Charity Save the Children, an organisation normally active in third world countries countering famine and malnutrition, has announced a campaign to help children in the United Kingdom who are reportedly going without food.
A Save the Children report emphasises the shocking levels of deprivation that have overcome United Kingdom children:
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/child_poverty_2012.pdf
The announcement has been seized upon by left-wing commentators as an indictment of the current Coalition government.
Except that the Save the Children report doesn't quite ring true.
I take an interest in social issues, and regularly visit social housing estates in deprived areas.
I also have relatives living in the rougher parts of Peckham, Bellingham and the Watling Estate in north London.
So far I have not had any feedback that children are starving in deprived parts of the country, nor that famine relief operations are necessary to "save the children".
Is it possible the Save the Children report and campaign is a scam?
That low-income families are experiencing hardship is undeniable, but Mehdi Hasan should ponder the thought that this has not just happened in the last 800 days but is a legacy of the incompetence of the last government - in many cases the poverty has been endemic over very long periods of time.
I am also suspicious of the fact that the Director of Programmes for Save the Children is Fergus Drake.
If you look at Mr Drake's record you can see that he was a Treasury adviser under the last government and then moved into a role working for The Office of Tony Blair, before "somehow" popping up as a Director of Save the Children.
Would you trust anything produced by a former adviser of Tony Blair?
A Save the Children report emphasises the shocking levels of deprivation that have overcome United Kingdom children:
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/child_poverty_2012.pdf
The announcement has been seized upon by left-wing commentators as an indictment of the current Coalition government.
Except that the Save the Children report doesn't quite ring true.
I take an interest in social issues, and regularly visit social housing estates in deprived areas.
I also have relatives living in the rougher parts of Peckham, Bellingham and the Watling Estate in north London.
So far I have not had any feedback that children are starving in deprived parts of the country, nor that famine relief operations are necessary to "save the children".
Is it possible the Save the Children report and campaign is a scam?
That low-income families are experiencing hardship is undeniable, but Mehdi Hasan should ponder the thought that this has not just happened in the last 800 days but is a legacy of the incompetence of the last government - in many cases the poverty has been endemic over very long periods of time.
I am also suspicious of the fact that the Director of Programmes for Save the Children is Fergus Drake.
If you look at Mr Drake's record you can see that he was a Treasury adviser under the last government and then moved into a role working for The Office of Tony Blair, before "somehow" popping up as a Director of Save the Children.
Would you trust anything produced by a former adviser of Tony Blair?
No comments:
Post a Comment