Kelly ‘Nothing to see’ as UN probes poverty
THE UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights visited Newcastle last week as part of a UK-wide fact-finding mission about the impact of austerity.
I think we should pause a moment and consider that fact. He wasn’t stopping off in the UK for a break on his way to an impoverished Third World country where you might expect him to carry out such a mission. His mission was here.
As the man in question, Philip Alston, said: “The United Kingdom is one of the richest countries in the world, but millions of people are still living in poverty there.”
This country is not short of cash, which makes the need for him to come here all the more shameful.
Yet the government continues to adopt a ‘nothing to see here’ attitude about the issue when even the UN believes something is so wrong it has to look into it.
It was not lost on anybody that the visit came just a week after chancellor Philip Hammond said austerity was coming to an end.
Mr Alston himself said: “I think the UK is at a crossroads, partly because of Brexit, and partly because of the comments made by the prime minister and the chancellor in terms of austerity.”
Theresa May, you might recall, has announced austerity is actually over.
He could have chosen to go to Sunderland or Middlesbrough or any number of North East places hit by this ideological cluster bomb of a policy, but Newcastle is where universal credit has been rolled out and is austerity central – more savage cuts were announced by the city council last week.
In regards to the welfare system, it’s the future. And the future looks so bleak the UN is coming to investigate it.
Mr Alston’s trip to Newcastle’s West End food bank, the largest in the country, will have revealed the full implications of the ill-thoughtout policy. I can’t remember Theresa May or Philip Hammond ever darkening its doors. If they did they would find out austerity is a policy which can’t be ended via a dishonest sound bite.
An insight into why the government might think ‘nothing to see here’ emerged a few weeks back, when it was revealed that Cabinet ministers had banned 40 charities and more than 300 companies from criticising them or their departments.
According to reports, the Department for Work and Pensions had forced at least 22 groups working on the rollout of the universal credit programme to sign contracts forc- ing them to “pay the utmost regard to the standing and reputation” of Esther McVey, who heads it.
Her standing and reputation, not high to begin with, took a potentially mortal blow career-wise last week when mental health charity Mind criticised her for including them in a list of charities she claimed had supported the DWP’s recent reforms to universal credit. Not true, apparently.
If McVey were to meet up with Mind, will a UN peacekeeping force be needed?