In reply to Rob Exile Ward:
Well lets for the sake of argument accept your first two paragraphs to be accurate
> There is real poverty - not relative - in this country, and it is growing. The gruesome implementation of universal credit - in itself a perfectly sensible direction of travel - has, for example, left families already on the poverty line, waiting for weeks and months for any payments. What are poor people supposed to do?
> Private companies are incentivised to reduce disability claims; again, I am all for stopping payments to those who aren't entitled - it's called fraud- but the blunt instruments that this government tends to use have an entirely disproportionate effect on the poorest and most vulnerable. If someone's entitlement is stopped what are they supposed to do? >
That still doesn't mean there is any meaningful comparison between early C21st Britain and Victorian Britain as your third paragraph amply demonstrates
> workhouses, long prison sentences, deportation, and ultimately (as in Ireland), the acceptance of starvation as a legitimate outcome. >
Look, nobody is saying there isn't some genuine hardship out there and I do scratch my head and wonder sometimes how the government has allowed the roll out of universal credit to undermine the very sensible principles which underlie it. But poverty on the scale that it existed in Victorian times simply does not exist now and many people now living below the poverty line today enjoy a standard of living which many quite wealthy Victorians couldn't even have dreamt of.
From this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/04/10/there-is-no-victorian-s...
Some perspective on your spurious comparison
"Late 19th century Britain had some 25% of the population living at or below the subsistence level. This subsistence level is not a measure of inequality, . . . . It is a measure of gaining enough calories each day in order to prolong life. The sort of level of poverty that the World Bank currently uses as a measure of "absolute poverty".
This absolute poverty is set at $1.25 per person per day. No, this is not the number that can be spent upon food per person per day. This is the amount that can be spent upon everything per person per day. This covers shelter, clothing, heating, cooking, food, education, pensions, health care, absolutely everything. This number is also inflation adjusted, so we are not talking about $1.25 a day when bread was one cent a gallon loaf. This number is also Purchasing Power Parity adjusted: so we are not talking about lentils costing two cents a tonne in India and £3 a kg in Tesco . We are adjusting for those price differences across geography and time."
And then there's this:
"being on the minimum wage in the UK puts you in the top 10% of all income earniers in the current world. Being on nothing at all but benefits would put you into the top 20%."
And this:
"Actual real starvation to death as a result of poverty was not unknown, even that late, as late as 1890."
I could go on but if you can't see what rubbish your comparison is by now you probably never will.