We must all live within our means

MS Penny King of Lapford (May 3) suggested that I was expressing a ‘them and us’ attitude to poverty, but how very wrong she is.

Yes, you can stereotype ‘poor people’ and society needs to do that to be able to help them properly – and to help them help themselves. If the physician doesn’t understand the root causes of what is wrong (and what may be causing the problems), then how can he really heal the patient as opposed to applying that sticking paper?

There is an amorphous mass of ‘poor people’ and it’s not confined to the prejudiced Rowntree Foundation’s definitions.

Yes, some people have circumstances which lead to permanently impoverished existences and for whom the state is the necessary safety net, but many people escape poverty all the time just as new ‘members’ enter it by circumstance or their poor and selfish life choices.

Unless society starts to realise this and acts to try to help those most likely to fall into these traps, how can it (and she) be said to care one iota?

Does she really believe that those with less income or capital cannot benefit from guidance and education as to how to make what they have go further than it does presently?

How patronising; I give them the credit of being able to do just that and to improve their circumstances even if sometimes it takes some difficult decisions too.

That said, does she never believe a good starting point is to imagine simply living within one’s means and ensuring you have a buffer of some form for emergencies, rather than living up to and beyond the hilt constantly and wondering why there is such a life struggle?

She refers to the Prime Minister’s somewhat erratic past life choices and, indeed, I could agree but I am unaware that his outcome has ever been to have to rely upon the benefit system to compensate for those choices.

That said, I am sure he could earn a significantly higher reward if he did another job than the one he is doing very ably at the moment.

Philip J Milton Trimstone, North Devon