9 Responses

1. Pilgrim Slight Return says:

   December 20 2015 at 5:27 pm

   What an accomplishment.

   Under current Government policy – this can only get worse.
2. Baxter Basics MP says:

   December 20 2015 at 6:01 pm

   One thing I like about a punt is I know to expect the unexpected. And that’s why I like graphs on this blog; they never mean what you initially think they mean.
   Of all the inequality graphs available to choose from, the lecturer on the ‘real economy’ has chosen one which doesn’t represent the experience of real people, which is what can you do with the income you’ve got ( sometimes known as disposable income ) and on that measure the UK’s West Midlands comes out bottom ( inequalitybriefing.org briefing 61 ).
   • Richard Murphy says:

     December 20 2015 at 6:43 pm

     No index ever wholly reflects reality

     It’s a message I will be making to my students

     If it aids understanding it is useful

     This data does just that

     So you are wrong, again
   • Pilgrim Slight Return says:

     December 20 2015 at 10:49 pm

     Erm…………’real people’?

     Listen Baxter, you need to read a book called ‘Landscapes of Poverty’ by Michael Smmons from 1997 (there maybe a more recent version) about rural poverty (Staffs and Lincs mentioned above are very rural indeed and n
3. Pilgrim Slight Return says:

   December 20 2015 at 11:13 pm

   ……..and not far from where I live in Derbyshire). A lot of your ‘real people’ working in agriculture will be on many occasions earning less than minimum wage for their labour.

   As for Cornwall, I know ‘real people’ who live and work down there and holiday location aside it is hard going indeed with property prices causing price inflation that basically makes it hard to make end meet if you are on local wages and car ownnership is expensve in its own right since publc transport infrastructure poor.

   So no doubt that you know a coterie of folk who will be doing well; I know a number of folk who are struggling in the areas mentioned.

   You alos need to see a documentary called ‘The Lie of the Land’ – about farmers in Devon/Cornwall – very shocking to be honest.

   I believe that the graph above is only sctratching the surface and from my career as a researcher, even in rich areas there are pockets of deprivation to be found that are very often worse than any average.

   You point about income is just poorly made. The context of that income (prices, geography, infrastructure, wage levels, rural/suburban) will all impact on disposable income. Disposable income is income after taxes and expenses have been paid. So what if wages in the West Midlands are lower – the suburban location means that maybe public transport is cheaper or there are more shops to create price competition or that cars are cheaper and more readlily available You may not see these factors at work in rural areas because they are not there. And, if austerity has been causing hardship in cities, what must be the effect in rural areas?

   In fact Baxter – what exactly is the point you are making? I think that it is you who needs to do exactly what it says on your tin – go back to basics and do a bit of reading or research.
4. James says:

   December 21 2015 at 7:35 am

   There is an interesting secondary feature to the data – six of the ten richest areas are capital cities. The fact that nine of the ten poorest regions are UK regions might suggest something about the nature of centralised power in the UK…
5. Mike Parr says:

   December 21 2015 at 8:39 am

   Belgium is an interesting place. The rich part of Bruxelles is mostly the suburbs and the surrounding communes particualrly to the South. I do wonder where the money comes from, given the Belgian tax rates. Contrast between, for example, Charleroi and South Bx is stark & only 30 mins by car separates them. Which I suppose makes it fortunate for the Tories that Uk poverty is so far away, out of sight out of (their) minds, I suppose (metaphorically and literally)
6. Andrew Dickie says:

   December 21 2015 at 6:09 pm

   Neo-liberals REALLY don’t like evidence, do they? Unless, of course, it bolsters their prejudices; then it’s fine.

   Agreed, we all have a tendency to do that, and fighting against that tendency is hard. But for most of us that’s a minor struggle over unpalatable details – discovering, for example, that a political opponent is actually (for once, maybe more than once in the case of Simon Jenkins and Peter Osborne) talking sense.

   With neo-liberalism, however, and all the “Washington consensus” guff, and IMF “structural adjustment program” crusade, and the “sacred mantras of ” trickle-down” economics have all been so comprehensive my trashed over the 40-year life of the experiment (for example, the IMF recently admitted that the Troika’s prescription for Greece had been a disaster! A kindergarten child could have told them that!) one can only presume they all conform to Einstein’s definition of madness as “doing the same thing, again and again, and expecting a different result”!

   But, then, as I said, neo-liberals aren’t evidence-based in their policy formulation, but rather operate on a quasi-religious basis, motivated by ” an eye for the main chance”, so we shouldn’t expect any difference. Instead, we must work to smash their hegemony, and release the forces of real economic understanding and liberation, in which h the Blog plays so significant a role, thank goodness.
   • Andrew Dickie says:

     December 21 2015 at 6:10 pm

     Peter OBORNE. Definitely NOT an Osborne!!