Nine out of ten of the poorest areas in England are in the north-west, a church charity has said. Five of them are in Liverpool.

Full story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18137739

and you can type in your postcode and find out where your locality stands on their list here : http://www.cuf.org.uk/povertyinengland

When I type in my postcode what it says doesn't surprise me. Some people like to moan about 'benefits culture' and declining moral & social standards but to my mind, they choose to ignore the elephant in the room... poverty.

After having the pleasure of moving to a more affluent part of our country for a portion of my adult life, I was shocked when I moved back to the Wirral to find just how under valued local people are. Lots of extremely intelligent people work very hard round these parts for not a lot of reward because basically there just isn't alot of opportunity to get ahead. To tell somebody in a dead end job on minimum wage that they are 'lucky to have a job' is a shockingly bad way to treat a fellow human being, and I believe a symptom bourne of selfishness and the economic devastation wreaked upon this country by 80's Thatcherism.

Remember the 'North/South Divide'? Well that is very real and although it lost it's buzzword status for the media long ago, it has never gone away. New Labour was a joke and it's socialism-lite did nothing to readdress the problem. The current economic malaise only reinforces the losses Merseyside previously suffered and never fully recovered from. Studies on wealth distribution bring home the cold reality of the situation.

Next time you see, hear or read about some form of anti-social behaviour, please think twice before you blame it on typical chav dole ... types or taking advantage of political correctness gone mad. You may never dream of acting in such a way, but you have learned to better and they have not. Desperate people do desperate things and ultimately, it's the people responsible for putting this part of the country at such a disadvantage that creates situations ripe for criminal and anti-social behaviour. The individual must and always will have to take responsibility for their actions, but if you always identify an individual as the reason the world isn't the way you'd like it to be, you miss the true causes and allow people who were born into more fortunate circumstances to keep you 'in your place', (people who think they are better bred than you, and were born to lead... they exist. I've met a few). Destined to remain unhappy, trapped with the right-wing tenet that always needs somebody to blame...

... but what came first? The poverty or the anti-social behaviour?

*puts the soapbox away and goes back to lurking*

Well said shambo

some very good points there shambo

just typed in my postcode i live in 1 of the most deprived areas in my parish apparantly,while its true we are by no means well off i see so many families who seem to be a LOT more worse off than we are

Spot on there Shambo. It's difficult to see things changing in the short-term though. As a society we seem to have become so dumbed down as to the real causes of our society's ills. The massive gaps between rich and poor.

So sadly true well said

Cheers Shambo - good post.

Key point raised by Touchstone as well, I reckon.

Here's a link to an interesting TED talk which addresses the social consequences of income inequality.

http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

On the overall deprivation scale, where 1 is the least deprived in the country, this parish ranks 12656 out of 12706 parishes in England. That means that the parish is among the most deprived nationally.
that was my information for my postcode.

seacombe according to these statistics, is one of the most deprived areas

Shame 13years of Labour didn't put things right but then how would they get back in without a benefit society beholden to them, Thatcher lost her way when her "friends" told her how great she was, but when has selling gold at the lowest price and putting the money into Euro's helped the country, you get what you vote for, vote for the red rosette or the blue one or the orange one and stay in the EU and poverty will still be here.

I don't think you can lay the blame for poverty at the door of the European Union, Dave.

I agree with you that none of the major parties are offering us anything that will sort out this mess, though. They are all just presenting different shades of the same basic economic policies.

I don't think that there's a magic bullet that will make everything better, but I suspect that a long-term solution would have to include some reining in of corporate power on a worldwide scale. This would require an unprecedented degree of international co-operation, and an isolationist approach won't help with that.

And sadly there is much worse to come.

Can anyone tell me at what level people are classed as poverty stricken. Is it based on income (how much income?) or social deprivation, or what? I don't really know, and how does our poverty compare to other EU countries? Are we marked against the same criteria?

Most of the 'unemployed with no intentions of getting a job so just push out kids for cash' brigade I see are MUCH less 'poverty stricken' than some of the hard working yet unskilled but try very hard type that you come across.

Yeah you've got a 52" plasma, a mobility car because your daughter needs once since you smoked during pregnancy, designer clothes and can afford your 20 filthy cigarettes a day but, hold on, you're technically 'deprived' because you don't earn the money yourself.

There's families living pay check to pay check, struggling for a decent house, in a decent area, no disposable to actually enjoy themselves... yet that are not deprived.

I can't get my head around it!!!!

Although... I may be wrong.

'Poverty stricken' = poor enough to need help from others.

I wonder how many people on here who live in one of the more deprived areas in their parish don't require any form of handouts?

I live in a fairly poverty stricken area yet have never received a state funded handout in my life.

Me neither, and wouldn't have wanted too. Had three jobs and juggled them around three children, of which, all had the extra curriculum after school and never came home to an empty house, nor were they left in the evenings or at night time. Two got degrees and the other left school with nothing, but he has proven himself through sheer determination.
It was before the minimum wage was brought in, great for a few as the tax credit scheme bolstered the individual companies and kept them in business.They could employ twice as many people on part time hours in most cases at a reduced rate of pay and no permanent positions(good for the unemployment figures, it kept them down)
All the other companies seemed to follow suit and lowered the rate of hourly pay to minimum wage for part time job, thus cutting all the full time jobs. Then, in came the Job Evaluation which dissected it even more. If you work in Admin, you get so much, if you work in retail, you get so much etc.etc. If you have a degree you have to be earning so much before you need to pay back the student loan. Otherwise the student loan companies will go bust. So what do they do? Alter the job description so all the Degree holders can now have a full time job, and sod the folk who had done the jobs for years before, without any qualifications.

And there's a whole heap more, but I've had my rant. Apart from the postage. If we have to do everything by email soon, who is going to buy me my new computer? I can't afford another one now.

Had three jobs and juggled them around three children, of which, all had the extra curriculum after school and never came home to an empty house, nor were they left in the evenings or at night time. [/quote]

Unfortunately that moral view is not held by enough people anymore. People expect a certain level, they expect to have what they see others have got, nobody is content anymore and too many people think the world owes them something and that they deserve xboxes and playstations.

People in this day and age could learn a lot from you and certainly need a reality check.

Another example is a friend of mine who did get income support but she did her few extra hours cleaning to make up the additional £15 a week she was allowed to earn. She had three girls. They all took ballet and tap lessons 15 miles away from home every week.(i.e. travel costs) She made all their dresses, they had daily fruit and veg, be it half a tomato and a carrot each. Their Christmas presents and birthday presents did not exceed £5 each.
One daughter became a secretary, one daughter was ill for a number of years but has now qualified as a teacher and the other daughter went to the Royal Ballet School. So the theory that under priviledged don't have a chance against the Oh so privileged is complete rubbish. Spend the money where it counts and stop moaning.
Another friend brought up a child on her own. She lived in a flat in Birkenhead, worked part time, got him into a good school and he went to Oxford University. Qualified in Bio-Chemistry.

Although I must add that living was not as expensive then as now and yes there are folk out there who can not get off the first rung of the ladder, however hard they try. They are the ones I feel for. It's the others, who have had their chance and not taken it ,that we probably get annoyed about.

The problem with poor/deprived areas is the general lack of aspiration, which has a knock on effect for peoples health or lack of.

Schools in poor areas are to blame partly, they never teach the kids to have aspirations, so they grow up with an imaginary barrier that stops them from achieving anything i.e they do badly and they fit in with the rest, they do good and they are teachers pet/geek etc.

Some kids don't like other kids to fit in and can make their life a misery and there is nothing new about that and it's shit for the kids.Same when I was at school.How many school age kids are committing suicide because of bullying? It's kept pretty quiet.That should be stamped on. So how about the parents getting together and making a fuss, just like we did in the 1980/90's.Surely parental guidance is also key to enabling a child to have aspirations? I believe the parents are fine with it all, the way things are, it's the easy option. How many parents went swimming with their children when kids were free swimming a little while back? Not many. Even the children didn't bother much, but they would queue outside when they did have to pay.
Work that one out!
One more example, which I forgot is another friend who lived in a council house, had three children, her husband did the dirty and she ended up on her own strugglng. I don't know what her two boys do now, but her daughter put herself through a university degree in law, and she ended up as PA to Ken Livingstone.(we all know who he is, don't we?) So all these so called under privileged children, could now be classed as the Oh so privileged. Strange isn't it, just because of their hard work!

I do understand what you are saying Kieran, but look at it properly and your view would indicate that all these reasons make a hopeless case, enough to give up on the children ,because the reasons are to be accepted. We should never give up on children, if we do that then society will become a lot worse, and we will pay the heavy price.

Kind of agree with you here. If you look at it on a wider scale local governments are also letting down the population. It's very easy to find on the Internet, where there is a successful community there is a local council encouraging them. The government gave all local councils varying budgetary cuts and you'll find that the less thriving communities had the most cuts. Read some of the Hansard documents and you can see their justifications. On another note, we as a nation have just got on with whatever has been thrown at us. We rioted against the Poll Tax, what we got was Council Tax, we argued against reducing bin collections, what we got was rats. We argued against petrol price increases, what we got was petrol price increases. Last year we rioted against the establishment, what we got was a telling off and prison sentences. What this government past and future governments do, is pull the rug from under our feet because they know that eventually we will have to find a way to stand up. If we as adults try to prepare our children for this, then as Kieran said above they may just find something to aspire to.

I think you're over thinking it.

The original question Shambo asked was,

but what came first? The poverty or the anti-social behaviour?

In my view anti social behaviour started centuries ago with the rich land owners, mine owners, quarry owners etc, etc.
Nothing much has changed, they still now as then expect working people to be grateful for the pittance they receive and show some sort of gratitude for having a job, however small the wage.

The very fact that we still have the words poverty and poor still in our vocabulary concerning certain sections of our society is proof enough that the society we live in is not working.

Successive governments want you to believe the Ill's of this country lie in the hands of anyone drawing benefits, and anyone drawing benefits are automatically cheats if you believe what they try to drum in to you. The real Ill's of this country are found in greed, the same as its always been, just a fairer distribution of wealth, a fair days pay for a fair days work, that's if any of these governments can produce the jobs and do what their paid for, looking after the country as a whole and not a certain few.

As for schools, schools are there to teach the 3Rs, ambitions and aspirations in a child should come from the parents, modern day anti social behaviour in children is also a family problem , not schools and not governments.

Hard not to. Since moving up rom the South ive worked with young offenders, elderly, disabled, alcohol and substance misusers, asylum seekers and those in real poverty (in UK terms i must add).

I'm with bert. It's a vicious circle and if kids see parents sitting on their arses and get free money then what incentive do they have. It becomes the norm for them but they get segregated along with others and it becomes an us and them situation "oi posh knob" if you've worked for nice things.

I'm happy to be in the middle, don't live in a posh area or an impoverished area (relatively speaking, as stats say otherwise) and Im not rich or poor. But I do work hard and would be in trouble if I lost my job.

My parents didn't have a pot to piss in growing up, nor my grandparents, lived in Seacombe but my God did they work hard, my dad never had stuff his friends did but he didn't turn into a scrote, or moan, or expect what his friends had. He went out and worked at it until he deserved it.

He now does all he can to help his parents who made him what he is.

I'd like to think I can do the same one day relying on nobody but myself.

Antisocial behaviour is a product of boredom in my opinion. Growing up I didn't have time to work on getting an asbo as I was playing sport, studying, and chilling out with mates.

It's not the governments doing!

" The government gave all local councils varying budgetary cuts and you'll find that the less thriving communities had the most cuts" ............



Did that apply to Wirral MBC? Could have been decided against the rate of Council Tax already being paid. Lets not forget, WMBC was the 3rd highest in the country not so long ago. Liverpool was the highest and probably still is.

I've pinched this from a Google search and cherry picked from Yahoo Answers but can't verify the original source sorry. I did read somewhere once that it's deemed in the UK to be income that is less than 60% of UK median earnings so it sounds about right.

"£115 per week for single adult with no dependent children; £199 per week for a couple with no dependent children; £195 per week for a single adult with two dependent children under 14; and £279 per week for a couple with two dependent children under 14. "

Not to be confused with the amount which The Law says you need live on (which is more) but again that can vary according to whether you are paying Council Tax or applying for other benefits.

Ultimately there seems to be no real definitive answer as to what constitutes CASH poverty so colour me cynical when charities make these claims as they usually have on hand behind their backs with fingers crossed and the other outstretched holding a begging bowl.

As for "What came first? The poverty or the anti-social behaviour?" from Shambo...

How to even begin to answer that question given the language used ? I was brought up with a clear line dividing "Antisocial Behaviour" and "Criminal Behaviour" that was based on both Morals and The Law.

That line has been blurred so many times over and over the years to have become almost non-existent.

"Antisocial Behaviour" used to mean "picking your nose at the dinner table" or "being rude to your elders" and now it encompasses anything from calling someone names to dropping litter to smashing up property ...and pretty much everything you can think of in-between.

It also encompasses certain behaviours exhibited in public by people with genuine mental illnesses receiving "Care In The Community" and purely because the authorities are unable to manage them any other way. Shocking and shameful.

The only things that seem to count as "Criminal Behaviour" ...for which you can actually run a very slight of imprisonment anymore...are crimes against the person and financial fraud. Even so, cases that are clearly that of "Attempted Murder are consistently downgraded to mere "Assault" and the rich can fiddle whatever the hell they like so long as the right palms are greased.

I think perhaps the real question should be "What came first..."Poverty or those who depend entirely on other people "suffering" it for their own continuous employment." Seems there's a lot more of it alleged to be about these days and one major reason for that has to be that there is definitely a LOT more people these days who are making cash on the back of it.

/rant off...and breeeathe...and omigod look at the time I should be asleep now....g'night folks !!