How often do you hear people wash their hands of poverty by saying "You'll never get rid of poverty, it's too big a problem. You just have to accept that some people are well-off and some aren't"?Christian Aid is running some rather good adverts pointing out all the other big problems that people once dismissed as unsolvable - and were proved wrong. Ending poverty, says the ad, is no bigger than:
Eradicating smallpox
Liberating Europe from the Nazis
Putting a man on the moon
Bailing out the banks
Abolishing slavery
Ending apartheid
Bringing down the Berlin Wall
Creating the Internet
Digging a tunnel from England to France
"We're humans, we do big tasks" the ad ends. In other words, if we really want to achieve something, we can. It only takes the political will and the collective belief that the aim can be achieved. If we really think poverty is unacceptable in the 21st century, if we really want to wipe it out, then we can.
It's not a fact of life. It's not a fact of nature. It's a result of the way we organise our societies and it can be changed if we decide to organise things differently.
This isn't just a minor issue. Some 13 million people in the UK - 22 per cent of the population - are living in poverty*. That includes around 4 million children and 2½ million elderly people.
How can anybody simply shrug off these statistics as an unsolvable problem? How can anybody be blasé about people who can't afford to eat, heat their home, or buy new clothes? They wouldn't be so blasé if it was their own aunt counting the pennies and going without food.
I'll give my vote to the first politician who seriously reduces poverty instead of merely promising to do so. But it's funny how other things always get priority. What was that about bailing out the banks?
* Normally defined as 60 per cent or less of the average household income (or is that median?)
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Jenny and I finally met up with John Self, who writes the wonderful book blog John Self's Shelves, and his wife and little boy. John is just as funny and perceptive in the flesh as he is on his blog, and Mrs S is lovely too. It's always fun meeting another blogger and seeing if they match up with the mental picture....
