Given the title of the article I thought it would start by pointing out the high rate of child poverty in the UK, relatively higher than most EU and OECD countries [1], the soaring rates of child homelessness and overall homelessness [3]. I thought it might lead with the sorry, no, the tragic, state of English railways [4,5]. Or the postcode lottery and the constant under-funding of the NHS, or its hemorrhaging of skilled workers [7,8]. The sorry, no tragic state of the nation's teeth (!) [9,10]. The absolute forlorn misery that is the high street in most English towns [11]. The boarded up shops. The desperate people. The dysfunctional everything and everywhere.

But, no.

>> The big picture is pretty simple: we have a huge debt burden sucking over £100bn out of the budget every year (more than the entire education budget and nearly double the defence budget); and that would be okay-ish if the economy were growing, but it’s not.

No no. The economy is not growing. That's the problem. It's a bottom line on a spreadsheet.

And do you know who is responsible for all this? Well according to the author of the piece above that's all the useless public officials and quangos (maybe we should take ... a chainsaw at them?) and the crazy overspending the must obviously be responsible for (or at least that seems to be the allusion in the article, though never stated directly like that).

Sorry but given all of the above I have very serious doubts about the article. I mean it's clear there is an agenda here and it's not about poverty, or not about reducing poverty anyway. It sounds more like it's all about increasing richess, the richess of people for whom poverty doesn't mean a trip to the local food bank, but a trip to the Greek islands in a friend's jet because you can't afford the fuel for your own.

And maybe that's the reason why the UK is a rich country but so many of its people are poor. It's not a matter of quantities of money, it's a matter of distribution.

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[1] https://cpag.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-01/CPAG-Poverty...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/68574869

[3] https://england.shelter.org.uk/what_we_do/updates_insights_a...

[4] https://theconversation.com/rail-disruption-in-the-uk-is-so-...

[5] Personal experience: 3 out of 5 of all train journeys during my four-hour commute would be cancelled or delayed. Fortunately I could WFH.

[6] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clynvjgynp8o

[7] https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/staff-shortages-in-the-nh...

[8] https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2024-079474

[9] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62253893

[10] https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/hundreds-queue-around...

[11] Personal experience. I live in an affluent student town by the sea but outside this affluent enclave it's like another country and you can see why people would jump at the chance to bury the current political class and piss on their graves.