Minimum Income Standards UK

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a fine think tank, has brought out a report which estimates the amount of money people need per week to live (not survive, live). A minimum income standard is defined by the respondents to the survey: 'A minimum standard of living in Britain today includes, but is more
than just, food, clothes and shelter. It is about having what you need
in order to have the opportunities and choices necessary to participate
in society'. Which is all that social inclusion is about.

The amounts are frightening, especially when you consider that the housing costs included are rent rather than the huge mortgages many young people have these days. A pensioner couple needs 201.49 GBP per week excluding rent (apparently pensioners who get pensions credit reach this level); a couple with 2 children needs 557.03 GBP per week (excluding rent!), including a whacking 187 GBP for childcare. That's an astronomical amount, and probably far from the highest amount you could pay for childcare.

The rent amounts are between 64 and 69 quid for these two groups. The former may not have a mortgage, many of the latter probably do, and how much are the mortgage repayments on an average 100 k home? Of which there are not that many any more.

Terrifying!

A summer of discontent?

The Mail has its knickers in a twist over strikes by council workers, calling it a 'summer of discontent'. In memory of the 'winter of discontent' of which my son is a product. Er, well, not quite the winter, but he arrived during it. It was not a happy time what with petrol shortages, cleaning at the hospital down to a minimum (imagine a maternity hospital, blood all over the place....).

The Mail suggests that rubbish will be uncollected and schools will be shut. The latter of course being quite unusual in the summer....It also says that public sector workers have enjoyed an '11-year bonanza under New Labour'. Eh? Whenever did the public sector get anything from the government? Ok, so I left it in 2001, but I can never remember getting pay rises even matching, never mind exceeding inflation.

Number of children in poverty rises

....again in the UK, says the Guardian here. Actually, I'd heard about it yesterday, so the Grauniad, which should have its finger on the pulse, is a wee bitty late. The UK government is now well off its target of reducing child poverty by half (from 33%!!!) by 2010. In addition the number of pensioners living in poverty in the UK has risen by 300,000 to 2.5 million pensioners (and 2.9 million children, plus their parents presumably). Adults in poverty are stated to be 5.3 million, which presumably includes pensioners. So the total, of 8.3 million people in poverty, represents about 14% of a population of 60 million. That's without housing costs; if these are included, the figures may well be more.

The UK is the fifth richest country in the world. It has a 'socialist' government.

There are data, and data, and data showing the negative impact on childhood poverty on the lives of children, and their children, and their children. Does anyone pay attention to these?

Tone's back....

Some lovely articles on Tony Blair's return to Westminster here, and here, and here.

Taking care of Her Majesty's Subjects

Bit surprised to get an email from a colleague, forwarded from a friend of hers, of Foreign Office travel advice in Georgia. It's something to do with demos at the opening of Parliament on 10 June. We've survived the demos since last November, so we'll be ok.....Last time they phoned us the day after the teargas.

But why this means of message transmission? Enquiry to the Embassy reveals that they have a system of 'wardens' who then pass the message on to their 'parish'. On FCO advice, apparently.

Forgive me if this reminds me of 'Dad's Army' - what was the name of that ARP warden? And how do they know that all Brits are reached? I don't know who is my warden, or in which parish I am. Doing things on the cheap again, and getting other people to do their work.

But really, is it rocket science to set up a British resident's mailing list on the computer which includes everyone who has email (most people must do, surely). Someone registers at the Embassy, you pop their name into the mailing list. End of story. Setting it up in the first place might take half a day once....they don't have time for this?

Glad I'm not paying their salaries.

Megalomaniac!

Never one for taking one step at a time, Blair - who appears to have failed to create peace in the Middle East, and whose ambitions to become President of Europe look unlikely to be fulfilled, now wants to spend the rest of his life (he's 55, father still alive, potentially long life ahead) 'uniting' the world's religions. For this he's launching a 'faith foundation' in New York on Friday. He wants it to do things like getting the faiths together to provide bed nets for malaria, that sort of thing. It's probably safer than asking them to provide condoms against AIDS.....

Is he looking for a sainthood? If so, who would he expect to provide it - the Pope, Islam, the Jewish community, the Dalai Lama?

That's three major ideas in less than a year. Wonder how long this interest will last...

I should not let him rattle me, should I? But he's a dangerous person to be near power.

Rising food costs

We've all noticed that food costs have increased tremendously recently. It's a catastrophic issue for people who've lived at subsistence level (unless they grow all their own food, and very few people in the world do that nowadays), but even in Europe it is having a major impact on family budgets, as this article and this story confirms.

The second story, a food diary of a single parent from Guildford, reminds me of the time when I was a low-paid single parent from Scotland - quite a long time ago. There was a time when I could feed both of us on 20 quid a week (that's 20 years ago with a boy of roughly the same age as this lady's child; before that we lived on even less). She lists the meals she and her 7-year-old eat in the course of a week. While it says something about the food, it actually says more about family interactions.

I'm not sure if maybe the mum is trying to lose weight - but she hardly ever eats the same foods as her daughter, and misses out breakfast. Even when they both have, it would seem, fresh chicken, mum and daughter eat different things. Think of the work that involves - I wonder if they actually eat together in the evenings at least?

I suspect that the daughter is a bit of a fussy feeder, what with her having pancakes every morning (says she, who's most fussy about her Kellogg's cornflakes every morning - but if I were skint, I'd be very happy indeed to have a bowl of warming porridge). The daughter seems to get two cooked meals a day - eg steak and chips for Sunday lunch, roast chicken for dinner. Is that not a bit excessive? There's also much processed food, like fish fingers, chicken nuggets, chicken burgers...That's despite mum buying a chicken every week, and treating it, it seems, much the same way as I did (roasting it one day, using the next bits of meat for different things - lasting me a couple of days, boiling up the carcase - which makes lovely soup) - but most of it goes into mum's lunches. They seem to have meat twice a day most days. Would not have thought that was necessary.

It would be good if the daughter could be persuaded off her nuggets and fingers, and they could try other food. Many other kinds of meat, eg mince, stews, can be extended with the addition of beans (even porridge oats in the case of mince, though that becomes a bit serious...) - though of course these do not lend themselves to being taken to the office (but maybe the office has a microwave?). It's not necessary to eat meat every day - my son was raised on a vegetarian wholefood diet for 3 years of his early life, and his development did not seem to suffer. She could learn about complementary protein, which vegetarians are familiar with, where grain and peas,beans, or lentils (or milk products) interact to (somehow) create more protein. Unfortunately leguminous foods do have side effects.... I don't know how many years I took cheese sandwiches to work for my lunch (oh god, they were awful - brown bread and a slab of cheese, so dry that they would glue themselves to the roof of the mouth. But needs must!).

It's great that the family has an allotment (at the bottom of their garden - what luxury!). They should be able to grow almost all their vegetables, and freeze them, or bottle them, for the winter. Leeks, and some cabbages, store themselves quite happily in the garden in the winter - as long as you can get them out of the ground!

What if he had been black and poor?

Today's headline news in the UK is the story of a young barrister with an income of 500,000 GBP per year, living in Chelsea, who died in a gun siege - not clear whether he shot himself or the police shot him. There's a huge amount of debate about this case.

I wonder if he would have got as many column inches had he been a poor black man in East London?

Opposition to Blair leading Europe

Yeah! It's working! Today's article in the Guardian suggests that he is hitting some fierce opposition to the idea, including some puzzlement why a Briton should lead Europe, quite apart from his personal record on Iraq. Rock on, Stop Blair!

Prize for Madame Thatcher...and languages

The President of Lithuania has given Mrs Thatcher the grand cross of the order of the Lithuanian grand duke Gediminas (grandness all round) during a visit to London. Presumably for her efforts in bringing down the Soviet Union. And why not.

Here's a speech he made during the same visit to the UK. It's nice. He talks about the Lithuanians in the UK and the 18 Lithuanian language schools (Saturday schools) for the 30,000 Lithuanian children living in the UK, including my friend Grazina's grand-daughter who lives in London and is doing very well in her English school. He says:

'In my view, the greatest potential in this regard lies in the new emerging powerhouse of our relationship: the almost 150,000-strong Lithuanian community in the United Kingdom. They work in financial services and farms, research institutes and supermarkets, hotels and construction companies. Many of them study at British universities. By bringing here their knowledge and skills, their energy and passion for work, they also brought dynamism to the British economy. They contribute to the diversity, cultural and academic life of British society. They build local economies and form new communities. They participate and vote in local elections. The energetic Lithuanian community in Britain forms a direct and essential link in the human chain that connects our two nations and creates unlimited opportunities for bilateral cooperation.' (This is from effectively a Republican, speak Conservative. Not exactly Daily Mail speak, is it?)

He's asked for a GCSE to be developed for Lithuanian - there's been a petition signed by 9000 parents (30,000 Lithuanian children in the UK). And why not [again]? Which reminds me of the story I read about the GSCE's and A-levels in languages like Urdu, Arabic and Mandarin. It's about the fact that native English speakers who decide to take these languages for their GCSEs and A-levels, learning them as foreign languages, should get a 'fair deal' - in other words, allowances should be made so they have the same opportunities to get a high mark as those having these languages as their mother tongue. The Girls' [private] Schools Association is pushing for this.

Well, excuse me! Using this kind of logic, then, all those children whose mother tongue is not English, should get similar compensations when taking exams in English, no? Can't quite see that happening.

The Poles are leaving the UK

suggests a headline in today's Times. There are no official data, what with no immigration control for people for the European Union, but this seems to be the general impression. It is suggested that this is partly due to the falling pound (10% against the Euro since last year, though the Polish zloty is not linked to the Euro - I see it has risen against the Euro; that presumably means that it has risen even more than 10% against the pound) and also to the improving economic circumstances in Poland. Seeing as in Lithuania we are now having to employ German builders because our own are elsewhere, I can understand that. So those people who have saved up in pounds are rapidly losing the value of their savings (but it's really expensive to transfer small sums of money abroad every month).

Like the Polish workers I'm in a similar mixed economy, having expenses in the UK and in Lithuania (plus Georgia where people still love the USD). Some people pay me in GBP, most in EUR, and some in USD. Last year someone accidentally double paid me in GBP and blithely said - just treat it as an advance. Some of this I have worked off since, much of the rest I have been using to pay UK expenses. If, in the end, I will have to repay the sum (not that keen on that bit of work) I now need to pay back less since the Lithuanian currency is fixed to the Euro. It would make sense to pay off my British mortgage even faster.... On the other hand, though, my main pensions are in GBP, so when I come to retirement age and I continue to live outside the UK in Euroland, my income will be less. My experience with the GBP for the last 40 years has not suggested a great capacity for recovery in strength. Of course if the Lithuanian currency should get devalued against the Euro....

This business of being a migrant worker is really very complex.

Interestingly (you would not get this in all UK papers, and Times readers can be fuddy-duddies, too) the readers' comments on the article are on the whole positive about the Polish workforce in the UK.

'GPs have got Britain hooked on painkillers'

today's Observer screams. Well, excuse me.

Could it be something to do with the lack access to health services in the country? When someone has a pain and is sent away with painkillers (oh for god's sake, don't use any diagnostic tools!), after three months is finally sent for an x-ray, the results of which she waits for a month for (how difficult is it to look at an x-ray?) and she is given by the practice receptionist - surely a breach of protocol, and then she gets an appointment to see the GP almost four weeks later....moving to almost 6 months after this all started.... I'd like to nail that healthboard to the wall!

So GPs have got Britain hooked on painkillers? (Which must also mean a number of accompanying complications in the stomach department).

Has anyone thought of curing people, rather than maintaining them in the poor state of health they are? If they are of working age, such negligent 'treatment' (how can you call it 'treatment') could cause all sorts of consequences starting with loss of job. But people beyond working age have the same entitlements as those who are still working.

The health spending in Scotland has doubled in the last 7 or 8 years. Has it had any effect? A crisis is already developing in child surgery where many surgeons will retire in the next 10 years. What's being done about this? Maybe there are more managers?

How come this is an Eastern European blog and I keep having to complain about the UK?

Taking care of its people

In Bristol the body of an old man was found today, in his flat. He had not been seen for 8 years. But his flatmate continued to live around him. The neighbours complained about the smell. The flat, wait for this, was in a warden-controlled block of flats.

This means that a warden might be living on the premises, but in any case, should attend the block of flats daily. One would have thought they might have noticed something, or the neighbours might have complained to them and ACTION MIGHT HAVE BEEN TAKEN.

Probably the residents of the block of flats pay a premium for 'being looked after'.

Apart from the many obvious questions there is of course the problem that the living chap might not have allowed access into the flat. Human rights and all that. But in a situation like this, wouldn't there come a point when you'd have to force entry?

I was not that far wrong.....

Here a few days ago I jokingly suggested that Blair might somehow wangle himself to become President of the US.

Seems I was not far wrong - today's Observer suggests that he is starting a campaign to become first President of the EU.

I'm speechless.

The guy needs to be stopped before he destroys all that is good about the European Union, like the guaranteed social protection that people can live on (in most countries outside the UK).

What has he achieved in the UK? Lead it into an unnecessary war, dismantled further the welfare state, created full employment (?? that was already happening when he came into power), increased vastly the supervision of the population, destroyed public services with targets, more targets and further targets - throwing huge amounts of money at the services ...for counting beans.

We need to start a campaign now!

The cat that stole the cream

This smile (from the Guardian) belongs to the chap who's just got a GBP 500,000 (1 million/2 million, depending on which paper you believe most) part-time job as an adviser to JP Morgan Chase, an international investment bank, in addition to his half-time job as the EU, US, Russian and UN envoy to the Middle East. His job is 'advising them on how they approach the huge political and economic changes that globalisation brings'.

It's Blair's, of course, who's now in the money after years of lagging behind his QC wife in the salary stakes. Comments have been scathing from every side, about making a lot of money, and mixing politics and money. What will he do? Will he say - don't worry about that, I'll just give my mate George W a quick ring.

Blair was so good at dealing with the political and economic changes brought by globalisation. Childhood poverty in the UK is still the highest in Europe, the social protection system is poor, the government's fear of terrorism is high, the population is the most spied-on in Europe, the country is involved in an unnecessary war which has cost the loss of approximately 150,000 Iraqi lives. In other words, the ideal person for the job.

Now here's a terrifying thought. Imagine, that after working for a US company, he and the good Mrs Blair, with Leo, might relocate to the US in time, after a while becoming US citizens ....and then he might run for ....President?