A Blogpost by Aveley and Uplands councillor, Luke Spillman (Thurrock Independent Party)
Child poverty, it’s impact, and why politics must change if we are to abolish it.
BEFORE I start I would like to exercise my right of reply to an article by left-leaning blogger, Peter Perrin, regarding my article published on the 31st March.
The author stated that my call for a national consensus and intervention on poverty, unemployment, underemployment and the low wage economy was ‘sanctimonious claptrap’. There was no criticism of my argument instead I inferred that the conclusion was that I am somehow not allowed to talk about poverty because I don’t wear a rosette with the red rose of the Labour Party.
It is this sort of tribalistic and partisan attitude that is the root cause of many of the failures of post war British social policy. Party politics puts the pursuit of power before the needs of people and has brought us the societal crises so evident in communities up and down the country. I argue that the existence of poverty is not an inevitability, it is the result of a long history of political failures.
I have spent my entire working life supporting people living in poverty. Indeed it is no overestimation to say that I have completed over 15,000 advice appointments across this period. However I also lived and experienced poverty as a child at the height of brutal 1980’s recession when my father walked out leaving my mother alone to bring up two small children. I also experienced a period of extremely poor ill health in the early 2000’s which badly disrupted my education and left me unable to work for two years.
I understand the sense of utter despair and hopelessness that poverty brings, not only because I have lived it, but because I have seen it first hand, thousands of times, throughout my professional career. I therefore hope you forgive me for dismissing the accusations of ‘sanctimony’ from those who aren’t happy that I’m not a Labour Party member.
Let’s look at just one area of impact of child poverty. How living in poverty can influence a child’s education. A study from the Child Poverty Action Group found the following:
Children from poorer backgrounds lag at all stages of education.
By the age of three, poorer children are estimated to be, on average, nine months behind children from more wealthy backgrounds.
According to Department for Education statistics, by the end of primary school, pupils receiving free school meals are estimated to be almost three terms behind their more affluent peers.
By 14, this gap grows to over five terms.
By 16, children receiving free school meals achieve 1.7 grades lower at GCSE.
These findings alone show us how important it is for all politicians from all parties to come together to form a consensus on this issue. It’s why poverty shouldn’t be used by the left as a political football and why the right must fully embrace eradicating it.
However there are many other negative outcomes more likely as a result of child poverty such as physical and mental ill health, poor employment outcomes, entering the criminal justice /care system, or substance abuse in later life.
It must now be time for all to put aside politics and party allegiance and work in a concerted and unified way toward the most worthy of grand projects. The abolishment of child poverty once and for all.
This can only be achieved through the formation of a new social contract between government and its citizens. A contract which enshrines the right of every citizen to gainful and sustaining employment but also the responsibility of every citizen, fit to do so, to embrace that right.
I will return to consider options for how this may be achieved, not just at a national level but also the action we in Thurrock can take, in a final article on this matter. However it can and will only be achieved if we change the very nature of how we do politics in this country and indeed in this borough.
Good Post and I am from a Centre -Left stance being Green.
Spot on with this point
“A contract which enshrines the right of every citizen to gainful and sustaining employment but also the responsibility of every citizen, fit to do so, to embrace that right.”
Get everyone contributing to the economy no matter how small or large they can. it all adds to GDP. from the Disabled the sick and old.
Lets get GREAT Britain working again AND it is Great Britain. whether you like it or not.
Join the Thurrock branch of the Democratic Republican party. 🙂
Cllr Spillman
You refer to me as “a left leaning blogger”, from the very start you indulge in political mudslinging, contradicting the much proclaimed ethos of the Thurrock Independents Party, of which you are a Member, for a “nicer kind of politics”. I am a “Socialist”, if that means in your book I am a “left wing radical”, then so be it. I would rather be a “true Labour leftie” than a “blue Labour Blairite” or even worse a “far right Conservative”.
You are right when you say I was “not critical of your argument” i.e. a call for a National consensus and intervention on poverty, unemployment, under employment and the low wage economy, it is your motives and sincerity that I question. Every blog you post, every article you write , every comment you make is plastered with the Thurrock Independent Party logo , leading me to conclude that you are far more occupied with the pursuit of power and the fortunes of the Thurrock Independents Party candidates in the May Local Council election than you are with eradicating child poverty. That is why I consider I am fully justified in branding your article as sanctimonious claptrap.
You talk about tribalism and partisanship being “the root cause of many of the failures of post war British social policy”. I have watched you and your fellow Independents, along with the Conservatives, in the Council Chamber banging your hands on the desktops and chanting “hear hear” in an unseemly display of tribalism and partisanship. You and your colleagues should practice what you preach.
You accuse me of being a “bitter man”. I suggest that it is you who is the bitter man, it appears that you have never got over the poverty you say you experienced as a child at the height of the “brutal” 1980s recession and your 2 years of “extremely poor health” in the early 2000s. You use the experiences as a means to elicit sympathy, thereby creating the impression that anyone who criticises you is heartless and uncaring. There are many people alive today who suffered poverty and hardship during the 1930s, the horrors of WW2 and the “blitz” bombings and the fact there was no NHS if you were sick, they picked themselves up, dusted themselves down and got on with their lives. Cllr Spillman you do not have a monopoly on suffering and hardship.
There are some Councillors who, once elected, elevate themselves to the status of VIPs and become infected with the “don’t you know who I am” syndrome. Aveley UKIP/Independents Councillors, and you are one of them, seem particularly prone to this syndrome which manifests itself by pomposity and egoism.
You tweeted that I was not so rude when I was seeking your help, inferring that I was ungrateful of your help with a personal matter e.g. antisocial behaviour, when the truth was it concerned the failure of a senior Council Officer to respond to a communication within a specified period of time. It could be argued that your disclosure was, at the very least, a breach of confidentiality, or at worst your help is only available to those you believe will vote for you or your Party. Again,this does not accord with your oft quoted mantra “PEOPLE FIRST, PARTY SECOND”. I would point out that, despite your ”help” it still took weeks before the matter was resolved and that was only because I persistently “chased” you for a resolution. I trust you did not include my case in your over 15,000 completed advice appointments.
The suggestion by one of your “Facebook friends” that I was “put up” to making my comments is ridiculous and insulting. I am quite capable of speaking for myself.
You conclude by saying that my comments were made because I, and others, are “unhappy” that you are not a Labour Party member. Whilst I am not a member of the Labour Party, I think I can safely say that the Thurrock Labour Party is very happy and greatly relieved that you are NOT a member of the Labour Party.
Come May 2018 the people will have their say.
before you eradicate poverty you will have to eradicate fecklessness.
Lets get real here.
A lot of child poverty is sadly inflicted on children by their own parents. It is common place to see at the school gate or in the home or street.
What comes first is the crap parent who has a top of the range phone, drugs, looking good(well they think so) and going out.
Then comes the child.
I see this more and more in Thurrock, to a point where it is refreshing to see a rare ‘good mum’.