I shamelessly take the above from the web site of Church Action on Poverty who unveiled the newest phase of the Government's GREAT campaign, launched today.
INEQUALITY IS GREAT BRITAIN is Church Action on Poverty's contribution to the Government's Britain is Great campaign — showing off the best of British to the world.
Plans to launch the campaign with the simultaneous unveiling of billboards in Britain'srichest and poorest neighbourhoods: Easterhouse, Glasgow (male life expectancy 73.1 years) and Kensington and Chelsea, London (male life expectancy 84.4 years) were ruled out, but posters have been launched on Facebook and Twitter.
The campaign was launched to mark the fact that income inequality in the UK — the gap between rich and poor — is greater now than at any point in the past 50 years (in fact, since figures were first collected, in 1961).
CAP Coordinator, Niall Cooper, said: ‘Britain's track record on inequality is truly appalling. If we really want to aspire to being Great Britain, we need to do far more to Close the Gap. And in the absence of a serious lead from our politicians — that is a task for all of us.'
To make your Pledge to Close the Gap, visit www.church-poverty.org.uk
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Inequality in all forms and in all walks of life has always existed. There are many complex reasons why this is, but one thing is for sure it will remain so.
Ah, is that the voice of the comfortable man speaking?
Yes I’m comfortable in what I am. Not wealthy, average salary, small house….all of which I have worked for. Unlike you it seems, I do not begrudge wealthy people their money and I accept that there are those who will have more opportunities than me and life is not equal. Unfortunately your left wing malice towards those who are lets say, more equal than others, is tiresome. The left’s solution of reducing everything to the lowest common denominator has never worked and never will. Has it ever occured to you that some people are wealthy because they are motivated and work hard and get their rewards? The politics of envy is never pretty.
Except all you say is wrong
I too have worked for what I have
I have no grudge against wealth at all – it would be odd if I had given the career I have pursued. You project your own sentiment when saying what you do because it’s sure not mine
What I utterly dislike is the attitude that the rich achieve all they do through their own efforts
I know that is completely untrue
And I detest the idea that having wealth does not carry significant responsibility becasue it does – including the duty to pay tax
But that is usually denied
So I’m not in the slightest bit envious of anyone – not least because I have extraordinary good fortune and no reason I can think of to be envious
But I have complete contempt for those who think they have no responsibility to society and others who gave them their luck – which is 95% of what success is
“The politics of envy is never pretty.”
Ah…the politics of envy! The rights pathetic attempt to take attention away from economic injustice.
Didn’t work in Thatcher’s day, doesn’t work now!
Incidently, didn’t the right try the politics of envy against public sector workers saying they had “gold-plated” pensions and consequently they are far better off than most private sector workers?
Consistency, Macktheknife…always consistency! 🙂
I suggest Macthekinfe has a look at this video on the “class warfare” and “I made it alone” topic. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-viral-video-of-elizabeth-warren-going-after-gop-on-class-warfare-2011-9
Then he should take a look at this Paul Krugman piece http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/krugman-the-social-contract.html?_r=2&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB
Most (all?) of the class war in the last 30 years has been waged by the rich (the “new Barons”) against everyone else (the new serfs”) in what I, and several other posts on this blog have characterised as the “Neo-feudal” or New Feudal state.
The exact title doesn’t matter; what DOES matter is that the powerful are not only bringing in policies to protect their privileges, they are also stitching up the constitution on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure a permanent Tory hegemony in the UK
* reducing the number of MP’s
* gerrymandering the constituencies
* making it near impossible for the government to lose a “No Confidence vote, as a 66% vote is now necessary to dissolve Parliament, instead of a mere loss of a No Confidence vote by 1, as in the case of Jim Callaghan
* bringing electoral registration changes that may drive as many as 10 million voters – mainly Labour – off the Register, and
* packing the House of Lords with 147 new Lords in just over 12 months, 75% of them ConDem)
and a permanent Republican hegemony in the US, by
*bringing in new versions of “Jim Crow” voter registration, designed to drive the blacks, young, students, dissidents, and mobile workers – all of whom will probably vote Democrat (see http://www.thenorthstarnews.com/issue.aspx?id=2011-09-15#African-Americans-Face-Challenges-Voting-In-Wisconsin-Because-Of-Restrictive-Photo-ID-Law for an example)
* seeking the manipulate the scandal of the ludicrous Electoral College system, by aiming to give Republicans a majority of Electoral College votes (see http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gop-electoral-college-plan-beat-obama-2012 for this)
I really DO advise Mactheknife to stop sitting on his complacent rear-end and get out there campaigning against the most malevolent (a word I use advisedly) administration since that of Lord Liverpool in the early 19th century – a sort of “Thatcherism on smack” administration. Lord Liverpool’s administration was content to see a loaf of bread go up to 1/-, when a labourer was lucky to earn that in a month, and to turn guns and cavalry on protesters with lethal effect at Peterloo.
This Con-Dem administration is not so blatant (though look at the astonishingly savage response to the rioters, and even to the UK Uncut people at Fortnum’s), but if we’re not vigilant, we will wake up to find our schools, hospitals, universities and probably our art galleries and libraries all sold off to philistine “Gradgrinds” and modern day Rachmans, interested only in profit, with everything costing. As Abraham Lincoln said – for evil to triumph, it is enough that good people do nothing. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I really DO fear the corrosive impact of this government on our social choesion, well-being and everything that constitutes real civilsation, by which I mean “the good life” of compassion, concern for one another and also true respect and consideration. We are on a bumpy slope into the beginnings of a “Blade Runner” society.
I’m not at all concerned whether you censor me, but I feel compelled to communicate with you regardless.
You reproduce a piece from a Christian action group, while your Twitter feed on the same page describes a satellite hitting North America as “justice”.
I offer no comment, judgement, interpretation or critisism. Just an invitation to reflect: did you really mean that?
I meant that if anyone is going to be hit the nation that put it up is probably the right one
In that sense that’s as just as it gets on this issue
Noite I also made clear I hoped no one was harmed
But of course you ignored that
Why?
Curious though why they picked Easterhouse and not my own patch (Gorbals) where life expectancy is 54, not 73.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/jan/21/health.politics