Reports expose inequality scandal

    Blair’s Britain

    Reports expose inequality scandal

    "Super-rich have doubled their money under Labour" was the headline in The
    Guardian on 8 December, as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released a
    report graphically illustrating the widening gaps in wealth, assets and life
    expectancy.

    Roy Farrar, Merseyside

    Days later the Rowntree Centenary report Strategies Against Poverty was
    launched at the foundation’s conference. It is a shocking survey on the
    unrelieved miseries of Britain’s poor families and their inner-city
    neighbourhoods.

    The ONS report said that nearly 600,000 individuals in the top 1% of the UK
    wealth league owned assets worth £355 billion in 1996, the last full year of
    Tory rule. By 2002 that had increased to £797 billion. The wealth of the
    super-rich has doubled since Tony Blair came to power.

    The ONS figures showed the surge in wealth of the richest 1% in the UK from
    the final years of the Tory government under John Major. The top 1% increased
    their share of national wealth from 20% to 23% in the first six years of the
    New Labour government. On average, each individual in the top 1% is £737,000
    better off now compared to just before Blair arrived in Downing Street.

    Penny Babb, of the ONS, said the income gap between high and low earners
    was also widening. Since the mid-1990s the income of the poorest and richest
    10% of the population grew at about the same pace – rising by over one-fifth.

    "However, these increases resulted in a rise of £119 per week for those
    near the top, compared with a rise of £28 per week for those near the bottom,"
    she said. "This shows the absolute difference in average weekly income has
    continued to widen… The income distribution remains unequal. The top 10%
    received over a quarter of total income in 2002/03."

    Life expectancy

    The gap in life expectancy has widened, the ONS report added. Thirty years
    ago men from poorer backgrounds died 5.5 years before their more prosperous
    contemporaries; now the gap is 7.5 years.

    Donald Hirsch, a special adviser to the Rowntree Foundation, author of
    Strategies Against Poverty, spoke of: "Awareness that without action to deal
    with the corrosive consequences of deprivation, there is little hope of
    solving related problems such as drug cultures, crime and family breakdown
    that are fed by hopelessness".

    The Rowntree report states that nearly twice as many people have relatively
    low incomes as 25 years ago! Millions are unable to afford basic necessities
    such as proper clothing and nutrition. And people’s prospects of escape from
    disadvantage have become more heavily influenced by geography, not less.

    One in five children in England, Scotland and Wales are living in families
    receiving means-tested benefits where their parents or carers are not working.
    In 100 local authority wards with the worst concentrations of poverty, almost
    six in every ten children live in families relying on Income Support and other
    means-tested benefits.

    No prizes for guessing that these wards, or districts, are to be found in
    Glasgow. Merseyside, London, Newcastle, South Wales, and so on. All those
    constituencies where Blair and his henchmen will take for granted that working
    people will vote New Labour!

    The Rowntree report argues that only a modest share of economic growth in
    the next 20 years would need be redistributed to raise the ten million poorest
    people in Britain above the poverty threshold. In the face of the damning
    evidence laid before their York conference, the Rowntree Foundation calls for
    a ‘road map’ to tackle poverty to be followed by Blair and New Labour!

    After the usual ‘hand wringing’ and pious protestations, the middle class
    ‘do-gooders’ of this organisation, and its ilk, seek only to appeal to the
    better natures of the rich and powerful.

    Lord Best, director of the foundation, declared: "On this special day in
    our history, we call on everyone who shares our concerns and priorities to
    work together towards common goals."

    "Everyone", of course, does not include the poor themselves. Any agitation
    by this "everyone" amongst working people to improve matters themselves must
    be avoided at all costs. Improvements and progress are best regulated from
    above. Involving the workers may only cause them to draw the conclusion that
    the best way to tackle poverty is to overturn the society that produces these
    inequalities!