In the early 1950s the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Richard Austin Butler (arguably the best conservative prime minister we never had) told us that if the British economy grew at an annual rate of 3% we would double our standard of living in 25 years. In other words, be twice as rich.
Butler didn't spell it out, but if we continued that rate for another 25 we would double it again, thus becoming four times as rich as in the early 50s.
Well, we never quite made a steady rate of 3%. Other countries did, some by much more, and that is why we have fallen behind in the world league tables - 27th in a world of nearly 200 countries (some of those ahead of us on that list are very small, such as Macau, and San Marino and some such as the Isle of Man would not normally be counted as countries.)
So we're still holding our own in the "big league."
Just to spell it out, in 1948, the year the NHS was founded, our per capita income was £228.43. In 2023, the latest year for which figures for both years were available on the chart I consulted, it was ££39,315.08.
Adjusting for inflation, I calculate that, 70+ years later rather than 50 we are indeed just a whisker short of being four times as rich as we were then,
The evidence is not just in the figures but all around us.
Then most houses didn't have an indoor lavatory of bath: now all but a few do, and central heating to boot.
Then only a tiny minority of families had cars: now a majority do, and many of them several.
Then the standard holiday was a week at Blackpool if you were lucky: now not one but several holidays abroad (the Grand Tour?) are common.
Then secondary education for all had just been introduced and the school leaving age was fifteen: now it is effectively 18, and more than half go on to further or higher education.
Then the expectation life was 66 for men and 71 for women: today's new- born can expect to live into their 80s.
If in those post war years you had asked the average family how they would feel if they were twice as rich they wold have been delighted. Four times as rich would be beyond the dreams of average.
Yet here we are: most of us wallowing in affluence, and with the resources to make that almost everybody if we shred more equitably
And it is high time we recognised it.
The comment by my anonymous interlocutor in the previous post:
"The idea that Britain is an affluent country is definitely 'fake news'. Britain hasn't been a rich country for a while, and is rapidly slipping down the global ladder towards abject poverty."
is obvious nonsense.
In the much more difficult circumstance of the 1940s and fifties our government created the NHS, introduced universal secondary education, family allowances, and attempted to provide care "from the cradle to the grave" in order to abolish poverty.
To claim that we can't afford that same aim now is an obvious con: "fake news" indeed disseminated by the "haves" in order for them to have yet more.
It is high time our political leaders had the guts to tell us the truth, and our voters (on the Finnish model described in the previous post) had the sense to recognise it.
I really don't understand what point is supposed to be being made here?
ReplyDeleteOur income, inflation-adjusted, is higher than in 1948. Well, yes.
Our living standards have gone up since 1948. Again, well, yes. That's what will happen if you get richer.
The question is, have our incomes gone up enough that we could afford the kind of public spending you advocate, where every lazy benefits scrounger is given a luxury standard of living? Where we could afford to invite every single person in the world who is looking for a better life to our shores, and give them all free healthcare?
And the answer to that is, obviously not. Yes, our incomes are more than in 1948 — that's why we live better lives now than we did then. But our incomes are still limited. And whereas once we were a rich country, we are now getting poorer and poorer as we are overtaken by others due to the fact that the productive parts of our economy are strangled by bureaucracy, regulations, burdensome planning obstructionism, and hugely high tax levels that hit in multiple indirect ways by discouraging hiring, by reducing incentives to work hard and innovate and take risks, and directly by removing investment from the bits of the economy that could actually make us richer (and so raise our living standards) and are instead spaffed up the wall on benefits.
Benefit scroungers are a tiny minority against tax avoiders. It’s a classic “look over there” tactic from the right. The real pariahs are the dodgers, often those “doing Britain down” from the offshore havens of Dubai or Monaco.
DeleteBenefit scroungers are a tiny minority against tax avoiders.
DeleteThere's nothing wrong with avoiding tax. Everybody should void as much tax as they can. I do (by putting money in pensions and ISAs).
Tax evasion is illegal and tax evaders should be caught and punished.
But tax avoidance is good and right.
There’s a limit to your tax free ISA and your pension will be taxed when you draw on it.
DeleteReform UK deputy leader Richard Tice meanwhile rails at ‘shirkers and skivers’ while avoiding £600,000 in Corporation Tax on his property business through offshore trusts and shareholder dividends. Money that almost certainly won’t contribute to UK productivity or better public services.
There’s a limit to your tax free ISA and your pension will be taxed when you draw on it.
DeleteI know; that's why I wrote 'as much as they can'. The amount isn't infinite.
But I would always vote for anyone who will raise those tax free limits, or indeed raise the general tax threshold.
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice meanwhile rails at ‘shirkers and skivers’ while avoiding £600,000 in Corporation Tax on his property business through offshore trusts and shareholder dividends. Money that almost certainly won’t contribute to UK productivity or better public services.
Money that won't be wasted by the government, you mean. As long everything he did was legal, good for him.
in order to abolish poverty.
ReplyDeleteOh, and poverty has been abolished in Britain. There is no real poverty in Britain. There is only 'relative poverty' which is made-up nonsense.
There is poverty and it poisons and shames us us all. I take this from a review of a book on Gordon Brown - a speech he made to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1999:
ReplyDelete“For it is our Christian teaching — the faith I was brought up in, that when some are poor, our whole society is impoverished; that when there is an injustice somewhere it is a threat to justice everywhere; that what – as Dr. [Martin Luther] King said – selfish men tear down, selfless men and women must build anew.”
There is poverty
DeleteNo, there isn't. If there is poverty then you can point to it. Find me one report, or survey, or paper, that finds any real poverty (ie, not a relative measure) in Britain today.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9209/&ved=2ahUKEwi4nvWY67OTAxVZYEEAHbl2OAcQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1WrPpzOrYAC9AZ-M7AgTX_
DeleteThere's no 'poverty' in that report. The figures come from, if you can be bothered to follow the references:
Deletehttps://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-for-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2024/households-below-average-income-an-analysis-of-the-uk-income-distribution-fye-1995-to-fye-2024
As you can see from the URL, 'households below average income', that's mostly a report about relative income distribution. Not actual poverty. Inequality is not poverty (and there; nothing per se wrong with inequality; as long as nobody is starving, there's nothing wrong with some people being exceptionally rich).
I say 'mostly' because there is a definition of 'Household Food Security' in section 6 at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-for-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2024/households-below-average-income-an-analysis-of-the-uk-income-distribution-fye-1995-to-fye-2024#low-income-indicators
This isn't relative — it's even worse, it's based on self-reported subjective feelings!
So no — there is no actual, real poverty identified in that report. Just income inequality, which isn't poverty and isn't a problem, and subjective feelings of insecurity, which again, isn't a real problem.
(I should point out that that report contains a measure called 'absolute poverty'. But if you look at the definition, it's not absolute at all. To quote from the report, 'Absolute low income takes the 60% of median income threshold from FYE 2011 and then fixes this in real terms (i.e. the line moves with inflation).' That is, it's just a relative measure adjusted for inflation. Calling it 'absolute' is just lying.)
DeleteThe bit which caught my eye is the number of children unable to learn properly in school becasue they were hungry. That is evidence of poverty.
ReplyDeletethe number of children unable to learn properly in school becasue they were hungry
DeleteWhere’s that in the report? I can’t find it. Which page is it on?
The nearest I can find is on page 33, ‘ On average, pupils eligible for FSM have lower GCSE attainment than pupils
that are not eligible.’. But:
1. That’s a correlation, with no causation claimed; you are ascribing causation (‘because’).
2. There’s no mechanism suggested, whereas you are identifying a specific mechanism (‘because they were hungry’).
So where is the causation and the mechanism proved in the report? Are you sure you didn’t just imagine it?
Also: ‘ Persistent inequalities exist in child obesity with children from the most deprived areas of England being twice as likely to be living with obesity compared with those from the least deprived areas.’
Deletehttps://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/obesity-profile-november-2024-update/obesity-profile-statistical-commentary-november-2024#inequalities-in-obesity-prevalence
There children aren’t starving! Quite the reverse, they are little lardbuckets.
I don’t think even Oliver Twist would pass his poverty test, Peter.
ReplyDeleteeven Oliver Twist
DeleteLower-income kids in Britain today are more Billy Bunter than Oliver Twist.
These are the opening words of the report I cite above:
Delete"In 2023/24 there were 7.5 million people, or 11% of the UK population, in households experiencing food poverty, including 18% of children."
There are also numerous account of teachers reporting children too hungry to learn.
The fact that other children eat to much junk food and so become obese doesn't negate the above, it's just another , and perhaps a parallel problem.
In 2023/24 there were 7.5 million people, or 11% of the UK population, in households experiencing food poverty, including 18% of children.
DeleteBut then you dig into what ‘experiencing food poverty’ means, and it’s not ‘can’t afford to eat’. It’s a combination of relative income levels and self-reported anxiety.
So these people are not, by any reasonable definition of the word, ‘in poverty’.
That’s the point. There is no real poverty in Britain. There are just these reports which claim there is poverty by taking things which are not real poverty, like income inequality, and mendaciously redefining it as ‘poverty’.
As I say — if you have any evidence of real, objective, absolute poverty in Britain today, not inequality or anxiety but children who really are starving or who don’t have a roof over their heads, then please share it. But there is none in that report.
So you believe all those teachers who say there are children too hungry to learn, are lying?
DeleteSo you believe all those teachers who say there are children too hungry to learn, are lying?
DeleteI believe they are teachers, not medical professionals, and therefore are not qualified to make that judgement.
But also you haven’t actually pointed to any of these ‘accounts’, so how do I know these ‘accounts’ really exist and you haven’t just imagined them like you imagined the bit in the report about children not learning because they are too hungry?
Stop pretending and try Googling.
ReplyDeleteStop pretending and try Googling.
DeleteSo this is you admitting you did imagine it then. Thank you.
Not at all. Just to add to the massive amount of evidence hare's an article in today's Guardian about bed poverty. Have a look.
DeleteJust to add to the massive amount of evidence hare's an article in today's Guardian about bed poverty.
Delete'Bed poverty'! These 'not real poverty' type of poverty get more imaginative every day.
Have a look.
It would be a lot easier if you would actually give links to these things. Anyway the report to which you are referring seems to be...
https://www.barnardos.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-09/report-no-crib-bed-poverty-cost-living-crisis.pdf
... and basically has no basis in fact whatsoever. I looked at the endnotes for every single claim and it's sourced to 'Barnardo’s YouGov Polling'.
As I'm sure you are aware, YouGov polls are online and self-selecting, and there is no verification of any answers. The entire report is therefore, in technical statistical language, bollocks.
(And really, as I'm sure you yourself would have checked the source notes before relying on a report, I'm surprised you even thought it worth bringing up. Did you honestly think I would be to lazy to chase up the references?)
Of course the really interesting question is: why does it annoy you so much that we have, essentially, solved poverty? You'd think realising that we had eliminated a scourge which is the default state of humanity would make you happy. It certainly makes me happy! To think that no child in Britain has to be malnourished (some are of course, due to the neglect of their parents, and that males me sad, but none have to be). Why would that not be an occasion for joy, rather than a rage that drives you to irrationality?
ReplyDeleteOf course there's a reason, and it's hardly hidden; it's in the very headline of this article. You don't care about poverty. You care about inequality. It just really sticks in your craw that, while everyone in Britain has enough, some have hundred, or thousands, of times as much as others. It drives you mad that, while everyone in modern Britain is, in historical terms, insanely rich, some are merely rich while others are ultra-rich.
I don't know why you feel this way. I guess there's something wrong with you. Just envy? Or something deeper?
Anyway, what you really want is an excuse to steal everyone's assets so that you can then apportion them more according to how you think they should be distributed. but you know, on some level, that if you were honest and just explained it straight out like that, everyone would see you for what you are and nobody would want anythig to do with you. So you have to disguise it with this stuff about 'poverty'.
Which is why you get so cross when your deception is pointed out.
Because at heart, you just want to steal my stuff and give it to people you think should have it instead.
Well, you can't.