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Is the UK a Failed State?

Submitted by Tee White After nearly 400 years plundering wealth from countries in every corner of the world, in 2019, the United Kingdom government is unable to ensure that all its citizens have access to such a basic human right as adequate food. See the report below from CNN. In November last year, the United…

Submitted by Tee White

After nearly 400 years plundering wealth from countries in every corner of the world, in 2019, the United Kingdom government is unable to ensure that all its citizens have access to such a basic human right as adequate food. See the report below from CNN. In November last year, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights stated about the UK, “14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty. Four million of these are more than 50% below the poverty line, and 1.5 million are destitute, unable to afford basic essentials. The widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts a 7% rise in child poverty between 2015 and 2022, and various sources predict child poverty rates of as high as 40%.  For almost one in every two children to be poor in twenty-first century Britain is not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one”. See a link to the full report below.

This social disaster in the 5th largest capitalist economy in the world is a direct result of the application of  austerity programmes based on neo-liberal economic dogmas. If these dogmas can have such a devastating effect on a large economy such as the UK’s, what does anyone think their impact will be on a small, distorted economy such as ours?

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/20/uk/uk-food-poverty-hrw-report-gbr-intl/index.html

64 responses to “Is the UK a Failed State?”

  1. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    The question I have is-

    If all diseases originated outside of Europe what used to kill the Europeans before they travelled outside of Europe. Don’t recall that they used to die of old age.

  2. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    Lawson there was no syphilis in Africa either. Maybe if Columbus and his men had kept it in their pants…

  3. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    The Europeans called it the Black Death.

    It had nothing to do with black people though

  4. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife

    Before Columbus there were no tomatoes in Europe, no chocolate either, no hot peppers, no beans

  5. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    The origin of syphilis is disputed.[2] Syphilis was present in the Americas before European contact,[55] and it may have been carried from the Americas to Europe by the returning crewmen from Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the Americas, or it may have existed in Europe previously but gone unrecognized until shortly after Columbus’s return. These are the Columbian and pre-Columbian hypotheses, respectively, with the Columbian hypothesis better supported by the evidence.[26][56][57]

  6. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    ss the black plague was not syphilis, closer to bubonic plague but you are right about the other things, Donna tb smallpox typhoid remember an old man back then was 40

  7. THeOGazerts Avatar
    THeOGazerts

    A next big lie exposed. 1320… before columbus

    In 1495, a “new” disease spread throughout Europe: syphilis. Christopher Columbus was said to have brought this sexually transmitted disease back from his voyage to America. At least, that has been the accepted theory up until now.

    Using morphological and structural evidence, researchers from the Department of Forensic Medicine and the Center for Anatomy and Cell Biology (bone laboratory) at MedUni Vienna have now identified several cases of congenital syphilis dating back to as early as 1320 AD in skeletons from excavations at the cathedral square of St. Pölten, Austria “The discovery clearly refutes the previous theory,” say study leaders Karl Großschmidt and Fabian Kanz of MedUni Vienna.

  8. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    And what killed those who died before forty? What killed babies and toddlers and young people in Europe before Columbus’ travels?

  9. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Hear ye, hear ye! The white people had no diseases before they mixed up with the black and brown people. As Bushie would say –

    Lotta shiite!

    Y’all were emptying your night shit buckets out the window onto the streets of London. You were the nastiest of the humans, thought bathing would kill you and would want us to believe you had no diseases.

    Steupse.

  10. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Erasmus Quote on Middle Ages Health and Hygiene:
    The great Scholar, Humanist and Reformer Erasmus (1466-1536) wrote to friend describing the state of the Medieval floors during the Middle Ages:

    “The doors are, in general, laid with white clay, and are covered with rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for twenty years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned. Whenever the weather changes a vapour is exhaled, which I consider very detrimental to health. I may add that England is not only everywhere surrounded by sea, but is, in many places, swampy and marshy, intersected by salt rivers, to say nothing of salt provisions, in which the common people take so much delight I am confident the island would be much more salubrious if the use of rushes were abandoned, and if the rooms were built in such a way as to be exposed to the sky on two or three sides, and all the windows so built as to be opened or closed at once, and so completely closed as not to admit the foul air through chinks; for as it is beneficial to health to admit the air, so it is equally beneficial at times to exclude it”.

  11. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    o gazerts …yawn……..oh sorry yaws

  12. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    So who did not know the descendants of the cave dwelling neanderthal caucasoids brought and spread their nasty diseases and killed thousands of the native populations of the Caribbean and the Pacific.The native African and native Indian and African in the Americas were infected and diseased with syphlis,tuberculosis,whooping cough and such like debilitating and life threatening illnesses.Even influenza floored these healthy natives.

  13. SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLi Avatar
    SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLi

    Don’t say “even influenza”

    Influenza was and is still a big killer.

    If as the CDC estimates ‘flu kills 80,000 Americans each year and 646,000 worldwide we should never underestimate ‘flu.

    In the 1918 ‘flu pandemic it is estimated that the ‘fly killed 1/3 of the indigenous populations of Labrador and Alaska, in Fiji 14% of the population within 2 weeks. It is estimated that that ‘flu killed 20 to 100 million people. Our parents or grandparents survived that one.

    I remember the 1957-58 Asian ‘flu. It was the only time I ever saw EVERYBODY in my home being sick at the same time. None of us died, but I felt so bad at the time that death would have been a release.

  14. David Avatar
    David

    NewsPoliticsTrending

    14 MPs turn up to discuss UN report on 14 million people living in poverty

    Jack Peat
    January 8, 2019

    The UN’s report on poverty in Britain is at risk of being swept under the carpet after just 14 MPs turned up to debate the issue in parliament yesterday.

    A festive hangover appeared to have swept over the House of Commons as politicians returned from their holiday break.

    Only a handful of MPs bothered to turn up to an adjournment debate on the findings of the United Nations Report on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights in the UK and Northern Ireland, with new Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd sending a junior minister in her place instead.

    Although such debates are rarely well attended the Labour MPs who turned up lamented the government for the disdain it had shown towards the report, with Liz McInnes saying the United States Government showed a similar lack of interest when the UN highlighted issues in regards to poverty in the country.

    “I know that we have a special relationship with the United States, but I think it shames us all that we share that disdain,” she said.

    Following his visit in November, United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur, Professor Philip Alston gave a scathing report on the level of poverty in the UK, saying it risks causing damage to “the fabric of British society”.

    He said the UK Government’s policies are entrenching high levels of poverty and inflicting unnecessary misery in one of the richest countries in the world, but warned that amid the country’s impending exit from the European Union the government appears to be treating it as an afterthought.

    Yesterday his grim predictions seemed to have come true.

    Labour’s Shadow Minister for Children, Emma Lewell-Buck hosted the debate on the UN report which was pushed back late into the evening.

    With 14 million people living in poverty in the UK there was just one MP for every one million people who are suffering at the hands of the government, with the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions both absent and both previously “dismissing” the findings of the report.

    Home Secretary Amber Rudd Prime Minister Theresa May

    Conservative MP Justin Tomlinson assured parliament that the Tories will “consider the report seriously”, but added that they “obviously do not agree with all the points”. He added that his department will “keep on working with all stakeholders and partnership organisations to ensure that those in most need in society receive the support that they should”, saying they are “also looking at homelessness” too.

    But his assurances fell short of the mark for the MPs in attendance.

    DUP MP Jim Shannon said: “My constituency office is about 100 yards from the social security office—it is as close as that—and I have had numerous distressed people come from the social security office to my office looking for advice.

    “I have written perhaps not to the Minister directly but to his Department to outline some of the changes that we feel should be made. In the light of those things, perhaps more needs to be done in the social security office to address the issues early on.”

    And Labour MP Thelma Walker added: “As a former headteacher, I talk to a lot of my former colleagues. Many of them, of a morning, are washing children’s clothes and giving them breakfast.

    “They are having to give children extra lunch because they are starving. Does the Minister agree that that is totally unnecessary and inappropriate? We should be caring for the most vulnerable in our society.”

    The House was adjourned at 10.40pm.

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