Due to the pressure of other work commitments I have not noted the report to the UN by Philip Alston, the UN's Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, who visited the UK last year, as I noted at the time. The report suggests that policies pursued by the UK Government have led to the “systemic immiseration” of millions across the UK.
Scottish think tank CommonSpace has highlighted some of the key sections of the report. I share their highlights here, noting that the inevitable consequence of this callousness is the politics of today:
Dickensian Britain
"It might seem to some observers that the Department of Work and Pensions has been tasked with designing a digital and sanitised version of the nineteenth century workhouse, made infamous by Charles Dickens, rather than seeking to respond creatively and compassionately to the real needs of those facing widespread economic insecurity in an age of deep and rapid transformation brought about by automation, zero-hour contracts and rapidly growing inequality."
Employment is no escape from poverty
“Almost 60 per cent of those in poverty in the United Kingdom are in families where someone works, and a shocking 2.9 million people are in poverty in families where all adults work full-time. According to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, 10 per cent of workers over 16 are in insecure employment. And 10 years after the 2008 financial crisis, employees' median real earnings are, remarkably, still below pre-crisis levels.”
Eat or heat
“People said they had to choose either to eat or heat their homes. Children are showing up at school with empty stomachs, and schools are collecting food and sending it home because teachers know their students will otherwise go hungry. And 2.5 million people in the United Kingdom survive with incomes no more than 10 per cent above the poverty line —just one crisis away from falling into poverty.”
Homeless Britain
“In England, homelessness rose 60 per cent between 2011 and 2017 and rough sleeping rose 165 per cent from 2010 to 2018. The charity Shelter estimates that 320,000 people in Britain are now homeless, and recent research by Crisis suggests that 24,000 people are sleeping rough or on public transportation —more than twice government estimates. Almost 600 people died homeless in England and Wales in 2017 alone, a 24 per cent increase in the past five years.26There were 1.2 million people on the social housing waiting list in 2017, but less than 6,000 homes were built that year.”
The disappearing safety net
“The Special Rapporteur heard time and again about important public programmes being pared down, the loss of institutions that previously protected vulnerable people, social care services at a breaking point, and local government and devolved administrations stretched far too thin. Considering the significant resources available in the country and the sustained and widespread cuts to social support, which have resulted in significantly worse outcomes, the policies pursued since 2010 amount to retrogressive measures in clear violation of the country's human rights obligations.”
Ideological, not economic
“The ideological rather than economic motivation for the cutbacks is demonstrated by the fact that the United Kingdom spends £78 billion per year to reduce or alleviate poverty, quite apart from the cost of benefits; £1 in every £5 spent on public services goes to repair what poverty has done to people's lives.40Cuts to preventive services mean that needs go unmet and people in crisis are pushed toward services that cannot turn them away but cost far more, like emergency rooms and expensive temporary housing.”
Harm done by Universal Credit
“The Special Rapporteur heard countless stories of severe hardships suffered under UC. These reports are corroborated by an increasing body of research that suggests UC is being implemented in ways that negatively impact claimants' mental health, finances and work prospects. Where UC has fully rolled out, food bank demand has increased, a link belatedly acknowledged by the Work and Pensions Secretary in February 2019.”
Sanctions regime
“One of the key features of UC involves the imposition of strict conditions enforced by draconian sanctions for even minor infringements. As the system grows older, some penalties will last years. The Special Rapporteur reviewed seemingly endless evidence illustrating the harsh and arbitrary nature of some sanctions, as well as the devastating effects of losing access to benefits for weeks or months at a time.”
Women and poverty
“Given the structural disadvantages faced by women, it is particularly disturbing that so many policy changes since 2010 have taken a greater toll on them. Changes to tax and benefit policies made since May 2010 will by 2021—2022 have reduced support for women far more than for men. Reductions in social care services translate to an increased burden on primary caregivers, who are disproportionately women. Under UC, single payments to an entire household, which are the default arrangement, can entrench problematic and often gendered interpersonal dynamics, including by giving control of payments to a financially or physically abusive partner.”
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Yet the government is complaining to the UN about the “wording” of the report – rather than doing something about the content.
Precisely
I had noticed that the government has been putting out new people-friendly policy ideas during the past couple of months and had assumed that they were preparing for a possible general election and trying to soften their image.
I don’t believe they are capable of recognising the real problem but these announcements may be a devious way of answering the report. And only that. No serious future action needed.
It’s a bit of a tangential point but what criteria are being used to decide which countries are visited by the Special Rapporteur (https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/CountryVisits.aspx). Why has there been no visit to, say, Italy, Spain or (particularly) Greece ?
I do not know
I think this is the second time the UN have sent a Special Rapporteur, and I can only assume they have done so because the initial (pre-Rapporteur) condemning reports have been ignored – there have been at least 2 regarding the UK government human rights abuses (maybe the first were specific to disabled people). The UK governments answers to the damning reports boiled down to ‘nothing to see here, wisnae us, it’s all fine’. The UK government has, of course, ignored the UN court regarding the illegality of annexing the Chagos Islands too. I am not sure how the UN works, but I can only guess they will keep ramping up warnings,,, until? What do they do? Coordinated sanctions?
I don’t think the UK government have been turning up to answer questions regarding humans rights either – there was a slightly bizarre meeting recently where the human rights group was questioning Nicola Sturgeon (they would normally only invite the member state, not any of its subsidiaries), with many of the questions amounting to ‘how much can you influence the UK government to change its ways’ and the answers amounting to ‘not at all’. It was uncomfortable to watch.
These serious abuses by our government has, of course, been in all the headlines for the last few years as the outraged press and media let us know all the gory details… oh, well, in my imagination they did, like they would if we really were a normal democratic country. The report, like previous ones, also make note that the devolved governments are spending vast amounts from their very limited budgets mitigating UK government policies.
I would think the Special Rapporteur is only sent when the gov’t in question refuses to acknowledge previous warnings.
i must admit that I am not the slightest interested in the fact that we are not discussing Italy, Spain or Greece here today, but am glad that a reputable outside source has confirmed what we have known for years; that the country has been destroyed by Thatcherism.
I myself am very concerned at the predictable response of our laughing stock apology for a government, tied up as they are in meltdown after a prolonged period of breathtaking incompetence.
This report is both shameful and entirely predictable after years of rule by the (verging on the far) right. It continues to be really worrying that they think that they are correct, when they are nothing but callous, venal and enslaved by their belief that selfishness is a virtue.
Philip Alston has been working in Greece and elsewhere, focusing on the most urgent Human Rights issues specific to each country he has visited.
I don’t know who, in the UN, decides which issues need investigating, or how they are chosen. There must be a process.
Maybe someone reading this blog knows.
Just found out the UN had a vote on the Chagos Islands issue – they have 6months to comply with the ICJ ruling… Here is the Guardian report on it:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/22/uk-suffers-crushing-defeat-un-vote-chagos-islands
I suspect we will just ignore it
I suspect they/we won’t be allowed to ignore this one, it was an overwhelming vote against the UK (and the US), it’ll result in sanctions for sure. Can you imagine Brexit Britain, along with everyone else in the world sanctioning us,,, gosh, things are looking more and more fun.
How it goes with the human rights issue – I doubt that’ll result in sanctions yet, they just keep writing reports, but it could end up in court soon,,, and go the same way as the Chagos Islands.
Our poltical system is so shit, we can’t even vote the abusers out of power, or make people realise how bad for their health the neoliberalism is. Doomed, we are all doomed.
It will just encourage the right’s victim culture
Tony Holmes says:
“…….Why has there been no visit to, say, Italy, Spain or (particularly) Greece ?…”
Maybe they are not into whataboutery (?)
Those considering voting today would do well to remember it’s only through the support of the LibDems the Tories were able to implement these malevolent policies.
But if we’re to believe Labour has changed since then (and it has) maybe the LDs might have too?
I am not saying I am wholly convinced
But I am saying your logic is flawed
The issue is that Britain had a reputation for a decent social security net world wide.
The Tories and Orange Book Lib Dems have effectively broken it.
That to me at least is what the UN Rapporteur has highlighted – the change.
Personally I think that what the Tories have done is nothing short of disgusting.
As I’ve said before, if as a nation we are to believe in justice and that it can be attained through politics, we’ll need another Nuremberg for these people. No Nixonian letting-offs can be contemplated for those involved as it just leads to the next generation, seeing rewards available at little potential risk, will simply carry on their anti-social behaviour. Their regret for their actions needs to be established, and made very public.
I’m all for that but a constitution based on the fact the Parliament just nicked the divine right of kings means that unaccountability as well as accountability was transferred to the commons.
The two major policies introduced by the Tories since the last Labour government: austerity (under the illusion of debt reduction) and Brexit (pandering to the right) will ironically fuel the rise of popularism and “Farage” type single-issue politics.
And ultimately result in the fracture of our antiquated two-party system.
As the planet burns, Tories (and Labour) are gazing towards the horizon waiting for the acolades and fireworks to begin, never realising that when they lit the blue touch paper the rocket was planted firmly in their nether regions.
Maybe they do know but are unable to stop themselves. Maybe they get a rush from their behaviour, a dopamine rush, and they get addicted and can’t stop themselves despite being aware of the longer-term consequences. We’re electing junkies, then, addicted to anti-social behaviour. I’m wondering how the dopamine rush, surely a survival trait, could have become so perverted. I’m guessing it’s because of stresses and strains put on developing folk in the unnatural family unit, generation after generation. Also the continuing survival of the malevolent aberrant (think Johnson), something which wouldn’t happen in a tribal scenario as they’d be forcibly ejected into the wilderness to die. I blame the family as a concept for a lot of our present ills. Antisocial and extreme behaviour which would get stamped out in our more natural tribal states survive inside a family-oriented culture. Marx didn’t like the family, I understand (haven’t read any yet, just ordered Kindle versions of his stuff). I gather too the Bolsheviks tried to abolish the idea after the Russian Revolution so clearly hostility towards the family as a concept is not a new idea, just one we hear little of.
Something else we don’t hear much about is how economic history is no longer taught. If it were, I imagine, then Osborne would never have been be able to get away with the nonsense which is austerity. No informed population would entertain the idea. For the same reason I doubt the Germans would be so fixed by the idea of the shwarze null, concerning themselves with the dilapidated state of their infrastructure instead. This has upset some people and they’re now trying to do something about it: from Dr Christopher L. Colvin, Senior Lecturer in Economics at Queen’s Management School: “Unfortunately, economics degrees have long ignored economic history. Contributors to a series of high-profile conferences held the Bank of England from across academia, government and the private sector repeatedly lamented the absence of economic history from the training of new economists (Coyle, 2012). Research conducted by the University of Manchester’s student-led pedagogy reform group the Post-Crash Economics Society clearly demonstrates the degree to which economic history is absent across the UK’s university economics curricula (Earle et al., 2017)… Unfortunately, most economics professors elsewhere across the country remain ill-equipped to re-introduce economic history unassisted in other places on their syllabi, even if they were willing to do so. They are part of a “lost generation” which was never exposed to the field in their own education. And I fear there are precious few resources available to them to assist in their “re-education”.”
he and others are trying to do something about this: “Alongside Matthias Blum, an economist based at the German Medical Association, I have started the task of generating new economic history teaching and learning resources aimed specifically at academic and professional economists and their students. This ongoing project has already resulted in an edited volume involving 50 scholars, An Economist’s Guide to Economic History (Palgrave Macmillan, Dec. 2018). And despite its very recent vintage, the book is already being used in universities in the UK, the USA and South Africa. Matthias and I held a workshop in Belfast on pedagogical reform in January. We now wish to expand the initiative into a broader movement of academics and practitioners, to make it even easier for economists to engage with the field of economic history in their teaching and research.” and it might be an initiative regulars here and others would like to get behind.
http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/why-economists-need-economic-history/
I warmly applaud the teaching of economic history
It is a disaster that it is ignored in economics degrees
You just had to listen to Mays words this morning announcing her resignation. The UK she described was a million miles away from the one the rapporteur saw for himself. But then one suspects she really does exist in a bubble of her own making.
Anyone walking around London or other major cities can see it for themselves. My wife took our 5 year old grandson to Waterloo and the South Bank yesterday and they ended up talking about the homeless people they kept seeing. It’s not quite the cardboard city of Thatchers days but heading there. Touchingly he asked if they could come and stay….
Children have more empathy than most Tories
And almost all economists
Back in 2014 this government rubbished the Report of the Special Rapporteur (Rashida Manjoo,) on violence against women in the UK, as well.
Should we be surprised Stella?
In a fascist state, anyone who is seen as a victim is seen as weak and having brought things upon themselves and will not be tolerated.
That is where we are – right here, right now.