Newham's Deputy Mayor on Child Poverty
In an interview with teenagers from a summer journalism programme at Community Links in Canning Town, Newham's Deputy Mayor Christine Bowden says:
"One of the big things on the Mayor's action plan is employment for people, because we believe that if a household has employment, then that household will raise itself up and the children will have an aspiration to go to work".Raise itself up? The assumption is that people are poor because they are too feckless to work: there's nothing about the problems of actually finding anything but low-paid work in the borough, or the impact that low-pay has on families' ability to avoid child poverty, or lack of affordable childcare, or high levels of debt, or a poor living environment. Why am I totally unsurprised?
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You know the other word I loathe and it is one of NL's faves is.... 'aspiration'... Others include 'innovation', 'support'..Oh and the phrase, 'rights and responsibilities'
Indeed the Deputy Mayor is talking rubbish and based on the NL philosophy that people can raise themselves out of powerty. That's an absolute nonsense as they fail to look at the issue of low pay.
The interview took place in Building 1000 (now known as Newham Dockside) opposite London City Airport. I guess the kids did not ask difficult questions like why Newham Council spent £115m on this building?
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