under New Labour
Despite the promises child poverty is still widespread under Labour
Beginning
a letter to Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson on 22 December
1965, AF Philip, Chairman of the newly-formed Child Poverty Action
Group wrote: “There is evidence that at least half a million
children in this country are in homes where there is hardship due to
poverty.” He ended his plea on behalf of Britain’s deprived
minors thus: “We earnestly beg you to see that steps are taken at
the earliest possible moment to help these families.”
So
confident that child poverty would be quickly eradicated by the
amazing magical wand that Wilson often wielded, Labour suggested the
CPAG would be obsolete within a year, the problem it was set up to
help eradicate a thing of the past.
In 1997, when the Labour Party took political power from the Tories, Britain had the highest rate of child poverty in the industrialised world – ostensibly the result of 18 years of Conservative attempts to make capitalism work in Britain, via Friedmanite policies. Prime Minister Tony Blair castigated the Tories for their past treatment of Britain’s poorest families and promised to make ending child poverty a ‘New Labour’ priority.
In March 1999, Blair famously remarked: “Our historic aim will be for ours to be the first generation to end child poverty forever, and it will take a generation. It is a twenty year mission, but I believe it can be done.” He went on to commit his government to a series of targets: New, caring Labour would reduce child poverty by a quarter by 2004-2005, halving it by 2010
Fast forward forty-plus years and the Child Poverty Action Group is amazingly still in existence, despite Harold Wilson having optimistically predicted its death four decades earlier, and we find Blair, despite no dent at all having been made in child poverty figures since Labour had taken power, confidently replying to a letter from the CPAG on 20th January 2006:
“I can promise you that we share your ambition to make child poverty history in our country. It is why we have publicly said we want to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it completely by 2020.”
What
was nauseating about this is that here was Blair is telling the CPAG,
who in 1965 complained that there were officially half-a-million
children in poverty, that by 2010 he will halve child poverty – in
other words, slash the number of impoverished children from 3.4
million– the figure for child poverty reported that year - to 1.7
million. So over 40 years after Labour said they would end child
poverty, here is ‘New’ Labour setting a figure which was three
times the actual 1965 child poverty figure as an achievable target!!
Well, at least Blair was cautious in saying child poverty would be
eradicated within 20 years – Wilson, after all, promised a year!
Moreover, this was Blair writing a year after Labour had failed to
keep their promise of reducing child poverty by a quarter by 2005.
That same week, in early 2006, the United Nations would
report that children growing up in the United Kingdom suffer higher
deprivation, poorer relationships with their parents and are exposed
to more risks from alcohol, drugs and unsafe sex than those in any
other wealthy country in the world. The report compiled by Unicef
said that the UK was bottom of the league of 21 economically advanced
countries, trailing the United States which came second to last.
Continued
on following page 10
| 9 | Socialist
Standard July 2008 |