The Health Divide: Inequalities in Health in 1980s. ibid. Margaret Whitehead, Health Educational Council report March 1987
Black [report] called for the end to Child Poverty. ibid.
A right to good health: at present that right doesn’t exist. ibid.
Gets on your nerves where everything’s filthy. Dirty filthy walls and the vermin in the walls is wicked. So I tell you we are fed up. Housing Problems, director Edgar Anstey, woman in apron, 1935
Nothing to do with time,
Nothing to spend,
Nothing to do tomorrow or the day after,
Nothing to wear,
Can’t get married,
A living corpse, a unit of the spectral army of three million lost men. Walter Greenwood, Love on the Dole, 1933
Poverty is the mother of crime. Marcus Aurelius, attributions & variations
Poverty is not a disgrace, but it’s terribly inconvenient. Milton Berle
We were driving past a slum: one of those servants of makeshift tents where the workers at some construction site were living ... I saw the silhouettes of the slum dwellers close to one another; inside the tents you could make out one family – a husband, a wife, a child – all huddled around a stove inside a tent, lit up by a golden lamp. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger p188
These people were building homes for the rich, but they lived in tents covered with blue tarpaulin sheets, and partitioned into lanes by lines of sewage. It was even worse than Laxmangarh. I picked my way around the broken glass, wire, and shattered tube lights. The stench of faeces was replaced by the stronger stench of industrial sewage. The slum ended in an open sewer – a small river of black water went sluggishly past me, bubbles sparkling in it and little circles spreading on its surface. Two children were splashing about in the back water. ibid. p260
The black puddle splashed them as it passed. Bits of beedis, shiny plastic wrappers, punched bus tickets, snippets of onion, sprigs of fresh coriander floated on the black water; the reflection of a naked electric bulb shone out of the scum like a yellow gemstone. ibid. p265
Acceptable food rots while we are chased from bins behind restaurants, chased from sleeping on the street, chased from relieving ourselves unless we pay for food or gas, until finally we are so hungry, sleepless, smelly, constipated and beaten-down that we simply die of lack of will to live. Jane Siberry
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:25-33
And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.
The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.
Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? Luke 12:22-24
Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man’s business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked, Am I my brother’s keeper? That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.
Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death. Eugene V Debs, address 1908
Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change. Muhammad Ali, cited Don't Stop Believing: Pop Culture and Religion
Every year some sixty thousand new businesses are started up by companies. 20% of all start-ups fail in the first two years. Modern Times: For Richer For Poorer, BBC 2015
The government is cracking down on benefit claims – one and a half million payments are being affected. Ministers say it’s tough love. But others say it’s tough luck. Dispatches: Britain's Benefits Crackdown, Channel 4 2015
Supporters of sanctions say they make welfare fairer. So who benefits from Britain’s benefits crackdown? ibid.
Over twelve months more than half a million people were sanctioned. ibid.
The DWP has investigated forty-nine deaths. ibid.
‘This is our contract with the British people – to bring an end to the something for nothing culture.’ ibid. Ian Duncan Smith
The intelligent poor individual was a much finer observer than the intelligent rich one. The poor individual looks around him at every step, listens suspiciously to every word he hears from the people he meets; thus, every step he takes presents a problem, a task, for his thoughts and feelings. He is alert and sensitive, he is experienced, his soul has been burned. Knut Hamsun, Hunger
There is no nobility in poverty. The Wolf of Wall Street 2013 starring Leonardo diCaprio & Jonah Hill & Margot Robbie & Matthew McConaughey & Kyle Chandler & Rob Reiner & Jonn Favreau & Jean Dujardin & Joanna Lumley & P J Byrne et al, director Martin Scorsese
Bert White was a frail-looking, weedy pale-faced boy, fifteen years of age and about four feet nine inches in height. His trousers were part of a suit that he had once worn for best, but that was so long ago that they had become too small for him, fitting rather tightly and scarcely reaching the top of his patched and broken hobnailed boots. The knees and the bottoms of the legs of his trousers had been patched with square pieces of cloth, several shades darker than the original fabric, and these patches were now all in rags. His coat was several sizes too large for him and hung about him like a dirty ragged sack. He was a pitiable spectacle of neglect and wretchedness as he sat there on an upturned pail, eating his bread and cheese with fingers that, like his clothing, were grimed with paint and dirt. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
He also saw that a very great number – in fact, the majority of the people – lived on the verge of want; and that a smaller and still very large number lived lives of semi-starvation from the cradle to the grave; while a yet smaller but still very great number actually died of hunger, or, maddened by privation, killed themselves and their children in order to put a period to their misery. ibid.
The question is, what is the cause of the lifelong poverty of the majority of those who are not drunkards and who do work? ibid.
What I call poverty is when people are not able to secure for themselves all the benefits of civilisation; the necessaries, comforts, pleasures and refinements of life, leisure, books, theatres, pictures, music, holidays, travel, good and beautiful homes, good clothes, good and pleasant food. ibid.
Jack Linden was about sixty-seven years old, but like Philpot, and as is usual with working men, he appeared older because he had had to work very hard all his life, frequently without proper food and clothing. His life had been passed in the midst of a civilisation which he had never been permitted to enjoy the fruits of. But of course he knew nothing about all this. He had never expected or wished to be allowed to enjoy such things; he had always been of the opinion that they were never intended for the likes of him. He called himself a Conservative and was very patriotic. ibid.