Food banks, poverty and welfare - a confused debate

****

The other day the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published its latest work on the impact of welfare reform. And not surprisingly, JRF paint a depressing picture:

...welfare reform may end up making tenants more, not less, dependent, and certainly more vulnerable. Cutbacks in support make people on low incomes, in work and out, more vulnerable to debt, risk of eviction and shortage of necessities, necessities, so they rely on food banks and other emergency support. 

This is not the place to criticise JRF's methodology - it repeats what I see as an approach that places being well-informed above quantitative accuracy. However, the research reminds us of an ongoing debate around the impact of welfare reforms on our society, specific groups within welfare recipients (e.g. the disabled, social housing tenants) and whether poverty has increased.

We saw another report - some research into food banks (I'll point out that the methodology here is a great example of presenting opinion as research). Again the criticism is telling:

...Lambie-Mumford's new study...says the rise in demand for charity food is a clear signal "of the inadequacy of both social security provision and the processes by which it is delivered".

It seems to me that the subsequent debate (and I'm with the DWP, asking the opinion of 25 people, however well-informed they might be, doesn't help understand the nature or scale of a problem) is conducted by a process where I say 'yep' and you say 'nope'.  Or more precisely, one set of folk are saying; 'these reforms are working', while another set claim they're making things worse.

It remains a fact that food aid provision in the UK has grown over the past decade and that this reflects a growth in need for this kind of aid. However, when some people suggest that the 'need' might be in part created by the provision of food aid they should not be dismissed out of hand. It seems possible that this might be the case and it doesn't detract from the observation that much of the need is entirely genuine.

Part of the problem here is that (again this is entirely understandable) we have focused on what we see as a problem rather than on the somewhat secondary issue of evaluation - Lambie-Mumford et al acknowledge this:

At the time of the research there was no systematic peer-reviewed evidence from the UK on the reasons or immediate circumstances leading people to seek food aid 

So, in the lack of real evidence of what drives demand for food aid (and food banks specifically), we fall back on the views of the well-informed - those working in the food banks:

The factors identified by these organisations as important drivers leading people to seek food aid include both immediate problems which had led to sudden reduction in household income (two examples often cited by these organisations were job losses and problems associated with social security payments), and on-going, underpinning circumstances (such as continual low household income and indebtedness) which can no longer support purchase of sufficient food to meet household needs.

In our debate therefore we need to distinguish between the two types of 'need'. Short-term need (anecdotally this seems to be the biggest part of demand) goes away - we shouldn't defend the bureaucratic uselessness that sits at the bottom of the issue but it should resolve itself.  And we should also recognise that food aid represents an admirable response from the wider society to need within its midst.

When we discuss whether welfare reform works, this short-term problem, shouldn't be our focus. Rather we should look at the persistence of low income amongst food aid recipients. If the problems relate to welfare reform - most commonly changes to housing benefit or the benefits cap - then we need to understand why this is so. On one level the best response is to get a job since this ends the cap and 'single room supplement' but this isn't always as easy as it sounds especially for someone who hasn't worked since god knows when.

Another option is to reduce other outgoings (getting rid of debts is a good start but again rather easier said than done) such as housing costs. But again this is not as straightforward as it seems. What appears entirely missing is the support to get these families from their current unsustainable poverty to a more sustainable, directed future. The stress on human intervention (mostly aimed at moving people from welfare dependence to work) ignores the impact that short-term financial intervention might produce.

I've said before that we need to have a better debate about poverty than the one we're having right now. This debate is confused by the lack of clear statistical analysis of the problem's scale (made worse by the unquestioning reporting of qualitative work as if is absolute proof) as well as by a continued confusion between 'poverty' and 'inequality'. I'm more bothered about the fact that some in our society lack for food - real poverty - than by contested measures of inequality or questionable arguments claiming inequality lies at the root of all societal sins.

Our response to poverty is made worse - much worse - by our inability to agree that poverty is absolute material deprivation not some economic assessment determined by the Duke of Westminster's wealth. We rightly include things in our meaning of 'absolute material deprivation' that wouldn't have been there in times past (or indeed in a similar assessment in Nigeria or Bangladesh) and depriving people of pleasures - TV, beer, cigarettes - is as much as aspect of poverty as depriving them of food, shelter or clothing. But poverty - as JRF show with their minimum income calculation - isn't something we assess relative to the earnings of others but something we determine by describing what people shouldn't go without.

I'd like some more research - rigorous, quantitative research - that starts to answer the questions we all ask - what's driving the need for food aid, how many people are in a state of absolute material deprivation and whether changes to welfare benefits are making matters worse. Right now this information seems (other than the ever creative DWP figures) lacking resulting in the debate being more about anecdote and political knock-about than a search for ways to eliminate the need for food aid.

....

How to make me believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming...

****

This is brilliant - the fourteen steps:

• Step 1 – Stop making predictions that don’t come true.
• Step 2 – When you make a prediction, don’t just say something “might” happen.
• Step 3 – Don’t live your life like you don’t believe a word you’re saying.
• Step 4 – Stop the hate.
• Step 5 – Stop avoiding debate.
• Step 6 – Answer questions.
• Step 7 - Stop enjoying catastrophes.
• Step 8 – Don’t use invalid arguments.
• Step 9 – When you are wrong, admit it and apologise.
• Step 10 – Stop claiming that 97% of scientists agree that humans are warming the globe significantly.
• Step 11 – Stop lying.  If you think it is okay to lie if it’s for a good cause, you are wrong.
• Step 12 – Rebuke your fellow Warmists if they act in an unscientific way.
• Step 13 – Stop blaming everything on Global Warming.
• Step 14 – Why are the only solutions always big-government “progressive” policies?

 Go read the rest - it's worth your while.

...

The Guardianista solution to food waste - reintroduce rationing!

****

There are times when the Guardian reads like a parody of itself. So part of me wants to roll about laughing at the woman who is so concerned about food waste she wants rationing back.

But then I stop and think - a national newspaper (with a growing international reach) has given this person space to write an article that opens with this:

Nobody does as they're told unless they're forced to...

And this wasn't just some sub-editor getting carried away - the writer, one Michele Hanson, really means it:

Don't they realise that hardly anyone does as they're told unless they're forced to? Especially if it means less money and less of what they like. I long for a strict nanny state, to bring back rationing, so no one would be allowed to over-stuff themselves with great slabs of meat daily, or waste their crusts or peelings, reject twirly cucumbers or knobbly fruit and veg.

The whole (blessedly brief article) reeks of that smug superiority the Guardian does so well. Telling the proles out there that they are victoms of something called 'consumerism', that they are fat and greedy, and that they would be better off if people like Michele Hanson stood over them to make sure they rendered down bones for stock.

As it happens I was brought up to dislike wasting food. But that's my choice. If another person wants to buy loads of food and then throw it away that's there prerogative - the secret is in the word 'buy'. This amazing innovation means that the food becomes the property (another term foreign to Guardianistas) of the buyer. And if they want to sit and watch it rot in a bowl, they can do just that. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the EU, the House of Lords, the Guardian or Michele Hanson.

....

A different kind of housing crisis...

There are some 3.4 million empty homes in Spain, the consequence of the construction boom and subsequent economic crash. Nearly one-in-five homes in Andalucia are empty reflecting the scale of Spain's crisis - not just that the Spanish economy crashed but that the buyers, a fifth of who were ex-pats, simply vanished.

The result of this is that property is pretty cheap in Spain - prices have fallen:

Andalucian properties are going at 73% of their 2007 value and the Comunidad Valenciana is seeing houses sell for 68% of 2007 prices; the third and eighth highest on the list, respectively.

Not so Cataluña. Prices have dropped to 55% of their 2007 level for the Catalans, despite that overall reduction in the number of empty properties.

Any bets that some of those pension pots newly liberated by the UK government will end up buying these homes?

....

How come the super-rich back Democrats then?

****

We're repeatedly told by the leftist comentariat that the super-rich are corrupting politics through their crony capitalism and support for 'neo-liberalism' (whatever that may mean). So it is odd to discover that the mega-bucks aren't flowing rightwards at all:

Among the .01 percent who increasingly dominate political giving, three of the largest contributions, besides the conservative Club for Growth, backed by Republican oligarchs, went to groups such as Emily’s List, Act Blue and Moveon.org. Liberal groups accounted for eight of the top 10 ideological causes of the ultra-rich; seven of the 10 congressional candidates most dependent on their money were Democrats.

In one respect this should suggest that big money donations are rather less corrupting (in an 'everything-right-wing-is-wicked' meaning of the word corrupt) than many people would suggest. But what it also suggests is that big government is no threat to the super-rich and even that the regulation, high taxes and intrusion into the lives of ordinary folk rather supports the business interests of the 0.01%. Moreover, since the super-rich are able to move so as to avoid regulation and taxation, they can use these things as tools to protect their business interests without having to suffer the personal consequences of big government.

....

Less policy, more poetry please.

****

"Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies in a box on Beasley Street"

John Cooper Clarke is a great poet. I don't share his politics but I appreciate the poetry of his passion, an almost anger captured by the quote above. And, unlike too much modern poetry, Clarke's is accessible and appealing beyond the usual pretentious circles of the literary world. It's a reminder that, like a great song, a poem cuts right to the very core of something. It communicates.

So I was struck by Clarke's comments about today's politics:

 

I suppose if I had to I would vote Labour but only out of blind class hatred, nothing else. That's what keeps these bastards coming back. To be honest, the only one whose language I even remotely understand is Nige [Farage]. Shoot me down in flames. Everyone else: they talk about nothing that seems to matter. It's beyond satire. And even satire has become PR, you know, since someone told politicians they will get more votes if they join in with the piss-taking themselves.

This comment from Clarke isn't an endorsement of UKIP but rather a recognition that most of our political leaderships fail to break through to the audience, to get them to pay attention, to really listen. Take a few minutes and read the tweets of politicians - with just a couple of exceptions these are boring, banal and entirely forgettable. All wrapped up in caveats, conditions and the avoidance of confrontation, today's political communication mostly fails to communicate. Or rather it communicates the message that we are patronising, out-of-touch and unable to hold a conversation with a voter.

One thing Nigel Farage seems to understand is that it's perfectly fine to attack your opponents - there's no chance of getting 100% support so spending time trying not to alienate people who will never vote for you is a thoroughly stupid idea. Yet politicians do this, carefully crafting their words to be inclusive and the views to be moderate. We peer down our noses at the likes of Farage, talking of extremism and division - as if it's impossible to present a moderate view in polemic.


If the public simply don't grasp our language then all those hours of policy wonkery, the backroom chats and the market research will be wasted. We fail if we think it's enough for our political tribe to like, retweet or forward the latest banality. We don't breakthrough if our policies are presented in press releases with all the wit and charm of one explaining a vending machine. Or where those policies trickle out in speeches to selected audiences and are couched in the language of those chosen few not words a shop assistant or sales rep would use. No-one cares, no-one's listening.

Clarke's Beasley Street captures a place and the idea of a place in a few sharp words - you've an image of that Salford street instantly as he delivers the words. And politics can do this too:

It's morning again in America.

It didn't matter much about the words that came after this opener in Hal Riney's ad - he'd got your attention with that image, those few words said more than all the statistics we politicians play our games with. And it worked.

Our words are guided by audience analysis, filtered through focus groups and derived from the policy brief not the benefit on offer. We list initiatives and policies with each one design to tick a communications box. Speeches and announcements are made according to a framework rather than because we've anything to say. And we make the grand assumption that it's the detail of policy that matters rather than the positive image of the place we're in or the place we want to get to.

Here's the opening paragraph of the 1945 Labour Manifesto - this is how it's done:

Victory is assured for us and our allies in the European war. The war in the East goes the same way. The British Labour Party is firmly resolved that Japanese barbarism shall be defeated just as decisively as Nazi aggression and tyranny. The people will have won both struggles. The gallant men and women in the Fighting Services, in the Merchant Navy, Home Guard and Civil Defence, in the factories and in the bombed areas - they deserve and must be assured a happier future than faced so many of them after the last war. Labour regards their welfare as a sacred trust. 

Bang - straight to the point. We've won the war, now let's make the country a great place for the men who did the winning for us. If you read that manifesto - and for good or ill it changed the country forever - it's not filled with statistics or analysis, just a narrative describing the Britain a Labour government would create.

For balance read the 1979 Conservative Manifesto - again it makes a clear call from the start:

THIS ELECTION is about the future of Britain - a great country which seems to have lost its way. It is a country rich in natural resources, in coal, oil, gas and fertile farmlands. It is rich, too, in human resources, with professional and managerial skills of the highest calibre, with great industries and firms whose workers can be the equal of any in the world. We are the inheritors of a long tradition of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law.

Yet today, this country is faced with its most serious problems since the Second World War. What has happened to our country, to the values we used to share, to the success and prosperity we once took for granted? 

Today's politics with its media and message management does not allow for great narrative, let alone poetry. The popular response to most of our words is 'so what'. We don't paint pictures with words or tell stories, we relate a barrage of 'facts' and a torrent of policy hoping some of it sticks.

So let's remember that, come the day that matters, the politicians aren't in charge - we are. Election day as John Greenleaf Whittier put it is everyone's day and politicians should remember this:

The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known
My palace is the people’s hall,
The ballot-box my throne!

Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;

....

Local government rent-seeking - the case of the car pool

****

In New York a taxi licence costs getting on for $1m. And the taxi businesses like it that way because it means they have the pitch to themselves. Plus, of course, they get the government to kick any competition that crops up. Such as ridesharing - using mobile technology to manage a car pool.

Ridesharing -- also known as carpooling -- involves members of the public contacting each other via a smartphone or PC internet networking service and arranging to ferry each other to various destinations for fees. 

It's clear that this is a threat to the taxi business. And they don't like it:

On Saturday, SideCar was the target of an orchestrated sting operation conducted by the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA), which regulates taxis. Three everyday drivers in our community were given hefty citations and had their cars impounded, leaving them alone in the dark and cold in need of a ride home.

That's right folks, the local council seized private cars because their owners made a private arrangement with another private citizen to give them a lift in exchange for a small fee. In city after city the rideshare operators are being harassed and banned by local authorities acting to defend their financial interest in the current limited and managed marketplace.

....

Ridesharing -- also known as carpooling -- involves members of the public contacting each other via a smartphone or PC internet networking service and arranging to ferry each other to various destinations for fees. - See more at: http://www.dailytech.com/Cities+to+Carpoolers+Sharing+Your+Car+is+Illegal+We+Will+Seize+Your+Cars/article34659.htm#sthash.sSCHNeqb.dpuf