below 60 per cent of the national average — the Government’s benchmark of deprivation — rose by 100,000 in 2005-06 to 2.8 million."
...and...
"Speaking to the committee after last week’s Budget, Mr Brown told MPs: “As your economy and your society gets better off, as real incomes grow, it becomes an even more challenging target . . . we accept the challenges and difficulties of meeting it.”
Right? Statistics on poverty and children in poverty are rising, yet Gordie insists that society is getting better off and real incomes are growing. I`ve given up slapping myself on the side of the head when confronted with this cretinous disregard for factual reality because I realise that when Blair/Brown et al speak of the economy and incomes he means the ones that apply to prosperous people, the people who matter. One of those very citizens took up the opportunity to speak his mind at the foot of the Times articles mentioned:
"Enough already with the handouts!!! They are a disgrace and have only created generations of single parent families living on the dole...that in turn is the reason for the feral youth on Britain's roads and the high numbers of ASBOS..it is a vicious cycle and will stop only when people are made to work - thats when they will take charge of their own lives, and their children! - VS, St. Albans, Herts"
Aah, can't you just feel the love? Yes, make people work, take away their benefits to get them to behave properly.... although at the same time they must follow the ironclad strictures of the free market which, as we know, can giveth jobs as easily as it taketh them away. Who cares if single mothers go hungry or sell themselves - that's what they deserve for being poor!
And so it goes on and on. What a triumph Labour has become when it attracts such brutish approval.