Poverty and destitution in the UK, even among those employed, and harsh government policy ‘solutions’ like punitive ‘job centers’ hit the most vulnerable hardest, including women and people with disabilities, explains UN Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston discussing his investigation into UK poverty.

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31 thoughts on “Significant Poverty in the UK Triggers Investigation by Human Rights Expert (1/2)”
  1. I remember few years back government said universal credit new system will be modern and easier but I knew from that time it would be used as a way of cutting benefits more easily and now when nearly everyone is moving on system conservative cutting hundreds of pounds they cant be trusted they just think people are fools

  2. i lived in London for 3 months…i saw how people using workers as a slaves – emigrants.!!!.POLICE probably know that ,,but anyone DO NOT CARE

  3. How can you work full time when a lot of employers will only employ part time staff because it's cheaper for the employer and it's the employees who suffer. The disconnect is money. Those who have never had to go without food and money, and have always been employed in high paying jobs or born into money will never truly understand what living in poverty is. I was really happy when I got a part time job because then I didn't have to deal with the stress of dealing with the job centre staff threatening sanctions. I have bipolar disorder and as universal credit has rolled out in my area of the UK I am scared of becoming ill again with the same crap of being threatened with sanctions again for not finding a second job as my employer won't increase my hours to full time on a permanent basis. To top it all I was told I can't get pips either but the person who assessed me wrote on my assessment report " Probability of having bipolar relapse after 3 years." How the hell would she know. With all the bloody stress the Universal Credit crap is causing I can relapse at any time before 3 years! I don't have photo identification, have trouble remembering passwords, get easily confused with filling in forms and even more so with doing it on line. Every single day is a struggle to keep going. Someone at work the other day said they wanted to die because they can't get gender reassignment surgery for at least another year. All I could think of at the time was, " Shut the fuck up, I feel like that every single day." But I ended up telling her that she has everything to live for as she was lucky to have a roof over her head, money in her pocket and she is living with her parents. I even said it with a smile on my face. I am so scared right now that I will become homeless and get ill again and do something really stupid. I've had enough of everything and just want to go to sleep and stay asleep as dreamland is better than the real world. I hate what the world has become. It's all greed, consumerism and the elitists of this world that think that people should do as they are told, work until you drop and be a part of the system. I just wish I could just disappear off the grid instead of being like all the sheeple. The world we live in is stupid.

  4. I see this in many major cities in the USA too. I don't think this is just a British problem but a world problem. Globalization/Neo-liberal ideas are killing the working and middle class (cheap labor and massive profits for the 1%). Add that to the rise of more digital tech and robotics and we are all screwed.

  5. We (in the UK) have the worst government in living memory, and the reason we still have it is that we have the worst opposition in living memory as well 🙁

  6. "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
    Henry Ford

    "Physical slavery requires people to be housed and fed. Economic slavery requires people to feed and house themselves."
    – Zeitgeist: Addendum.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbvCxMfcKv4

    "Slavery is likely to be abolished…and chattel slavery destroyed. This I and my European friends are in favor of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborer, while the European plan…is capital control of labor by controlling wages."
    – Hazard Circular, 1862

     99% of people do not understand our banking or monetary system. For a introduction to modern banking & monetary theory, see the introductory educational series MONEY AS DEBT.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nBPN-MKefA&list=PLmpODdsfprYH4Fhsso8PVPQBNxVDQSgb_

  7. If those in government do not know what is their "responsibilities," then why do we the people need government? Government is not taking care of the poor. We the people with our tax dollars are taking care of the poor. I would much rather have my tax dollars helping the poor rather then being spent creating poor people due to continuous wars.

  8. PEOPLE NEED TO RISE AND ORGANIZE AGAINST THIS NEOLIBERAL CAPITALIST SYSTEM,IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO WATCH THIS VIDEOS AND COMPLAIN AT HOME,OR GO BACK AND WATCH SOME T V SERIAL
    WE THE 88% OF THE PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THINGS,LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENING IN FRANCE WITH THE YELLOW JACKETS,MACRON AND CO IS TERRIFIED, HE SAID HE'S NOT GOING TO MOVE 1 MILIMETER FROM WHAT HE SAID BEFORE,AND NOW HE'S FORCED TO CHANGE A LITTLE HIS ECONOMIC POLICY

  9. The response from the English Tory government was they are upset about the Language used , not about the facts presented but because they are being embarrassed that shows exactly how removed from reality these people actually are #DisolveTheUnion

  10. US, UK, Canada – it's the same all over the world. This is the result of Neoliberal trickle down economics, flattening wages despite growing productivity, all to guarantee price stability and big shareholder returns for the parasite class. We need global labour unions.

  11. Yet Americans scream at me on FB for having voted "leave" and calling me out, a racist, a right-winger. Or blame Russia. Such an easy tired ignorant opinion. Yes immigration was a factor but this crushing austerity, the feeling of being left behind by the Westminster Elites, meant that Brexit was an opportunity to give them a kicking. They live in a bubble and don't get why millions in the UK, US, Brazil, Italy, Hungary, France – The World over are rightly pissed. Oh it must be Russia's fault. FFS grow up. The elites are the issue.

  12. This is interesting ! I'm from England and from the city of Bristol ( supposedly a well to do city ) , and homelessness is absolutely rife here , literally hundreds of people living on the streets ! I work in the city center , and see this for myself , mainly men between 30 to 50 , but many young women too ! There's a guy in my district who is in a wheelchair and sleeping in shop doorways at night , I see homeless people every time I leave my house ! All benefits have been cut due to austerity , it really is quite shocking !! And yes , a lot of the employment is minimum wage 7.83 pounds per hour and are zero hour contracts , so few worker rights , and they can cut your hours or sack you when they want ! I had one of those jobs once and they treat you like dirt , and the universal credit system he's talking about is very harsh , and if you do anything even remotely wrong they will stop your unemployment money ! I could talk for hours about stuff which is wrong and unfair !

  13. It's called Neoliberalism and the vast majority of Brits don't even know they are infected, and have been since 1979. Yet they originated it in the West, after its initial triumph (Chile and Peru) and continued it, after its rejection and failure in the global South. Neoliberal parties in UK… The Tories, UKIP, the Liberal Democrats, at least half the Parliamentary Labour Party (the Blairites and all non-Corbyn factions), and the English Nationalists and Nazi groups outside the parliamentary process. The only non-Neoliberal parties the brits can vote for – the Corbyn wing of Labour, and the Greens (and most people couldn't vote Green even if they wanted to, as there is no candidate standing to vote for), oh and the Scots can vote SNP. Yet you will never hear any of the neoliberals actually call themselves Neoliberal (or Thatcherite, as that is the more familiar term), because they know people are ignorant and must never become informed enough to be able to identify and name the real enemy. The only organisation honest enough to declare themselves Neoliberal is the Adam Smith Institute, yet I am sure that were he alive today, he would have nothing to do with them.

  14. What do you expect when letting in millions of immigrants from the third world? Society to maintain it's dignity? It's done on purpose to lower the cost of production for big industries who want the cheap labor and also by the Jews in charge who want a fragmented society because it's easier to dominate and creates "multicultural" countries that are then devoid of an ethnic identity which gives them leverage to argue for globalism/world government whether it be de facto or not.

  15. the tories hate the poor,the unemployed and the disabled,they are totally soulless and cowardly and enjoy inflicting pain on the people at the bottom

  16. Income and wealth inequality is at an all time high and all we here from MSM is parroting gov talking points that its the highest number of people working but those jobs are poor paid , part time and zero hour contracts. You could work 1 hour a week and be classed by the gov on zero hour contract to be full time. Insane while public services are cut including the police which was the natural ally of the Tory party. UK need Corbyn in power to at least start the shift back.

  17. Many have lost jobs, are working for peanuts and/or been refused National Insurance based benefits. Paid into all their working lives as well as Income Tax. Now there are no pensions for the elderly even. Only EUniversal Credit for all with a work component that demands claimants sign up with private 'work providers' till the age of 70! With a NaZi healthcare system that wants them dead. Increasing numbers have consequently stopped registering to vote. No contract, no consent, with the thieves at the top and their systems.

  18. No surprise. UK is neoliberal, global capitalist. Just like the United States, there is massive inequality as global capitalism only benefits a few elites. Britain has always been a class based society. And we inherited many aspects of the British economy; we speak English, we were settled by the English. Really everywhere anglo-saxon has spread has been based on lots of inequality and a wealth gap, plus capitalism

  19. Alston's comments about the Tories' attempts to shift the debate by citing employment figures reminds me of a Lasch passage.

    "The master propagandist, like the advertising expert, avoids obvious emotional appeals and strives for a tone that is consistent with the prosaic quality of modern life — a dry, bland matter-of-factness. Nor does the propagandist circulate “intentionally biased” information. He knows that partial truths serve as more effective instruments of deception than lies. Thus he tries to impress the public with statistics of economic growth that neglect to give the base year from which growth is calculated, with accurate but meaningless facts about the standard of living-with raw and uninterpreted data, in other words, from which the audience is invited to draw the inescapable conclusion that things are getting better and the present regime therefore deserves the people’s confidence, or on the other hand that things are getting worse so rapidly that the present regime should be given emergency powers to deal with the developing crisis. By using accurate details to imply a misleading picture of the whole, the artful propagandist, it has been said, makes truth the principal form of falsehood."

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