Relative Poverty

We're aware of the plight of Third World nations but have we explored the issues lurking in our own back garden?

In recent years the plight of the UK’s invisible underclass has been unveiled with incidents such as the Shannon Mathews abduction scandal and after an eye-opening experience on the TV show ‘7 Days Breadline’, featured celebrity Keith Allen described the UK as a ‘Third World country’.

So have we readily helped foreign nations without alleviating our own domestic issues?

Just last week the National Equality panel released a report stating that the richest 10% of the population are now 100 times better off than the poorest 10% of society; dispelling any façades that placed Britain as an exemplar country of equality.


There were numerous astonishing statistics, for example, '13% of the UK's children are now living in severe poverty' and the 'median hourly wages in the most deprived 10th of areas are 40% lower than in the least deprived'.

Two anonymous families who are both from the UK but lead contrasting lifestyles, were featured in the Guardian on-line and validated the key statistics outlined in the report: the wealthy family no.1 own a home worth £1.5m aside from their exuberant furnishings and secondary London apartment; conversely family no.2 is unemployed with a mounting debt of several thousand pounds and find it a financial strain to buy staple foods such as eggs, milk and bread.

So this National Equality panel report may answer why in terms of the best places to live in the world, the UK was recently placed 25th beneath Eastern Bloc countries like Lithuania (22nd) and the Czech Republic (24th).

The National Equality report and the polar opposite lives of these two families outline that in the midst of extreme wealth Britain is a country that too has destitution and rife poverty lurking in its closet; and in some respects it can be classed as a 'Third World country'.

These findings may well explain why the UK has prevalent social issues, like, excessive drug and alcohol use, high crime rates, teenage pregnancy and an excess of non reforming prisoners. Issues such as these need to be urgently addressed on humanitarian grounds; not just in developing countries but especially in the UK if we are ever to be represented as an exemplar country of equality.