Why do poor people keep voting Labour..

[Wildcat]

I select the points that are relative to the debate and that I wish to respond to and not the ones that are designed to take the thread way off topic.

 

You specifically didn't respond to me asking this question about an assertion you made. How is avoiding that question taking the thread off topic?

 

Your claims here depends upon that point.

 

You also chose not to answer why you made up claims about my views, not something particularly helpful in a debate.

 

You also haven't answered this:

 

Are you going to give us any ideas for how a Govt. can encourage the poor out of poverty?

 

Your evasiveness with the question is odd, because without a solution or even an opinion on how the poor can be encouraged out of poverty, the claims made in your original post can have no foundation.

 

Just checked their website but I can't find a quote on poverty.

Any chance you can provide a direct link so I can understand precisely what your position is?

 

There is plenty on poverty here:

http://www.jrf.org.uk/work/poverty

 

and here:

http://www.poverty.org.uk/

[Longcol]

Is this turning into a contest to see who cut up the others post into the largest number of quotes?

 

To be honest it's pretty much unreadable to the rest of us.

[Wildcat]

Is this turning into a contest to see who cut up the others post into the largest number of quotes?

 

To be honest it's pretty much unreadable to the rest of us.

 

Point taken. I have changed some of the quotes to references, hopefully the points I am making are a bit clearer now.

[pininsho]

You specifically didn't respond to me asking this question about an assertion you made. How is avoiding that question taking the thread off topic?

 

Your claims here depends upon that point.

 

You also chose not to answer why you made up claims about my views, not something particularly helpful in a debate.

 

You also haven't answered this:

 

 

 

Your evasiveness with the question is odd, because without a solution or even an opinion on how the poor can be encouraged out of poverty, the claims made in your original post can have no foundation.

 

 

 

There is plenty on poverty here:

http://www.jrf.org.uk/work/poverty

 

and here:

http://www.poverty.org.uk/

 

As Longcol has alluded to, all this toing and froing back and forth about who claimed what and what was or wasn't answered is pretty unreadable to third parties looking at this thread so I'll just try and answer the main jist of your question which seems to be; 'what would I do to get people out of poverty?'

I've had a look at the links you provided and still have very little idea of what constitutes poverty in this country today.

I see a lot of figures banded about on the JRT site that both I and my parents can relate to (eg; only one person in the household working) and that lone person being a blue collar worker earning below the average wage. Both my parents owned their own home and brought two kids up on this one person's below average wage but, in absolutely no way did I, or they, consider that we were poor.

I myself earn less than £15000 per annum working 37hrs a week (not sure what the average wage is.....about £22000?) but in no way do I consider myself poor. In fact I work with people who earn twice the amount I do and yet I have much more disposable income that they do.

Why's that I hear you ask?

Well, I don't have a mortgage, pay rent, own a property (no council tax, water rates, gas/electricity bill, TV licence, phone bill, home insurance), I don't have a wife or kids to support. The only bills I do have are to do with my car and mobile phone. So you see I have a fairly large disposable income that I'm pretty much able to spend on what I like.

The point I'm getting to is that, for me, most (not all) of what we would call poverty is more a state of mind than a state of being and it seems to me that organisations like the JRT are yet another example of a self serving organisation that continues to perpetuate the myth of poverty to give itself some kind of credence and, in doing so, says a lot without clearly defining anything.

So to sum up wildcat, I'll put forward a solution when I have a clear definition of what poverty is.

[alen65]

they vote labour cus they are too uneducated to do otherwise.

[max]

they vote labour cus they are too uneducated to do otherwise.

 

I take it that you vote Labour?

[Wildcat]

As Longcol has alluded to, all this toing and froing back and forth about who claimed what and what was or wasn't answered is pretty unreadable to third parties looking at this thread so I'll just try and answer the main jist of your question which seems to be; 'what would I do to get people out of poverty?'

I've had a look at the links you provided and still have very little idea of what constitutes poverty in this country today.

I see a lot of figures banded about on the JRT site that both I and my parents can relate to (eg; only one person in the household working) and that lone person being a blue collar worker earning below the average wage. Both my parents owned their own home and brought two kids up on this one person's below average wage but, in absolutely no way did I, or they, consider that we were poor.

I myself earn less than £15000 per annum working 37hrs a week (not sure what the average wage is.....about £22000?) but in no way do I consider myself poor. In fact I work with people who earn twice the amount I do and yet I have much more disposable income that they do.

Why's that I hear you ask?

Well, I don't have a mortgage, pay rent, own a property (no council tax, water rates, gas/electricity bill, TV licence, phone bill, home insurance), I don't have a wife or kids to support. The only bills I do have are to do with my car and mobile phone. So you see I have a fairly large disposable income that I'm pretty much able to spend on what I like.

The point I'm getting to is that, for me, most (not all) of what we would call poverty is more a state of mind than a state of being and it seems to me that organisations like the JRT are yet another example of a self serving organisation that continues to perpetuate the myth of poverty to give itself some kind of credence and, in doing so, says a lot without clearly defining anything.

So to sum up wildcat, I'll put forward a solution when I have a clear definition of what poverty is.

 

I don't see how your personal circumstances show that poverty is a state of mind? I think you might take a very different view if you were to move out in to a flat on that wage.

 

To return to the original post then, how can you say "it's patently obvious they(Labour) don't want poor people to become richer", when you don't know what policies would get people out of poverty and you don't even know what poor means!

 

If you don't know yourself it cannot be patently obvious.

 

Infact if you don't know yourself i find it hard to know why you think Labour want to keep people poor at all.

[alen65]

because people have voted labour for years and don't know any better and its the same people who for them year in year out, then moan about the government well you only have yourselves to blame.

[max]

because people have voted labour for years and don't know any better and its the same people who for them year in year out, then moan about the government well you only have yourselves to blame.

 

Pretty much the same can be said about voters who stick with the Tory or Lib Dem parties. They always have and nothing anyone can say will change their minds.

[pininsho]

I don't see how your personal circumstances show that poverty is a state of mind? I think you might take a very different view if you were to move out in to a flat on that wage.

 

But that's the whole point isn't it. If I were to move into my own accommodation then I would be making myself more poor (not necessarily into poverty) and that would be a consequence of my actions that I am responsible for and nobody else. Therefore my change of circumstances would mean that my state of mind would also be changed and it's down to me and nobody else to deal with that. If I had to do that, the other alternative would be to train myself up (which I could do pretty easily) to do the job of some of my colleagues who are earning up to twice my wage.

 

To return to the original post then, how can you say "it's patently obvious they(Labour) don't want poor people to become richer", when you don't know what policies would get people out of poverty and you don't even know what poor means!

 

No. I seem to recall I said I didn't understand what the official definition of poverty is by organisations like the JRT which is different from understanding what constitutes poor people voting for Labour.

My definition of poor people are those who are unskilled or have few skills, have few, if any, qualifications and work in menial or manual jobs that require few skills. Obviously these low skilled jobs are, and should, be the lowest paid jobs in society and people need to understand that when they decide to leave school at 16 with few, if any, qualifications.

 

If you don't know yourself it cannot be patently obvious.

 

Addressed above.

 

Infact if you don't know yourself i find it hard to know why you think Labour want to keep people poor at all.

 

Ditto.