We love you Richard, recall these well known words; 'When i give food to the poor they call me a saint, when I ask why the poor have no food,they call me a communist'-Dom Helder Camara..
@@gpw203Thomas Sowell was talking bollocks. Voting Reform would increase poverty for the majority , as Farage, Tice and co extract more for the richest (their own perceived class), dismantle the NHS and other state services, while repeating the lie of trickle down. The problem of mass inequality was started deliberately by Thatcher and her neoliberal fantasy. Anyone who has lived through these times would find it hard to dispute the fact that they have been better off under Labour, which has a far better economic record: having borrowed less and paid back more than the Tories since 1947.
@@gpw203If you look at Farage's record, it's obvious what Reform would deliver: a banana republic without the bananas, while he extracts the golden nuggets.
@@alanhat5252 Exactly. Ignoring the hysteria of the ghastly press. The manifesto that Starmer also signed off on while secretly stabbing Corbyn in the back was pretty much just left of centre.
Not entirely. Their ignorance is self imposed. It is wilfull and is managed carefully by them. It is curated by their environmental and material conditions.
@@azar1354 Anderson does. Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson has said it is “nonsense” to claim anyone in the UK is living in poverty. He said: 'I don't believe all this... poverty nonsense. Go in a time machine back into when I was growing up in the 70s, that was real poverty... It's nonsense now, it's absolute nonsense. As I recall he has a show on GB News.
I have neighbours who are grasping and greedy with egos to match. Their daughter married up, she now as a faux posh accent. Their political views on welfare claimant's are verbatim straight from the Sun newspaper and all its vileness.
“Attacking the rich is not envy, it’s self defence. The hoarding of wealth is the cause of poverty. The rich aren’t just indifferent to poverty, they create and maintain it.” Jodie Foster
"the hoarding of wealth is the cause of poverty" Exactly right. Money is like blood, it needs to flow around and not accumulate in one spot. Money should be spent not saved. Thats what makes a healthy economy.
I don't think quoting a wealthyactress is entirely pertinent. As Christianity was mentioned can we recall the story of the wise and foolish virgins. Money wisely invested can create jobs, helping lift people out of poverty and giving them self respect.
Attacking someone unprovoked is self defence? Interesting strawman argument. It doesn't sound rational at all; because it isn't rational at all. In a market economy there is a role for everyone potentially. A highly skilled surgeon for example will hire a gardener even though he could do the garden himself. Why? Because he has limited hours in the day and his time can be better spent elsewhere. We call this concept the division of labour. Working in mutual benefit. Or you could just tax the surgeon, and tell the poor man he doesn't have to work. Then instead of a surgeon and a gardener, you just have a surgeon and an unemployed person.
@@jameswhyte5094 You would be correct if your ideas were put into practice. Things such as price gouging and moving billions offshore to avoid taxes prove that our system doesn't work that way.
Many have lost touch with human caring and reality in general. I think this I due to the influence of social media. I have relatives who think like this. They don't believe people are genuinely poor, just trying to take advantage of the benefits system and food banks. They also think climate change is completely made up.
At 73 my politics have stayed pretty much the same. Left of centre. However, as the politics of the country has shifted right, I've found myself being described more and more as a raving leftie. Depressing.
I absolutely agree, The mainstream media now, which was considered to be the "extreme" press, has now shouted louder and longer than anyone else and become "acceptable"..............................only I don't think Neo Fascism or Fascism IS acceptable in our media or in its influence through Far right thuggish think tanks.
@MichaelNelson-it9mf I don't know if Corbyn is Conservative from say a Social Democratic perspective.. I doubt it actually! What I do know is that Corbyn has a genuine concern for democracy.
@MichaelNelson-it9mf Well: since Corbyn cares a lot about democracy, that would probably have been a future consideration.. But you have to win power first! Corbyn's manifesto was attractive. It's a pity the Red Wall liked the untested idea of Brexit better... 😏 As for Starmer: he only wants to court these Blue Labour types.. Or disaffected Tories. He hates the SNP and is not at all interested in the idea of Scottish or Welsh independence. But what's wrong with the idea of the UK anyway? 🙂 (Though I can see why the Scots are fed up with our Tory-dominated political system. 😏)
In the current climate in the UK especially England anyone who is to the left of Mussolini,Pinochet or Galtieri is seen as far left as is anyone who believes that the UK or rather England cannot simply shut it's borders in the same way that China did in the 15th century
Don't you mean far right as to the latter part of your statement? (And what good did China's closing its borders do it? Made it a backward country for a very long time.)
@@oneoflokis no I mean to the left as I stated. China closing it's borders did indeed make it backward in relation to other nations but it did keep the populace"happy"and easily controlled because they had no reference point which of course is what brexit was largely about by replicating that situation
My own preferred version of the Golden Rule is the one in the Sermon on the Mount, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", as it seems to me to be less passive and cosy than "Love thy neighbour as thyself" - you've actually got to exert yourself and do stuff. The two-child cap for benefits is shameful and discriminatory. Every child has the same basic needs whatever their position in the family. To limit benefits deprives all the children in the family as the available money has to be stretched so much further. I hate to think of any child growing up thinking they were a burden to their parents.
@marijo1951 your response is acceptable. Could we not have zero deposit mortgages and affordable housing. Cancel deposit, and there would be no rental market.
I'm currently reading,Shattered Nation: Inequality and the Geography of A Failing State by Danny Dorling. Its written in a very understandable style. I'm shocked at the levels inequality and lack of social mobility when compared to early 1970's when we had the least inequality.
As an actual radical leftist, im curious.. are you familiar with leftist anarchism also called libertarian socialism (contemporay and historical)? I very much value your videos and analysis - so on spot and clear!
Describing or calling anyone/thing as far left/right generally is just a way of not discussing a topic/policy as to it's specific merits and impacts. It's a way of 'othering' something so that it's not critically thought about. Many people play 'teams' in their political views and so if someone they perceive as in their team throws a this is 'far left/right' at it, then they wont engage with it critically and will just defacto denounce it. I am not sure how this gets solved.
It's a universal problem in communication - different people can see different meanings behind the same label Use labels when you're confident your audience broadly takes the same meaning, and elaborate more explicitly if in doubt Doesn't help that some bad actors are actively muddying definitions and seeding confusion to propagandise and distract 🙁
I totally emphasise with what you say. Strikes me that it has become OK to vilify the poor in our society and I guess that extends to the parents who struggle to feed their own children. Yet we are encouraged to stand back in awe at those who are wealthy, even when that wealth is inherited or even when its OK to avoid paying the going rate of tax by residing overseas and formulating complex tax avoidance structures. Happy to be labelled howsoever.
I read a comment last week from a woman that stated she did not have any children so did not see why should pay tax just to send other people's children to school. Completely unhinged and with a total lack of how society should work.
most of the middle-management intelligencia that i work with in a corporate behemoth think that labour, as it exists today, is, quote, 'socialist'. These are all people earning £80k+ a year (EDIT: outside of London, i might add) in basic pay. That's the level we're at.
40 years of social democracy gave the people of this country the best years ever. I lived through those years. Child, teenager, young worker , father . Life was infinitely better in those years. Neoliberalism has return this country to the 1930s. Fear stalks the land. Fear of unemployment ,of sickness, poverty, hunger. I could go on. Tory policy always brings the Four Horsemen.
Any sane, compassionate, caring person who holds politicians to account is far left even when those politicians claim to be socialists. Better to be far left in their eyes than to be targeting the weakest in society as most politicians are doing.
The Right have totally lost perspective. 50 years of Neoliberalism has poisoned the meaning of what it means to be small-c conservative. Austerity kills people.
Can you make a video about the millionaires fleeing to Dubai? Is there any impact in missed taxation on them? I think they're not known to pay taxey anyway, and their wealth is often contributing to pushing high assets prices for the ordinary folk. But this might be just a partial view
@@garyb455 I have never been offered a job by a non-working wealthy person. I have only been working for business, not for wealthy people with non-dom status. What about you?
More benefits and handouts are not the answer. Charity and welfare sustain poverty, lt does not end it. Our jobs and employers need to pay enough wages to pay for families. Working families should not have to ask for handouts. Why is it normal for employers to declare record profits and not be encouraged to pay record wages? It's a form of madness. The thing that opened my eyes to the madness of the system is child support. Employers are never obligated to pay any extra money for a child. Or pay you a penny more than a minimum wage subsistance payment. But from the second you separate, you are obligated to pay for a child. So they are literally mandating you to pay money an employer has never given you and never been obligated to pay you. Minimum wage broke literally everything. Minimum wage or they assimilated the term 'living wage' is the amount worked out to sustain one working adult. Not one working adult and a child. So, asking someone to pay child support out of that is asking someone to live on much less than the basic living standard. Its complete madness. Of course we all feel ike we should pay for children. But we need jobs to pay more than minimum to be able to do that.
If charity was the answer to poverty. Jimmy Savile would have cured it years ago. Pay people properly. Work based incentive. Bonuses at the top AND the bottom. Or not at all.
The right-wing press is forever moving the goal posts on this, I remember having a wake-up call when I saw some figure on the right describe spending money on the economy as allegedly radically left and realising how the table was tilted in their favour.
Mainstream media is Left. TV news (BBC, ITV, C4) is unashamedly Left and does not hide its propagandist tendencies. Mainstream European media is also Left. If you want left-wing press there's a healthy list to choose from: Guardian, Independent, Mirror, all London rags... etc.
Really?? Looks rabidly left to me. High tax, low growth policies government over 50% of the economy, police who ‘check your thinking’ free speech under attack. sending people to prison for being ‘offensive’ online. Unwilling to deport illegal immigrants, PM who is too weak to state the difference between men and women. The list goes on. Only Farage is on the right. Everyone else is left.
Delusion. All mainstream media, especially TV and online news is Left, plus Google and other monolithic internet companies are Left, plus advertising is Left. Labour is the government. The Democrats in the US is the government, though not for long. Seeing life as 'far right' is your comfort-blanket.
The problem with calling Jesus far left is that it's not specific enough. Cause on the far libertarian left, there's anarchist communism, anarcho primitivism, anarchist socialism etc... Some people interpret Jesus as a anarcho pacifist, others a anarchist socialist. There are also issues of which translation of the Bible your reading, for instance Nigel Watson on youtube thinks that Jesus was a right leaning libertarian cause he said let Ceaser render unto what is his. So by his logic Jesus would support low taxes with little to no public services. Empsizing non government communities, to help others be in self sufficient communities.
Having revised your video. I actually agree. The right always claims to have a monopoly on religion. But Keir Hardie, the founder of the labour party, was a Christaian preacher. He wasn't a marxist and was trying to do the right thing. Labour needs to remind everyone when the free market goes too far. And based on the teachings from the bible it often does "For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath" Mathew 25:29
The right are moving towards the politics of classical liberalism, that is the government should exist for law and order and defense and everything else needs to dismantled.
Social media or GB News are not to blame. This has been around forever. All of these things some believe causes our issues just in face gives people the ability to magnify those things. And by people I mean idiots and fools. “A fool talks because he has to say something and a wise man talks because he has something to say.” Mr T.
Benjamin Franklin formed the first successful cooperative in America some 250 years ago. Does that make him Far-Left? The father of Fred Perry, Samuel Perry was a member of the Cooperative Party and the Rochdale Principles. These are Voluntary rather than Forced. Im in favour of Democratic businesses along with more Participation Democracy and Direct Democracy. I'm in no way in favour of enforcing my belives upon others.
Compared to Scandinavian countries, or Finland, Germany, Holland or Japan, you are probable right of centre. All those countries take really good care of their citizens. Something we should aspire to do in Britain.
I see him as the genuine centre-left, which is good to see as someone a bit more left when it feels like there are too many people who falsely claim to be 'centre-left' but don't meet a social democratic standard.
@@danksheev66 Aye, most of the people who claim to be centre left are, to those of us who remember the 1960s, centre right to just plain right wing. Clause IV -- which was the core of Wilson's Labour -- is, wierdly, now seen as extreme. The overton window has shifted to an unbelievable extent.
@@simonbrooke4065 Yeah I agree whole heartedly, I've been experimenting with new considering new forms of market socialism to overcome the Hayek paradigm though, as unfortunately it feels like pre-1979 social democracy has a very hard uphill struggle even if it could make a comeback in the Nordic Countries and Spain as examples.
The fact is that the centre has moved further right to accommodate the lies of neoliberalism and vulture capitalism. I'm pretty much in the same space as you, Richard. There is such a thing as society and cooperation has enabled our survival as a species.
The left/right debate is pointless factionalism & name-calling much like party politics. The battle is against authoritarianism. If you believe that the state has some sacred role that overrides the freedom of the people then it doesn't matter to which political flavour you claim adherence you are not a democrat. It's up to the people as a collective to define the limits of the state not for the political class or any other minority to indulge their whims. The argument that we must obey our betters for the sake of the children is just 'virtue signalling' - - 'agree with me or you are scum'. The non-state solutions even in the dire poverty especially following the Victorian era were achieving results. The fact that politicans want to control ever more as wealth grows doesn't mean they take us in a better direction.
anybody who dissents is automatically far left or far right. as A.I. modelling becomes further integrated into politics, todays level of compassion will seem christ-like
I agree with your assessment that you are centre left. The problem is not your aspirations. I find it odd that those on the right and left have actually so much in common - often common goal’s and common observations unite us all. The contentious issue is always the solutions provided by competing agent. This channel provides valid observations and these are always followed with a solution - some times they are challenging solutions but they are always interesting. Ignore the haters and the labels. I enjoy hearing your views. It’s often it’s a breath of fresh air and … I don’t always agree with you. But that’s ok
Problem is Richard, that there seems to be people now who seem to fall over themselves to try to be more right then the rest. Politics have gone so far to the right that everyone else is now to the left, and what once was concidered centre-left is now "ultra left wing". Such a nonsense.
You see the problem I have is being self employed if I fall on hard times and go to the DWP they will tell me i don't qualify for any assistance . I work and pay my taxes but self employment excludes me from the system others qualify for even if they've only just arrived
Whenever I disagree with a left-winger, it's always their solution to a perceived problem I object to. Whether or not I agree that the problem needs solving is not worth arguing about, because even if I disagreed, I can't argue with their desire to feel differently about it. I do find it's a common trait among them to consider their opposition as motivated by evil opposition to their ends, rather than a desire for better means to those ends. As far as I can tell, they aren't cynically throwing mud from the moral high-ground in order to avoid engaging on the shortcomings in their designs, they genuinely believe that anyone opposed to their proposed medicine is fond of the disease.
Whenever I disagree with a right-winger it's always their solution to a perceived problem I object to, it's because they have a disease called " I live in a fantasy world of get Brexit done kinda crap"
What is wrong with being a Socialist? What's wrong with being Left Wing? What's wrong with believing in social justice? Children are the future of this country, if children are malnourished they won't develop (physically or mentally) is this what we want for our country? Such myopia!
_"What is wrong with being a Socialist?"_ Effectively you are then in favor of theft, and something which requires totalitarianism. No country has been able to make the thing work properly.
TLDR summary. “I am honestly and truely a saint, with the purest of motives and intentions. My political opponents are either truely evil, cognitively challenged, deluded fools or any combination of the above, as represented by my large collection of handy straw men here. 😊
"far", "extreme" etc., all lost their meaning years ago. When looking at any argument, first remove all emotive and superlative adjectives, then read it again. I've long been in favour of only two main taxes - an impact tax, and an adjective tax
When someone calls me ‘far left,’ my response is (admittedly, mostly unspoken): “What god-forsaken fascist hellscape do you have in mind, if you insist on labelling my views, ‘far left’?”
@@oneoflokis _"You can't have left-wing fascists. Fascism came out if right-wing politics in Italy."_ Wrong. Fascism specifically was a totalitarian Far-Left, socialist 3rd position ideology based on National Syndicalism which they adapted from a French Marxist known as Georges Sorel. It literally came from the belief that the "Stateless and Classless society" Communism calls for after its dictatorship cannot achieve Socialism, and that only the State can properly organize a Socialist Society.
@@fburton8 _"classical fascism is a right-wing phenomenon ... but equating them with fascism overlooks the distinct historical and ideological foundations of fascism as a far-right ideology."_ Wrong. Fascism had nothing to do with Right wing of any kind whatsoever. Again, Fascism was a totalitarian far-left, socialist 3rd position ideology based on National Syndicalism which they adapted from Georges Sorel. It rejected individualism, capitalism, liberalism/democracy, and marxism. The means of production was organized by national worker syndicals (i.e. trade unions), and the guiding philosophy of the state was Actual Idealism. Fascism was an outgrowth of Sorellian Syndicalism, which itself was an outgrowth from Marxist socialism. The idea was that society would be consolidated (i.e., incorporated) into syndicates (in the Italian context, fascio/fasci) which would be regulated by and serve as organs for the state, or "embody" the state (corpus = body). The purpose was the centralization and synchronization of society under the state, as an end unto itself. To quote Mussolini's infamous aphorism: "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." As created by Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile, Fascism comes from a belief that the "Stateless and Classless society" Communism calls for after its dictatorship cannot achieve Socialism, and that only the State can properly organize a Socialist Society. It cared about unity in a strong central government with society being brought together by syndicalist organizations obedient to the State.
@Historia.Magistra.Vitae. Not true. Mussolini said that fascism was a state where there was a partnership between government and big business and that they should run everything. The total opposite of socialism.
This is how politics has been warped and bent out of shape. Tony Benn if you listen to what he had to say on a whole range of what might be called "ordinary" everyday life things is in today's language about as middle as it gets and yet 40 years ago he was classed as left wing. Maybe the question being asked should be, why do house holds require 2 adults to work constantly in order to survive?
I think the use of the term 'far left' is being used in a derogatory manner. 'Far left' and socialist have been given negative connotations. These slurs were initiated by the elite that are genuinely afraid of the far left and is usually repeated by the masses that have little or no clue what the terms entail.
I have exactly the same views. I believe that people should have a clean safe warm home to live in, and that people can afford to put food on the table and pay their energy bills and have a little bit left over to save or use to go out socialising. It is bizarre how you can be deemed far left just because you have compassion and empathy for others. Sadly I cannot support Labour, because I do not trust Keir Starmer and I’ll never forgive him and his fifth columnists buddies who helped destroy Corbyn. Yes, Corbyn had his faults and wasn’t as strong as his role model the late great Tony Benn, but he was a much better leader than Starmer.
_"It is bizarre how you can be deemed far left just because you have compassion and empathy for others."_ It's not the compassion and empathy... it's the fact that the things you mentioned are supposed to be achieved via stealing money from others.
So, a couple of Billion not spent on overseas aid or the Ukraine war that usually ends up in despots pockets and not having to cater to illgal immigrants on a daily basis. This would end child poverty here in the Uk along with most of the homelessness, Who would have thought that these were far right policies if they were applied?
I think a great proportion of "child poverty" is a product of the legislation that underpins childcare when it comes to separated parents. Their legislation creates a perverse incentive "perhaps even an explicit one) to become homeless, because if that parent is deemed to have "dependant children" then they will get priority need social housing (with rental terms that are indistinguishable from home ownership), and if they self declare domestic abuse they will go into an even higher priority band. It's then in the best interest of that parent to simply stop working: because the more they have the children, the more they can claim in "paternity tax" (or child maintenance as it is stupidly called) if the other parent (almost always the father) has them half of the time then the mother can prevent him from working whilst caring for the children. If the father has them more of the time then it's called "voluntary parenting". My ex partner has one of these so called "social houses", you get: 1) a lifetime tenancy. 2) you only need to look after your children 50% of the time. 3) you can sign the tenancy agreement without any income at all... 4) you will most likely get the right to acquire it if it's a housing association. 5) the more you take the children from your ex, the more money you earn from him. It's practically an employment scheme for mothers: stay at home to look after the children in a house the Taxpayer has provided them with, but blame fathers for abandoning the children or accuse him of abuse...because crucially, the father will have to pay to go to family court (and it's private) for a child arrangement order but will most likely face accusations of abuse and a CAFCASS officer that will write any narrative to justify Government giving houses away in a manner that breaches the equality act. If you take a look at the policies and statutes in relation to government housing children...you will see that they are doing to separated fathers, what they used to do to unmarried mothers up to the 70/80s... ...I simply offered to pay the rent and overheads of the social house that my children reside in😢. But obviously they don't want that... It's brutal
@@keithparker1346 Hi Keith, I don't think my circumstances are weird. I think for the most part they are similar to a lot of cases that are happening right now. I've just learnt a great deal trying to parent as a father - with my children also being resident in a bedroom entitlement that was given to their mother when she became homeless. The metric local authorities use to determine whether a parent has "dependent children" is the Child Benefits. So if a parent becomes homeless and they are claiming child benefits then the local authority can deem them as having the "main responsibility" of the children; and can infer that the other parent is "less responsible" (a euphemism that enables them to think that the other parent has abandoned the children...even if they haven't). Section 20 (3) of the Housing benefit regs 2006 enables them to do this. Anyway ... It's a big topic. And it's difficult to quote all of the legislation in TH-cam's comments section.
It's absurd to say that not wanting children to be fed properly is far left. I'd say it's pretty centre ground. Social Democrat type stuff. We live in a strange world.
That its main prediction didn't come true and needs pseudoscientific methods to explain it away. As Bakunin already pointed out you can't use a dictature to build a classless society. It's telling that he got kicked out the International by Marx himself.
It's definitely compassion. The fact that the far right will label anyone who cares about other people as "Lefties" merely prove how twisted and vicious they are. It's the same with WOKE. If you break down the definition of WOKE, it means caring about how other's feel. Yet another example of human compassion. Then there's the whole "Bleeding Heart Liberal" slur. That hardly means you're necessarily a "Liberal" politically, It merely proves you HAVE a heart from which to bleed. And there's the other thing that I have heard so often, "Bloody Do Gooders!". Like doing the RIGHT thing by people is a weakness that makes you, somehow, abnormal.
Hi Richard Murphy, the whole point of such naming is to simplify and degrade the issues involved, many years ago a very clever person was able to describe the concept of right wing versus left wind as fundamentally flawed, as with birds they need both wings to fly and both wings have to work together!. The entire concept of winning and losing is the creation of fantasists who have chosen to separate reality into good and bad when no such thing exists in nature. This idea allows for the idiotic simplification of issues into the 'right' way or the wrong way of seeking resolution this reduces the total variety of experience at a stroke and reduces the need for rational thought. Along these very same lines all beliefs are imaginary simplifications of reality to absolve the believer of any critical thought, the only good reason for this is that as mere animals with limited capacity for thinking quick, easy thoughtless answers to 'problems' are always 'better' than careful rational analysis this is why cognitive delusion in all its many forms is so much part of our cultures, as long as no one dares to question the accepted precepts the deluded fools can continue their dreadful tyranny. All the terms in current use in politics are based on delusions, ideas like 'freedom' and 'democracy' have no rational foundation, all of them are just loose terms of entirely human invention. Cheers, Richard.
For anyone who is interested I commented about child support on here and within a day received increasing payments by £28. Clear evidence of been singled out and targeted electronically by the state. Punishing me for my politics. What does a citizen do about that ? If that does not trigger a response. Then I can assume you part of the problem or the messaging is being blocked.
We have imported twice the population of coventry in 5 years. It goes beyond normal compassion to feed those. Of course, doing so impacts what we can give our own. Your silly to think the issues are not linked.
Your social conscience should be directing you to educate people not to have children until they are in a stable, married family unit and can afford them. This is the only SUSTAINABLE way to eradicate child poverty.
It seems with an social, base-ground and caring attitude one should be (if at all) set straight into the center of society. But since people blurring out loud in the internet AND many politicians seem to place himself far right of this opinion, you are automatically left in this view 😅🙈 I could be funny if it wasn't serious. I just wonder why "right wingers" don't support social issues anymore. Wasn't there a time when they highlighted the importance of family, children and local community as very important? At least in Germany
You answered your own question by happily accusing those who call you far left of being far right..... All political labels are subjective, dependent on your own views.... Forget politics and judge people by their own words/ deeds....
My only comment to this presentation would be that every time you use the word 'left' in this video I could perfectly replace it with 'right' and its conclusions and sentiment would be exactly the same. Your deep analysis of many monetary issues is like a breath of fresh air - very informative and educational. However, when it comes to the conclusion and action required it is often 180 degrees opposite to my own. How can we so totally agree with your analyses and yet in the closing argument often reach completely different remedies and solutions? Is it because being 'politically left' or 'politically right' are emotional states? You talk about poverty as a fixed concept but you know full well that in the UK it is a dynamic 'relative' measure. We never use the measure of absolute poverty in the UK. A couple of £billion will not eliminate poverty - the 'relative poverty markers' will simply increase because there will always be the bottom 10% who will be priced out. For example - Quote EuroStat: "In 2022, Sweden's poverty rate was estimated to be 16.1%. This is based on the European Union's (EU) definition of poverty risk, which is when a household's income is 60% below the median income". Sweden poverty rate 16%? Sweden appears to be a society that no longer understands what actual poverty is - likewise the UK.
We love you Richard, recall these well known words; 'When i give food to the poor they call me a saint, when I ask why the poor have no food,they call me a communist'-Dom Helder Camara..
@@gpw203How would that help?
@@gpw203Thomas Sowell was talking bollocks. Voting Reform would increase poverty for the majority , as Farage, Tice and co extract more for the richest (their own perceived class), dismantle the NHS and other state services, while repeating the lie of trickle down. The problem of mass inequality was started deliberately by Thatcher and her neoliberal fantasy. Anyone who has lived through these times would find it hard to dispute the fact that they have been better off under Labour, which has a far better economic record: having borrowed less and paid back more than the Tories since 1947.
@@gpw203If you look at Farage's record, it's obvious what Reform would deliver: a banana republic without the bananas, while he extracts the golden nuggets.
@@gpw203 "Minimalist philosophy", hmm. Which party would that be?
Absolutely Perfectly explained.
Thankyou
Ted Heath was to the left of Starmer
Exactly, new labour under Bliar and new new labour under Starmer were/are right of the 1970s tories.
@Minimmalmythicistwith Starmer not Corbyn the outlier 😢
@@alanhat5252 Exactly. Ignoring the hysteria of the ghastly press. The manifesto that Starmer also signed off on while secretly stabbing Corbyn in the back was pretty much just left of centre.
@@IMBlakeleyIndeed! 💯😏
He was, sadly that's a fact! 🙁
I have several colleagues who deny poverty even exists in the UK. Social media, GB News and the tabloid right have done this.
Not entirely.
Their ignorance is self imposed. It is wilfull and is managed carefully by them. It is curated by their environmental and material conditions.
GB News is generally a cheap channel, but I don't think they deny poverty in the UK. They're right wing, but not free-marketeers.
@@azar1354 Anderson does. Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson has said it is “nonsense” to claim anyone in the UK is living in poverty. He said: 'I don't believe all this... poverty nonsense. Go in a time machine back into when I was growing up in the 70s, that was real poverty... It's nonsense now, it's absolute nonsense.
As I recall he has a show on GB News.
@@chriswills9437 that's true. But usually there are also Leftists on the panel, like Aaron Bastani versus Peter Hitchens.
I have neighbours who are grasping and greedy with egos to match. Their daughter married up, she now as a faux posh accent. Their political views on welfare claimant's are verbatim straight from the Sun newspaper and all its vileness.
No it makes you human
Actually it makes him left wing. Which is a good thing.
“Attacking the rich is not envy, it’s self defence. The hoarding of wealth is the cause of poverty. The rich aren’t just indifferent to poverty, they create and maintain it.” Jodie Foster
"the hoarding of wealth is the cause of poverty"
Exactly right. Money is like blood, it needs to flow around and not accumulate in one spot. Money should be spent not saved. Thats what makes a healthy economy.
Ps . Obviously saving a bit is prudent, but not saving more than you can reasonably spend
I don't think quoting a wealthyactress is entirely pertinent. As Christianity was mentioned can we recall the story of the wise and foolish virgins. Money wisely invested can create jobs, helping lift people out of poverty and giving them self respect.
Attacking someone unprovoked is self defence? Interesting strawman argument. It doesn't sound rational at all; because it isn't rational at all. In a market economy there is a role for everyone potentially. A highly skilled surgeon for example will hire a gardener even though he could do the garden himself. Why? Because he has limited hours in the day and his time can be better spent elsewhere. We call this concept the division of labour. Working in mutual benefit.
Or you could just tax the surgeon, and tell the poor man he doesn't have to work. Then instead of a surgeon and a gardener, you just have a surgeon and an unemployed person.
@@jameswhyte5094 You would be correct if your ideas were put into practice. Things such as price gouging and moving billions offshore to avoid taxes prove that our system doesn't work that way.
Many have lost touch with human caring and reality in general. I think this I due to the influence of social media. I have relatives who think like this. They don't believe people are genuinely poor, just trying to take advantage of the benefits system and food banks. They also think climate change is completely made up.
"Social Media" doesn't come up with ideas by itself, somebody _put_ those ideas there & somebody spread them.
@@alanhat5252 thanks, I get that.
Oh this has been for far longer than social media.
Brilliant! Thank you, excellent videos
At 73 my politics have stayed pretty much the same. Left of centre. However, as the politics of the country has shifted right, I've found myself being described more and more as a raving leftie. Depressing.
I absolutely agree, The mainstream media now, which was considered to be the "extreme" press, has now shouted louder and longer than anyone else and become "acceptable"..............................only I don't think Neo Fascism or Fascism IS acceptable in our media or in its influence through Far right thuggish think tanks.
Yes sadly Thatcher/Reagan shifted everything right.
You commi hahahaha,,,,, I know what you mean though
@@ianclark9198 Your having a laugh, god I hope so.
Theses days the left wing of the Tory party are called far left by Reform.
Well done Richard!
They done it with Corbyn radical . far left . he wasn't by by means 'far left' all he was hoping to give us what people enjoy every day in Europe
💯
@MichaelNelson-it9mf I don't know if Corbyn is Conservative from say a Social Democratic perspective.. I doubt it actually! What I do know is that Corbyn has a genuine concern for democracy.
@MichaelNelson-it9mf Well: since Corbyn cares a lot about democracy, that would probably have been a future consideration.. But you have to win power first! Corbyn's manifesto was attractive. It's a pity the Red Wall liked the untested idea of Brexit better... 😏
As for Starmer: he only wants to court these Blue Labour types.. Or disaffected Tories. He hates the SNP and is not at all interested in the idea of Scottish or Welsh independence.
But what's wrong with the idea of the UK anyway? 🙂 (Though I can see why the Scots are fed up with our Tory-dominated political system. 😏)
@MichaelNelson-it9mf Couldn't disagree with that
In the current climate in the UK especially England anyone who is to the left of Mussolini,Pinochet or Galtieri is seen as far left as is anyone who believes that the UK or rather England cannot simply shut it's borders in the same way that China did in the 15th century
Don't you mean far right as to the latter part of your statement? (And what good did China's closing its borders do it? Made it a backward country for a very long time.)
@@oneoflokis no I mean to the left as I stated. China closing it's borders did indeed make it backward in relation to other nations but it did keep the populace"happy"and easily controlled because they had no reference point which of course is what brexit was largely about by replicating that situation
@@davidmcintyre8145 I see! Interesting comparison.
@@oneoflokis Another would be to compare the brexit that the leadership seem to want with the DPRK
My own preferred version of the Golden Rule is the one in the Sermon on the Mount, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", as it seems to me to be less passive and cosy than "Love thy neighbour as thyself" - you've actually got to exert yourself and do stuff.
The two-child cap for benefits is shameful and discriminatory. Every child has the same basic needs whatever their position in the family. To limit benefits deprives all the children in the family as the available money has to be stretched so much further. I hate to think of any child growing up thinking they were a burden to their parents.
💯 Plus it does to spme extent encourage a drop in the population rate!
@@PhilipMatthewsPAEACP"Allodial"?
@marijo1951 I wouldn't charge people rent.
It's never stopped the Charlie Umbrella, November Tangos from charging me 😉
@@paulgibbons2320 I don't quite see that we can all have free accommodation. Of course it's wrong to charge exploitative rents.
@marijo1951 your response is acceptable.
Could we not have zero deposit mortgages and affordable housing.
Cancel deposit, and there would be no rental market.
Bernie Sanders is a moderate centrist. In the US he's considered "radical left" as the two major parties are both far right.
I'm currently reading,Shattered Nation: Inequality and the Geography of A Failing State by Danny Dorling. Its written in a very understandable style. I'm shocked at the levels inequality and lack of social mobility when compared to early 1970's when we had the least inequality.
Excellent video thanks for posting.
Thank you Richard for making things understandable and relatable,even when the subject is somewhat difficult.
Richard is just a man with common sense something lacking in our politicians. With of course a social conscience as well.
As an actual radical leftist, im curious.. are you familiar with leftist anarchism also called libertarian socialism (contemporay and historical)? I very much value your videos and analysis - so on spot and clear!
Describing or calling anyone/thing as far left/right generally is just a way of not discussing a topic/policy as to it's specific merits and impacts. It's a way of 'othering' something so that it's not critically thought about. Many people play 'teams' in their political views and so if someone they perceive as in their team throws a this is 'far left/right' at it, then they wont engage with it critically and will just defacto denounce it. I am not sure how this gets solved.
It's easy, it's call PR, everybody gets a say, everybody are represented in parliament
It's a universal problem in communication - different people can see different meanings behind the same label
Use labels when you're confident your audience broadly takes the same meaning, and elaborate more explicitly if in doubt
Doesn't help that some bad actors are actively muddying definitions and seeding confusion to propagandise and distract 🙁
The Social Contract has to work both ways to work.
How about actual, direct democracy. We do NOT want a social contract (I don't want to be 'protected' by corrupt elites), we want democracy.
Excellent piece. Thank you!
I totally emphasise with what you say. Strikes me that it has become OK to vilify the poor in our society and I guess that extends to the parents who struggle to feed their own children. Yet we are encouraged to stand back in awe at those who are wealthy, even when that wealth is inherited or even when its OK to avoid paying the going rate of tax by residing overseas and formulating complex tax avoidance structures.
Happy to be labelled howsoever.
'You call it socialism. We call it civilization'
💯👍
Who's we!!! then
Socialist @@GlennLeinster
@@cerberus7849 Correct;-)
Nothing civilized about theft.
I read a comment last week from a woman that stated she did not have any children so did not see why should pay tax just to send other people's children to school. Completely unhinged and with a total lack of how society should work.
Bet she doesn't refuse a state pension later in life though 🤔
@@markwelch3564 Or her "socialist healthcare" operation for a new hip.
most of the middle-management intelligencia that i work with in a corporate behemoth think that labour, as it exists today, is, quote, 'socialist'. These are all people earning £80k+ a year (EDIT: outside of London, i might add) in basic pay. That's the level we're at.
Well said
The Overton window has been moved to the right by Murdoch, Rothermere et al.
Very thought provoking stuff. I like your blogs. All of them.
40 years of social democracy gave the people of this country the best years ever. I lived through those years. Child, teenager, young worker , father . Life was infinitely better in those years. Neoliberalism has return this country to the 1930s. Fear stalks the land. Fear of unemployment ,of sickness, poverty, hunger. I could go on. Tory policy always brings the Four Horsemen.
And Labour policy now, sadly.
Tony Benn did not want Britain to join the EU.
The trouble is your solutions to poverty will make everyone poor.
Well said Richrad,,,,,,,,,you commi hahahahaha,,,The right wing MSM don't know where to stop no more
"right wing MSM"? Are you serious??
@@adamsmith307 Yeah I'm am serious go tell Jeremy Corbyn they ain't right wing or the letf Farage is always on the BBC
Maybe after the election we can bring the fairness back to our country 🤞
With Starmer yeah right mate
One would thinks so!
Any sane, compassionate, caring person who holds politicians to account is far left even when those politicians claim to be socialists. Better to be far left in their eyes than to be targeting the weakest in society as most politicians are doing.
The Right have totally lost perspective. 50 years of Neoliberalism has poisoned the meaning of what it means to be small-c conservative. Austerity kills people.
In almost every European country, the government has been expanding, not shrinking... that ain't Neo-Liberalism.
Can you make a video about the millionaires fleeing to Dubai? Is there any impact in missed taxation on them? I think they're not known to pay taxey anyway, and their wealth is often contributing to pushing high assets prices for the ordinary folk. But this might be just a partial view
@@garyb455 I have never been offered a job by a non-working wealthy person. I have only been working for business, not for wealthy people with non-dom status. What about you?
@@garyb455the free market will sort it out. Another wealthy person who isn't a tax dodger will move in to fill the gap
More benefits and handouts are not the answer.
Charity and welfare sustain poverty,
lt does not end it.
Our jobs and employers need to pay enough wages to pay for families.
Working families should not have to ask for handouts.
Why is it normal for employers to declare record profits and not be encouraged to pay record wages?
It's a form of madness.
The thing that opened my eyes to the madness of the system is child support.
Employers are never obligated to pay any extra money for a child. Or pay you a penny more than a minimum wage subsistance payment. But from the second you separate, you are obligated to pay for a child.
So they are literally mandating you to pay money an employer has never given you and never been obligated to pay you.
Minimum wage broke literally everything.
Minimum wage or they assimilated the term 'living wage' is the amount worked out to sustain one working adult.
Not one working adult and a child. So, asking someone to pay child support out of that is asking someone to live on much less than the basic living standard.
Its complete madness.
Of course we all feel ike we should pay for children.
But we need jobs to pay more than minimum to be able to do that.
If charity was the answer to poverty. Jimmy Savile would have cured it years ago.
Pay people properly.
Work based incentive.
Bonuses at the top AND the bottom. Or not at all.
Please where are these starving children??
Nicely said.
The right-wing press is forever moving the goal posts on this, I remember having a wake-up call when I saw some figure on the right describe spending money on the economy as allegedly radically left and realising how the table was tilted in their favour.
Mainstream media is Left. TV news (BBC, ITV, C4) is unashamedly Left and does not hide its propagandist tendencies. Mainstream European media is also Left. If you want left-wing press there's a healthy list to choose from: Guardian, Independent, Mirror, all London rags... etc.
Democratic socialism isn't "far left" anyway. The real problem is, the current political environment is pretty far right! 👎
Really?? Looks rabidly left to me. High tax, low growth policies government over 50% of the economy, police who ‘check your thinking’ free speech under attack. sending people to prison for being ‘offensive’ online. Unwilling to deport illegal immigrants, PM who is too weak to state the difference between men and women. The list goes on. Only Farage is on the right. Everyone else is left.
Delusion. All mainstream media, especially TV and online news is Left, plus Google and other monolithic internet companies are Left, plus advertising is Left. Labour is the government. The Democrats in the US is the government, though not for long. Seeing life as 'far right' is your comfort-blanket.
Oh yes!
Jesus of Nazareth was of the far left. Not sure a lot of Christians know this. Good video.
Jesus had nothing to do with secular politics in the first place.
He was a dissenter and nonconformist. This not not make him 'far left'.
The problem with calling Jesus far left is that it's not specific enough. Cause on the far libertarian left, there's anarchist communism, anarcho primitivism, anarchist socialism etc... Some people interpret Jesus as a anarcho pacifist, others a anarchist socialist. There are also issues of which translation of the Bible your reading, for instance Nigel Watson on youtube thinks that Jesus was a right leaning libertarian cause he said let Ceaser render unto what is his. So by his logic Jesus would support low taxes with little to no public services. Empsizing non government communities, to help others be in self sufficient communities.
Better far left than far gone. Thank youfor your posts.
Having revised your video. I actually agree. The right always claims to have a monopoly on religion. But Keir Hardie, the founder of the labour party, was a Christaian preacher. He wasn't a marxist and was trying to do the right thing. Labour needs to remind everyone when the free market goes too far. And based on the teachings from the bible it often does
"For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath" Mathew 25:29
_"The right always claims to have a monopoly on religion."_
What does this even mean?
_"Labour needs to remind everyone when the free market goes too far. "_
What Free Market? No country has that.
The right are moving towards the politics of classical liberalism, that is the government should exist for law and order and defense and everything else needs to dismantled.
Social media or GB News are not to blame. This has been around forever. All of these things some believe causes our issues just in face gives people the ability to magnify those things.
And by people I mean idiots and fools.
“A fool talks because he has to say something and a wise man talks because he has something to say.”
Mr T.
Rachel Reeves obviously isn't familiar with the Laffer curve
Thank you, Richard. I am happy to join you on the 'left'.
no just normal
So so bad to be labelled "far left" oh my goodness.
You are a decent human.
Left, centre and right are meaningless labels. Lets use humanity, decency, kindness
Yes, it does. Caring for your fellow man and for the next generation is a very pro-social thing to do.
Benjamin Franklin formed the first successful cooperative in America some 250 years ago. Does that make him Far-Left? The father of Fred Perry, Samuel Perry was a member of the Cooperative Party and the Rochdale Principles. These are Voluntary rather than Forced. Im in favour of Democratic businesses along with more Participation Democracy and Direct Democracy. I'm in no way in favour of enforcing my belives upon others.
Compared to Scandinavian countries, or Finland, Germany, Holland or Japan, you are probable right of centre.
All those countries take really good care of their citizens. Something we should aspire to do in Britain.
If having a soul means you are far left then yes I am, as are you.
How infantile.
Masculine religious fundamentalism dominates, driven by force.
is that far left or far right or just far koff?
You're reassuringly centrist, Richard.
I see him as the genuine centre-left, which is good to see as someone a bit more left when it feels like there are too many people who falsely claim to be 'centre-left' but don't meet a social democratic standard.
@@danksheev66 Aye, most of the people who claim to be centre left are, to those of us who remember the 1960s, centre right to just plain right wing. Clause IV -- which was the core of Wilson's Labour -- is, wierdly, now seen as extreme.
The overton window has shifted to an unbelievable extent.
@@simonbrooke4065 Yeah I agree whole heartedly, I've been experimenting with new considering new forms of market socialism to overcome the Hayek paradigm though, as unfortunately it feels like pre-1979 social democracy has a very hard uphill struggle even if it could make a comeback in the Nordic Countries and Spain as examples.
I would consider myself a Militant Left 😊
Millie Tant.
The fact is that the centre has moved further right to accommodate the lies of neoliberalism and vulture capitalism. I'm pretty much in the same space as you, Richard. There is such a thing as society and cooperation has enabled our survival as a species.
The left/right debate is pointless factionalism & name-calling much like party politics. The battle is against authoritarianism. If you believe that the state has some sacred role that overrides the freedom of the people then it doesn't matter to which political flavour you claim adherence you are not a democrat. It's up to the people as a collective to define the limits of the state not for the political class or any other minority to indulge their whims. The argument that we must obey our betters for the sake of the children is just 'virtue signalling' - - 'agree with me or you are scum'. The non-state solutions even in the dire poverty especially following the Victorian era were achieving results. The fact that politicans want to control ever more as wealth grows doesn't mean they take us in a better direction.
anybody who dissents is automatically far left or far right.
as A.I. modelling becomes further integrated into politics, todays level of compassion will seem christ-like
I agree with your assessment that you are centre left. The problem is not your aspirations. I find it odd that those on the right and left have actually so much in common - often common goal’s and common observations unite us all. The contentious issue is always the solutions provided by competing agent. This channel provides valid observations and these are always followed with a solution - some times they are challenging solutions but they are always interesting. Ignore the haters and the labels. I enjoy hearing your views. It’s often it’s a breath of fresh air and … I don’t always agree with you. But that’s ok
Problem is Richard, that there seems to be people now who seem to fall over themselves to try to be more right then the rest. Politics have gone so far to the right that everyone else is now to the left, and what once was concidered centre-left is now "ultra left wing". Such a nonsense.
You see the problem I have is being self employed if I fall on hard times and go to the DWP they will tell me i don't qualify for any assistance . I work and pay my taxes but self employment excludes me from the system others qualify for even if they've only just arrived
Irrelevant to what is being said here.
Whenever I disagree with a left-winger, it's always their solution to a perceived problem I object to. Whether or not I agree that the problem needs solving is not worth arguing about, because even if I disagreed, I can't argue with their desire to feel differently about it. I do find it's a common trait among them to consider their opposition as motivated by evil opposition to their ends, rather than a desire for better means to those ends. As far as I can tell, they aren't cynically throwing mud from the moral high-ground in order to avoid engaging on the shortcomings in their designs, they genuinely believe that anyone opposed to their proposed medicine is fond of the disease.
Whenever I disagree with a right-winger it's always their solution to a perceived problem I object to, it's because they have a disease called " I live in a fantasy world of get Brexit done kinda crap"
What is wrong with being a Socialist? What's wrong with being Left Wing? What's wrong with believing in social justice? Children are the future of this country, if children are malnourished they won't develop (physically or mentally) is this what we want for our country? Such myopia!
_"What is wrong with being a Socialist?"_
Effectively you are then in favor of theft, and something which requires totalitarianism. No country has been able to make the thing work properly.
Whatever point of the compass you may be it is the right one.
TLDR summary. “I am honestly and truely a saint, with the purest of motives and intentions. My political opponents are either truely evil, cognitively challenged, deluded fools or any combination of the above, as represented by my large collection of handy straw men here. 😊
What you have written there makes no sense. Why bother?
@@foxbat51 my deepest apologies, I appreciate how challenging multisyllabic words can be. would you like a hug?🤗🫂
Good summery of the Left-collective.
"far", "extreme" etc., all lost their meaning years ago. When looking at any argument, first remove all emotive and superlative adjectives, then read it again. I've long been in favour of only two main taxes - an impact tax, and an adjective tax
When someone calls me ‘far left,’ my response is (admittedly, mostly unspoken): “What god-forsaken fascist hellscape do you have in mind, if you insist on labelling my views, ‘far left’?”
@gpw203 You can't have left-wing fascists. Fascism came out if right-wing politics in Italy.
@@fburton8 Yes! 💯👍
@@oneoflokis _"You can't have left-wing fascists. Fascism came out if right-wing politics in Italy."_
Wrong. Fascism specifically was a totalitarian Far-Left, socialist 3rd position ideology based on National Syndicalism which they adapted from a French Marxist known as Georges Sorel. It literally came from the belief that the "Stateless and Classless society" Communism calls for after its dictatorship cannot achieve Socialism, and that only the State can properly organize a Socialist Society.
@@fburton8 _"classical fascism is a right-wing phenomenon ... but equating them with fascism overlooks the distinct historical and ideological foundations of fascism as a far-right ideology."_
Wrong. Fascism had nothing to do with Right wing of any kind whatsoever. Again, Fascism was a totalitarian far-left, socialist 3rd position ideology based on National Syndicalism which they adapted from Georges Sorel. It rejected individualism, capitalism, liberalism/democracy, and marxism. The means of production was organized by national worker syndicals (i.e. trade unions), and the guiding philosophy of the state was Actual Idealism.
Fascism was an outgrowth of Sorellian Syndicalism, which itself was an outgrowth from Marxist socialism. The idea was that society would be consolidated (i.e., incorporated) into syndicates (in the Italian context, fascio/fasci) which would be regulated by and serve as organs for the state, or "embody" the state (corpus = body). The purpose was the centralization and synchronization of society under the state, as an end unto itself. To quote Mussolini's infamous aphorism: "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."
As created by Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile, Fascism comes from a belief that the "Stateless and Classless society" Communism calls for after its dictatorship cannot achieve Socialism, and that only the State can properly organize a Socialist Society. It cared about unity in a strong central government with society being brought together by syndicalist organizations obedient to the State.
@Historia.Magistra.Vitae. Not true. Mussolini said that fascism was a state where there was a partnership between government and big business and that they should run everything. The total opposite of socialism.
You're a Social Democrat. Shame we don't have a party in power that shares these values.
This is how politics has been warped and bent out of shape. Tony Benn if you listen to what he had to say on a whole range of what might be called "ordinary" everyday life things is in today's language about as middle as it gets and yet 40 years ago he was classed as left wing. Maybe the question being asked should be, why do house holds require 2 adults to work constantly in order to survive?
Why be nervous about being regarded as a Socialist?
I’d say humanist.
I think the use of the term 'far left' is being used in a derogatory manner. 'Far left' and socialist have been given negative connotations. These slurs were initiated by the elite that are genuinely afraid of the far left and is usually repeated by the masses that have little or no clue what the terms entail.
When did socialism become a bad thing.
It always was.
I have exactly the same views. I believe that people should have a clean safe warm home to live in, and that people can afford to put food on the table and pay their energy bills and have a little bit left over to save or use to go out socialising. It is bizarre how you can be deemed far left just because you have compassion and empathy for others. Sadly I cannot support Labour, because I do not trust Keir Starmer and I’ll never forgive him and his fifth columnists buddies who helped destroy Corbyn. Yes, Corbyn had his faults and wasn’t as strong as his role model the late great Tony Benn, but he was a much better leader than Starmer.
_"It is bizarre how you can be deemed far left just because you have compassion and empathy for others."_
It's not the compassion and empathy... it's the fact that the things you mentioned are supposed to be achieved via stealing money from others.
So, a couple of Billion not spent on overseas aid or the Ukraine war that usually ends up in despots pockets and not having to cater to illgal immigrants on a daily basis.
This would end child poverty here in the Uk along with most of the homelessness,
Who would have thought that these were far right policies if they were applied?
I'd rather tax billionaires more. It's got a better track record than deporting marginalised groups and becoming insular
I think a great proportion of "child poverty" is a product of the legislation that underpins childcare when it comes to separated parents. Their legislation creates a perverse incentive "perhaps even an explicit one) to become homeless, because if that parent is deemed to have "dependant children" then they will get priority need social housing (with rental terms that are indistinguishable from home ownership), and if they self declare domestic abuse they will go into an even higher priority band.
It's then in the best interest of that parent to simply stop working: because the more they have the children, the more they can claim in "paternity tax" (or child maintenance as it is stupidly called) if the other parent (almost always the father) has them half of the time then the mother can prevent him from working whilst caring for the children. If the father has them more of the time then it's called "voluntary parenting".
My ex partner has one of these so called "social houses", you get:
1) a lifetime tenancy.
2) you only need to look after your children 50% of the time.
3) you can sign the tenancy agreement without any income at all...
4) you will most likely get the right to acquire it if it's a housing association.
5) the more you take the children from your ex, the more money you earn from him.
It's practically an employment scheme for mothers: stay at home to look after the children in a house the Taxpayer has provided them with, but blame fathers for abandoning the children or accuse him of abuse...because crucially, the father will have to pay to go to family court (and it's private) for a child arrangement order but will most likely face accusations of abuse and a CAFCASS officer that will write any narrative to justify Government giving houses away in a manner that breaches the equality act.
If you take a look at the policies and statutes in relation to government housing children...you will see that they are doing to separated fathers, what they used to do to unmarried mothers up to the 70/80s...
...I simply offered to pay the rent and overheads of the social house that my children reside in😢. But obviously they don't want that...
It's brutal
You're confusing your weird circumstances with the general reality. People becoming deliberately homeless...smh
@@keithparker1346 Hi Keith, I don't think my circumstances are weird. I think for the most part they are similar to a lot of cases that are happening right now. I've just learnt a great deal trying to parent as a father - with my children also being resident in a bedroom entitlement that was given to their mother when she became homeless.
The metric local authorities use to determine whether a parent has "dependent children" is the Child Benefits. So if a parent becomes homeless and they are claiming child benefits then the local authority can deem them as having the "main responsibility" of the children; and can infer that the other parent is "less responsible" (a euphemism that enables them to think that the other parent has abandoned the children...even if they haven't). Section 20 (3) of the Housing benefit regs 2006 enables them to do this.
Anyway ... It's a big topic. And it's difficult to quote all of the legislation in TH-cam's comments section.
@@stevenmackay3342 you're just coming across as a bitter divorced man
We were asking that in 2017 and 2019… where were you?
I am a Socialist and I think we all should be ❤
It's absurd to say that not wanting children to be fed properly is far left.
I'd say it's pretty centre ground. Social Democrat type stuff. We live in a strange world.
What's absurd about being marxist?
That its main prediction didn't come true and needs pseudoscientific methods to explain it away. As Bakunin already pointed out you can't use a dictature to build a classless society. It's telling that he got kicked out the International by Marx himself.
It's definitely compassion. The fact that the far right will label anyone who cares about other people as "Lefties" merely prove how twisted and vicious they are. It's the same with WOKE. If you break down the definition of WOKE, it means caring about how other's feel. Yet another example of human compassion. Then there's the whole "Bleeding Heart Liberal" slur. That hardly means you're necessarily a "Liberal" politically, It merely proves you HAVE a heart from which to bleed. And there's the other thing that I have heard so often, "Bloody Do Gooders!". Like doing the RIGHT thing by people is a weakness that makes you, somehow, abnormal.
"Behind every great fortune there lies a great crime. (Honore de Balzac)
Neighbor, really,? Come on Richard, we're not Yanks yet.
I'm sure Neighors was Austalian not American!!!!!
Hi Richard Murphy, the whole point of such naming is to simplify and degrade the issues involved, many years ago a very clever person was able to describe the concept of right wing versus left wind as fundamentally flawed, as with birds they need both wings to fly and both wings have to work together!.
The entire concept of winning and losing is the creation of fantasists who have chosen to separate reality into good and bad when no such thing exists in nature. This idea allows for the idiotic simplification of issues into the 'right' way or the wrong way of seeking resolution this reduces the total variety of experience at a stroke and reduces the need for rational thought.
Along these very same lines all beliefs are imaginary simplifications of reality to absolve the believer of any critical thought, the only good reason for this is that as mere animals with limited capacity for thinking quick, easy thoughtless answers to 'problems' are always 'better' than careful rational analysis this is why cognitive delusion in all its many forms is so much part of our cultures, as long as no one dares to question the accepted precepts the deluded fools can continue their dreadful tyranny.
All the terms in current use in politics are based on delusions, ideas like 'freedom' and 'democracy' have no rational foundation, all of them are just loose terms of entirely human invention.
Cheers, Richard.
For anyone who is interested I commented about child support on here and within a day received increasing payments by £28.
Clear evidence of been singled out and targeted electronically by the state. Punishing me for my politics.
What does a citizen do about that ?
If that does not trigger a response. Then I can assume you part of the problem or the messaging is being blocked.
We have imported twice the population of coventry in 5 years. It goes beyond normal compassion to feed those.
Of course, doing so impacts what we can give our own.
Your silly to think the issues are not linked.
A normal person I think
Your social conscience should be directing you to educate people not to have children until they are in a stable, married family unit and can afford them. This is the only SUSTAINABLE way to eradicate child poverty.
It seems with an social, base-ground and caring attitude one should be (if at all) set straight into the center of society.
But since people blurring out loud in the internet AND many politicians seem to place himself far right of this opinion, you are automatically left in this view 😅🙈
I could be funny if it wasn't serious.
I just wonder why "right wingers" don't support social issues anymore.
Wasn't there a time when they highlighted the importance of family, children and local community as very important? At least in Germany
You answered your own question by happily accusing those who call you far left of being far right..... All political labels are subjective, dependent on your own views.... Forget politics and judge people by their own words/ deeds....
Virtue signalling
My only comment to this presentation would be that every time you use the word 'left' in this video I could perfectly replace it with 'right' and its conclusions and sentiment would be exactly the same. Your deep analysis of many monetary issues is like a breath of fresh air - very informative and educational. However, when it comes to the conclusion and action required it is often 180 degrees opposite to my own. How can we so totally agree with your analyses and yet in the closing argument often reach completely different remedies and solutions? Is it because being 'politically left' or 'politically right' are emotional states? You talk about poverty as a fixed concept but you know full well that in the UK it is a dynamic 'relative' measure. We never use the measure of absolute poverty in the UK. A couple of £billion will not eliminate poverty - the 'relative poverty markers' will simply increase because there will always be the bottom 10% who will be priced out. For example - Quote EuroStat: "In 2022, Sweden's poverty rate was estimated to be 16.1%. This is based on the European Union's (EU) definition of poverty risk, which is when a household's income is 60% below the median income". Sweden poverty rate 16%? Sweden appears to be a society that no longer understands what actual poverty is - likewise the UK.