FOLLOWING the completion recently of a two-week mission throughout Britain Philip Alston, the United Nations Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, found in his 24-page report that the UK Conservative Government has inflicted “great misery” on its people with “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” austerity policies, driven by a political desire to undertake social re-engineering, rather than economic necessity ("Best hope? The return of Cameron would bring no hope", The Herald, November 20).
He concluded that despite the UK being the world’s fifth-largest economy, levels of child poverty are “not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster”, with one-fifth of the population, about 14 million people, living in poverty, while 1.5 million are totally destitute. He forecast that child poverty could rise by seven per cent between 2015 and 2022, with forecast child poverty rates as high as 40 per cent. Ministers he met, including Esther McVey, the former Work And Pensions Secretary, were almost entirely dismissive of criticisms of welfare changes and Universal Credit.
One need only rewind BBC’s IPlayer back to last week’s edition of Panorama, The Universal Credit Crisis, featuring Catrin Nye, to readily appreciate how this Government’s “punitive, mean-spirited and callous” austerity policies are driving the poor, the disabled, the unemployed and those with mental health issues into destitution, as a result of benefit cuts, sanctions and long delays in paying benefits. Incredibly, but as might have been expected, when Ms Nye interviewed Alok Sharma, Minister of State for Employment, and pointed out to him that people she had interviewed had been driven into penury and homelessness, he replied that, “Universal Credit is working well”.
In view of the above, it is surely unfortunate, that you, usually noted for your fair and balanced reporting, did not see fit to mention the Rapporteurs report on your news pages. Nor did the BBC’s Andrew Marr adequately hold the Brexit Minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, to account on his recent show.
Surely, with so many of our poorest citizens suffering such “great misery”, homelessness and destitution at the hands of this wretched government, it is incumbent on the press, TV and Opposition politicians to constantly expose their “punitive, mean-spirited and callous” policies at every opportunity?
Robert D Campbell,
48 McLean Place, Paisley.
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