Not so sure I would fully agree with you, JoJo (not looking for argument BTW ). Prior to moving to Spain I was living on a boat in a marina in North Shields, near Newcastle. I could list at least 5 neighbourhoods in that area that would break your heart if you walked about them. In places such as Meadowell and Percy Main, it is simply "in your face" all the time. I was completely taken aback when I first went there, having just moved from a very affluent part of Islington, London. I was over in February and had forgotten what it was like. It really took the wind out of my sails, no pun intended.

Ditto if you look at some parts of Edinburgh (Leith in particular) and Glasgow and TBH probably most cities in the UK.

I know that there is one area in Southampton, can´t remember which, that is similar to what I described above. I did a project for Southampton CC in 2001 that trialled a Housing Repair kiosk/smartcard system in the neighbourhood and it was pretty damn grim.

Whilst the poverty isn´t as grinding and shocking as in our Grandparents days, it is all relative. Arguably, there are many people who choose not too work, live on benefits in those areas, but that stereotype cannot be applied to everyone. Poverty is endemic in areas that no longer have the industries that the towns/cities were built around (Newcastle-Coal/Ship Building . Ditto Glasgow. Lancashire-Mills etc. etc.)

I guess it doesn´t help that 90% of the wealth in the country is "held" by less than 10% of the population (probably out on stats, but as Vic Reeves said "88.92% of statistics are made up...") that makes it all the more sad.

From my perspective, the gap between the "have´s" and the "have not´s" has widened markedly since I was a teenager. With our "aspirational" society (must have bigger house/BMW/3 Hols a year/50" Plasma etc.) I think that gap is simply going to increase over time.

What happens next, is simply beyond my ken.

I know the area you mean in Southampton (well near it), yes very grim. BUT, the kids there all have the latest mobiles, parent (and the kids) manage to find £7.50 for a pack of fags, nike trainers in abundance...... Its a rough estate tho, you wouldnt leave your car parked there and expect it to be there when you returned, so is that poverty or bad behaviour????

Seriously, I dont think that there are households where children have to take turns in going to school cos they dont have enough shoes for them all, three children sharing a bed, where there is no washing machine, no fridge - or of course, no tv, dvd player, computer games.......... whatever everyone has these days!!!

Jo xxx

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Nobody could possibly disagree with all that apart from those of a religious bent.
Do people define themselves by wealth though? I think the truth is that it is others who define them.
As for rights -yes, I agree. But rights are not something we are born with. They are determined and secured by Governments.
I disagree profoundly that history is incremental. Moral and spiritual progress is a myth and history demonstrates that very clearly. We have the same urge to destroy our fellow humans that we had in the Stone Age. Science/technology has merely given more effective ways to satisfy those urges. This false view of history is shared by socialists, neo-cons, humanists ..all believers in what Gray rightly terms 'secular religions'. It is a purely Western conceit.
The lessons of history -if lessons there are -are quite simply that homo 'sapiens' is a destructive creature and that we are doomed to repeat our mistakes.
We are proud of having abolished slavery....but slavery still exists in different forms.
Human trafficking, export zones in developing countries where people toil for many hours in dreadful conditions for a pittance, the way in which wealthy Arab states exploit the poorest of the poor. Slavery in a different guise.
Torture has found new forms too with the development of technology.
To imagine that we as the human race has 'progressed incrementally' in any way other than the purely materialistic is sheer folly.
Now we all agree with much , not all, of what you say. But pointing out what is wrong is oh so simple.
What is scarce is a set of practical solutions which pay heed to the limits of what is achievable, not to what we would wish to see.
Socialism is a busted flush. No people in the world have willingly accepted socialism and never will. It has always been imposed from above. Lenin used military power to depose the democratically elected Constitutional Assembly and impose Bolshevik rule.
All socialisms end up as modified capitalism.
Humanism is like any other religion. It means well.
Bemoaning the state of the world is a self-satisfying parlour game unless you can make real alterations. Suggesting unworkable solutions is pointless.
Two quotes: 'It is better to construct a shelter against the storm,however impermanent, than to stand outside and rail against the elements'. (Anon).
'You must start from where you are, not where you would choose to be' (Marx).

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.

I've repeatedly posted that we are living in a grossly unequal society and that inequality and poverty are not the same. Jo is right. I taught for decades in a very deprived area where every home had a huge tv, car, the latest phone, computers, and so on and the kids had the most expensive trainers. The poverty was spiritual not material and is the result of poor choices.
I heard an interest piece on the radio to the effect that the majority of convicted rioters lived in post code areas of great 'deprivation'.
That to me means nothing.
What we need is a comparative study showing the differences between those living in those areas who rioted and those who did not.
I suspect that the differences are stable households where decent values and a sense of personal and social responsibility were inculcated from an early age.
To simply equate relative poverty with criminality is a gross insult to the poor.
I grew up in what would have been the poorest sector of society....single female child of a widowed charwoman mother. My family life was stable and I was taught right from wrong from the earliest age.
No Government can instil these values. It is human dignity and decency that counts.
So yes, there is imo an unacceptable degree of inequality and we must level UP not DOWN.
But inequality per se does not explain or excuse criminality.

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.

Well said!!!!!

Jo xxx

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It's the size of the gap that is important. All societies have a degree of inequality. Socialist societies had 'classes': special privileges for Party members who lived in comparative luxury compared to the 'workers' in their cramped flats and empty shops. It seems that the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model accepts a greater degree of inequality then others. The recent riots weren't a protest against inequality: they were another form of the same greed that infects some bankers and politicians and which is seemingly acceptable in our society.
The truth is that you cannot construct a 'perfect' society on the basis of abstracts. Theories of equality cannot be easily realised in practice. You can't build a society of universal justice and prosperity through social engineering. We have to give up this idea of the conscious construction of a more perfect society, the whole culture of belief in the limitless capabilities and opportunities of the human mind.
To think so is an outdated view which is in the slow but sure process of melting away just as the 'truth' of Newtonian mechanics has been swept away by Einstein and relativity.
It's a hard concept to have to abandon. It took me decades of experience and I was probably happier when I clung to those beliefs.
But they are as false as the credo of any other religion.

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.