Reply to post: Re: 1930s

Re: 1930s

Every now an again, she comes across the political activist type that says something like "it's alright for you" and "you can't understand poverty."

I get this, from time to time, by some soap dodging dog stringer, on my way to work in the City. To say it's annoying would be an understatement.

I never knew the sort of poverty you describe, and I came from a loving family. A loving blue collar family in a council house, going to the local failing comp, while dad came home with one redundancy slip after the next. My folks eventually managed to buy their own place, then lived hand to mouth to keep it due to rate rises and recession, while working up to 16 hours a day when work or overtime was available. My parents were poor, never earning todays "living wage", and often a lot less. They saw education as a route to a better life for their kids, and pushed us all into it.

Fast forward a couple of degrees then 20 years hard bloody work, and yes, I now have it easy. It's nothing anyone of my school class mates couldn't do. Some of them did. I had no opportunities the dog on a string brigade didn't have, and I had no particular academic aptitude. Anyone can choose to work hard.

I understand being poor better than literally every single person that's ever told me I didn't understand it, and I work harder than those that now tell me I have it easy. The only poverty we have in Britain is poverty of aspiration. It has been such since at least the late seventies / early eighties. Taxing the successfull harder to gift "the poor" shinnier toys won't change that one bit.