Hope amongst difficulty at a food bank this Christmas.

'We haven't seen anything like this since Harvest Festival, ' I'm standing in the food bank distribution centre in Blurton a down at feel neighbourhood in my home town of Stoke-on-Trent.

It is a few days before Christmas and I am with one of the small army of volunteers who run the centre watching a seemingly endless stream of donations arrive. Almost every inch of space is crammed with bags and boxes of food, the whole thing looks like total confusion fuelled by coffee and good will.

The centre is located in a former Methodist church on the sort of estate that film makers and journalists who arrive in town with preconceived opinions to confirm are drawn to magnetically. All the better to portray urban decay and, of the mood takes them, stroke their beards whilst musing about how people have abandoned the community the church used to represent in favour of football on a big screen TV at the pub down the road.

The reality is, as always, more complicated and rather more hopeful.

The problems the city faces are undeniably large, over the past forty years Stoke-on-Trent has seen the industries that put it on the map collapse on after another. First to go was the steelworks, closed in the late seventies, the eighties and nineties saw the coal mines shut one after another; last to go was the pottery industry done to death by cheap imports.

Call centres and warehousing provided a lifeline for many people, despite this whole communities were left without jobs or purpose. This is reflected in the rise of food bank use in the city, in 2916/17 10,330 three-day parcels were provided to struggling families.

Across the UK according to the Trussell Trust, the charity which runs 428 food banks across the country, December 2017 was their busiest month ever, showing a 49% rise in the number of users. The charity provided 159,388 three-day parcels, 65,622 of which went to children and need is expected to continue rising.

Data from Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty shows that half a million people in the UK are reliant on food parcels, one in six parents regularly go hungry to feed their children and more than a quarter of the people the charities interviewed were one unexpected bill away from hardship.

According to the Office for National Statistics the UK has the thirteenth highest poverty rate in Europe with 7.3% of the population (4.6 million people) are living in poverty with 35% reporting high levels of anxiety and ill health as a result.

The Trussell Trust cite cold weather, high living costs and benefit sanctions as driving people to use food banks. shortly after my visit to the Blurton centre a spokesperson for the local branch told the media he feared that usage would rise further with the roll out of Universal Credit.

Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust said in a press statement earlier this year that the benefits system was ' supposed to protect us all from being swept into poverty, but what we are seeing is people struggling to heat homes and put food on the table because they simply cannot afford the basics'.

She added that the charity was 'urging' the government to ' ensure benefit payments reflect the cost of living to help ensure we are all anchored from poverty'.

Statistics tell only part of the story, the part that has little hope of an easy solution. There is another story that is more hopeful, if the solution is still achingly distant.

It is the one where people from all works of live come together to help other. On the day I volunteered there were people helping out from a major bank, one of the local evangelical churches and a logistics company.

There are, of course, food banks and similar charities run by other faiths and there is no hint of seeking to 'convert' anyone who volunteers for or uses a food bank; but faith is very much in the room. This is a surprise in a Britain that often gives a convincing impression of having abandoned such communitarian values in favour of endless shopping.

This perhaps holds the answer to reversing four decades of growing poverty and inequality and the political thinking that brought us to this place. People want to help others, through physically doing so or, maybe not getting a tax sweetener in every budget.

Maybe those thoughts are prompted more by a flash of the Christmas spirit that practical political understanding. Then again, the endless stream of donations flooding through the doors of the Blurton centre were real, so is the generosity they represent.

At a time when we give in too often to excess another, older and more powerful one is getting through too.

Public transport is the missing piece in the regeneration puzzle.

First Potteries, a bus company with an approach to PR that leaves almost everything to be desired, have announced that ticket prices are to rise.

Fares are set to go up by between 10p and £1 on 9th December, passengers using the mTickets phone app will not be affected. The fare paid by holders of concessionary passes using the bus before 9:30 will also rise from £1.60 to £2.00.

Speaking to the Sentinel Sarah East, director of operations for First said that although some dates have been ' revised' the day ticket offered by the company was still value for money and that there were improved discounts for travellers under 16.

She was at pains to extol the virtues of the ticket app, saying that it is ' easy to download, fill in a few details and away you go'.

Adding that buying tickets in this way ' makes using the bus not only cost effective, but also more convenient and helps quicken up journey tines'.

There is a case for saying that whatever end of the stick bus passengers are given it tends to turn out to be the dirty one. Every so often, just to break the monotony, it gets used to cash them over the head too.

If you look past the bright talk about apps and promises of a discount here and an allowance, there this looks like another instance of an all too familiar story.

Public transport in this city has been stuck in a time warp for decades, with often third hand buses rattling around the six towns following routes that get cut in an annual sacrifice to the cruel god of efficiency.

It doesn't have to be like this; if we want regeneration to be a reality instead of a pipe dream something has got to change.

Since 2015 the City Independent led coalition has talked a good game about changing the city's image and with it our fortunes too. Bidding to be the UK City of Culture or home and the new home of Channel 4 have, though both were unsuccessful, paid a dividend in positive PR.

That Stoke-on-Trent hasn't got an integrated public transport system as the twenty first century trundles into its second decade is the missing piece in the regeneration puzzle.

Other cities, Nottingham for example, manage the trick of getting busses and trains to link up and have revived team systems that vanished years ago. Why can't we do the same?

Part of the problem is a lack of leadership, Labour took the city's voters for granted for too long, meaning they had no incentive to do anything other than what they'd always done. Since 2015 the City Independents have consistently put the cart before the horse, getting distracted by projects like building luxury hotels and apartments for young professionals that won't work without a decent transport network bring in place first.

Nationally things have been no better, public transport hazardous never had a minister with the vision and strength of character necessary to drive through modernisation. The current incumbent, Chris Grayling, is a politician so shockingly inept it is a wonder his antics aren't accompanied by a laughter track.

North Staffs Green Party has consistently spoken about the need to build an interconnected transport system for Stoke-on-Trent. We have worked with partners including the Pensioners Convention to put forward a workable plan for building one

Recently other parties have expressed similar aspirations, there is truly more rejoicing over one MP who repents than a dozen candidates who believed all along, so we welcome their joining the fight. This is an issue too important to be bound up in partisan infighting.

The difference is we will continue talking about how we need trains, busses and trams that work together; safer cycling routes and more opportunities to walk instead of drive long after the political agenda has moved on.

We know that it is more important to do what is right and necessary than what gets you a headline in tomorrow's papers. That is why we will stick with the fight to improve local transport infrastructure until Stoke has the quality network it deserves.

The world's oldest rebel should be an inspiration to us all

This week a good man died after a long life lived well through helping others. His name was Harry Leslie Smith and for the fans he achieved late in life was built on the noble art of speaking truth to power.

He spoke with the honesty and simplicity of lived experience about the experience of growing up in grinding poverty and the fears of an old man that the mistakes of the past are about to be repeated.

This had always been a powerful message, particularly in a country where those who hold power believe that inequality validates their economic thinking.

I had the privilege of heating Harry speak only once, at a rally held in my home tot of Stoke-on-Trent during the 2015 election.

It was one of those dispiriting events that pepper a campaign. A grey spring afternoon spent listening to speakers rehash lines they've used a dozen of more times before.

The star turn that day was Tristram Hunt, at the time the MP for Stoke Central, his speech was an exercise in bored enticement. No phrase cliché went unused and the delivery made that of a broken speak your weight machine sound like Lawrence Olivier playing Henry V.

He was followed on the under card by two trades union officials, about whom the kindest thing to be said was that their oratory style was based on volume rather than content, or coherence.

Then came Harry Leslie Smith, a speaker of a different and, to this jaded listener anyway, much higher order. He didn't deploy the tricks of rhetoric or the dark areas of public relations training. He spoke quietly and simply from the heart about the horrors of growing up in the hungry years between the wars.

What he said mirrored the stories my late father used to tell about the whole family having to pawn their best clothes on Monday in the hope of being able to afford to get them out of hock in time for church on Sunday. All too often they and most of their neighbours couldn’t.

As someone who studies society at a university I get to see the data about inequality, poverty and destitution in this the fifth richest country in the world. Time and again I am shocked by the similarity between the Britain of 2018 and the one of the 1930’s recalled by Harry in his speech that day.

Politicians don’t talk about this nearly enough, when they do so they either stigmatise people who are struggling to survive, setting up a false conflict between ‘strivers’ and ‘skivers’. The truth, as Harry knew so well, is that to survive at the bottom of society you must strive harder than any minister or captain of industry.

The other stock response of a political class distant from the concerns of everyday Britons, is to talk about poverty and inequality as abstractions, hedging them around with statistics and theories. Their actions may be well meaning, but seldom reach out beyond the ivory towers of academia into the confusing world of reality.

Dylan Thomas didn’t, due to his dissipations, live to see old age, but he wrote powerfully about how it should ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light’. Not just in this instance against the dying of that of reason as an amnesiac generation stumble towards the precipice their elders nearly fell over into disaster.

In Harry Leslie Smith the rage of the old burnt with the focus and intensity to a welding torch. Now he is gone those of us who are younger should try to catch its embers and fan them into a flame of our own.
We should honour his passing as that of a man of honour who fought the good fight to the end. Then as his memorial take up the cudgels and wage it ourselves.

Union battling to keep crown Post Offices in public hands

Selling off the Royal Mail was a privatisation too far, even for many Tory advocates of the free market. Margaret Thatcher, the patron saint of shrinking the state by selling off its assets, believed to Royal Mail should be publicly owned.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is fighting to keep 74 crown Post Offices, which remained in public ownership when the Royal Mail was privatised, from bring 'franchised'; meaning sold off, to WH Smiths.

The union fears for the jobs of the 800 workers employed on the post offices and that services to communities will be hit.

CWU general secretary Dave Ward said: ' at a time when the government is claiming to be on the side of workers, it is an outrage that it is allowing well rewarded jobs to go from a public service.'

He added that the jobs were at risk of being handed over to a 'second rate employer', that had been 'recently rated as the worst retailer on the high street' who would ' undoubtedly provide a significantly inferior service'.

W H Smith has been ranked as one of the UK's worst retailers in a survey run by consumer organisation Which for the past eight years. Complaints from disgruntled customers included stores with 'wonky' shelves and badly timed promotions.
(Source: BBC News)

The Green Party has opposed the privatisation of the Royal Mail since the idea was first mooted under New Labour.

In 2009 prospective MEP for the Eastern Region described the Royal Mail as a 'cherished and trusted national institution'.

He added that privatisation would benefit ' big business, not consumers, we have seen this in the NHS, BT and the railways'.

In 2013 the Greens supported the CWU in their campaign against privatisation, during which a party spokesperson said: 'privatisation of the Royal Mail will only lead to rising prices, worse conditions for postal workers and a declining service in rural areas'.

Adding that the party stands ' firmly on the side of public ownership, in line with our commitment to bringing rail, energy and other privatised utilities back into public hands'.

The CWU has launched a dedicated website for the campaign at www.saveourpostoffice.co.uk through which members and supporters can sign a petition calling on Greg Clarke, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to call a halt to the sell off .

Campaign Coordinator for North Staffs Green Party Adam Colclough said: 'privatisation of the Post Office and other services has been a disaster for communities'.

North Staffs Greens have written to Greg Clarke asking him to stop the sale of crown post offices and have signed the CWU petition.

He added that the party was ' entirely committed to returning postal services, railways and utilities to public ownership.'

The government needs to make nursing higher education a priority.

The Royal College of Nursing, the body that speaks for nurses in England has described the current system for training nurses as 'broken'.

They are calling on Health and Social Care Minister Matt Hancock and NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens to set out a long-term plan for funding nursing education.

There are currently 42,000 unfilled nursing vacancies in England, this could rise to 48,000 over the next five years if the government does not act.

Since the removal of bursaries for nursing there are, the RCN says, 1800 fewer nurses in training.

This is due to nursing students doing placements with hours that prevent them from being able to work to support themselves, leaving many struggling financially.

In a statement on its website the RCN says, ' nursing students are on their courses to learn, but they are being used to fill gaps in the workforce and caring for patients before they are ready'.

They add that this ' isn't fair to nursing students and isn't safe for patients'.

In a speech made at St Mary's Hospital on the Isle of Wight during the 2017 general election Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said the government was using funding cuts to put the NHS 'through a cruel form of shock therapy'.

She went on to say that. The sign of a 'confident and caring country' was that it provides 'people the health care they need free at the point of use'.

The Green Party is committed to spending on the NHS that meets the needs of communities, not artificial government financial projections, with funding raised through general taxation earmarked for this use

The party also believes that NHS staff have been undervalued for too long and supports improving their pay, training and working hours.

Campaign Coordinator for North Staffs Green Party said ' the RCN have thrown light on the shockingly poor treatment of student nurses. They are being placed in a position where they are being priced out of studying. If we want a strong NHS and a healthy country this cannot continue'.

He added that ' as a member of the Patient's Congress I will be raising this issue with the local CCG'.

The RCN are calling on the government and NHS England to set aside a minimum of £1billion to improve funding for nursing higher education as part of its ten-year review of priorities.

Petition aims to change the menu in the public sector.

Over the past four years the number of vegans in the UK has doubled and more people are choosing to eat a plant-based diet for health reasons.

Despite veganism given the same status as dietary choices associated with religious faith the public sector has been slow to respond to this change in eating habits.

Humane Society International have launched a parliamentary petition calling for the inclusion of plant-based options on public sector menus as standard practice

The petition refers to advice from the British Dietic Association and the UN that eating a plant-based diet is good for the health of individuals and the environment.

Information produced by the Vegan Society makes the case that avoiding meat and dairy can help to reduce the incidence of high blood-pressure, type2 diabetes and some cancers.

It can also have a positive impact on the environment, reducing the amount of land cultivated for animal feed and reducing food insecurity.

The Green Party supports a food and agriculture policy that is sustainable over the long term. This includes supporting animal welfare, fair-trade and supporting public sector caterers to make healthy and vegan options available.

Signing the petition on behalf of North Staffs Green Party campaign coordinator Adam Colclough said: ' It is vital for the environment that we change the way we put food on our plates', he added that it is also important 'to make healthy food choices easier and more appealing, the public sector has a huge role to play in that'.

The party have written to Stoke-on-Trent City Council calling on them to act on the call made in the petition

Humane Society International are also working with public sector caterers to help them change their menus.

A parliamentary petition that gathers 10,000 signatures will receive a response from the government, one that attracts 100,000 will be considered for debate in parliament

A link to the petition can be accessed here: https://action.hsi.org/page/33008/action/1?utm_medium=email&utm_source=engagingnetworks&utm_campaign=farm&utm_content=110118+UK+action+vegan+day+gg&ea.url.id=1564395&forwarded=true

Universal Credit is undermining government ambitions on mental health.

Mental health charity MIND has criticised the government's controversial roll out of Universal Credit for inversely affecting people with mental health conditions when they transfer onto the new benefit.

In an article on the charity's website Vicki Nash head of policy and campaigns at MIND writes that they have ' consistently failed' to recognise the damaging impact of debt and benefit sanctions on people struggling with their mental health.

MIND join the National Audit Office, MPs from both sides of the house and several other charities in criticising Universal Credit for its manifest unfairness. Even the' pause' rolling out the new benefit announced recently is unlikely to help the large number of claimants who will eventually be transferred over.

A YouGov poll of 2000 people with money problems showed that 65% had felt stressed due to their situation, 62% had experienced anxiety and 44% said that money worries had caused them to feel depressed.

Around half of adults in the UK with money problems also struggle with their mental health, this can cause them to engage in unhealthy behaviours such as drinking or smoking heavily.
(Source the Money and Health Policy Institute)

Commenting on the results of the survey Brian Dow, managing director of Mental Health UK said, 'these figures show just how vicious the cycle of money and health problems can be'.

Earlier this month Prime Minister Theresa May appointed Jackie Doyle-Price as the UK's first minister for suicide prevention. In, addition she pledged £1.8milkion to support suicide prevention work done by the Samaritans, saying she hoped this would ' end the stigma that has forced so many to suffer in silence'.

Taking up her new post MS Doyle-Price said she understood the. 'tragic devastating and long-lasting effect of suicide on families', going on to say that she wanted to put their needs 'at the heart of what we do'.
(Source BBC News)

In her article for the MIND website Vicki Nash writes that the first job of the new minister should be to urge the DWP to ensure that people transferring to Universal Credit who have mental health issues are given adequate support.

Under the current regime they can face losing money if they do not respond to letters sent by the DWP. She writes that 'the effects of benefits issues when they go wrong can be disastrous and even life threatening'.

It’s good to talk, but only if you can afford to go private.

Author and broadcaster Ruby Wax is leading a campaign to get the government to invest more in relationship support services in her role as president of Relate.

The charity is working in partnership with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BCAP) under the hashtag #investinrelationships.

In a poll of more than 2000 users of the Relate website 35% of respondents said they had sought relationship counselling but had either discontinued it of been put off entirely by the cost. This rose to 41% amongst users who are on low incomes.

A separate poll conducted by YouGov for the BCAP found that 21% of respondents on low incomes said that mental health problems had had an impact on their relationships. They also cited debt, poor housing and physical health problems as significant causes of stress.

There are currently 2.87million people in the UK who are in ' distressed' relationships, despite strong evidence that it is effective counselling is not currently commissioned by the NHS, leaving people seeking support with the choice of either paying or relying on charities like Relate.

When asked 94% of respondents said that having a strong relationship was important and 68% agreed that everyone should be able to access counselling regardless of their ability to pay.

David Weaver, president of the BCAP told Mental Health Today ' we know that counselling can change lives and that at times of difficulty that it can make a world of difference'.

He added that ' relationship counselling should be free to everyone whenever they need it, so they can live happier healthier lives'.

Also speaking to Mental Health Today Ruby Wax said the impact of relationship stresses on people on low incomes was a 'social justice issue’.

She added that ' without support distressed relationships can have devastating consequences leading to homelessness, domestic violence and mental illness’.

Relate have launched a petition calling on the government to invest in access to relationship support services, details of which can be found by following this link https://www.relate.org.uk/investinrelationships

It takes more than just a hard winter to explain why children are getting weaker and life expectancy has ‘Stopped'.

Party conference season is, to borrow a phrase, a good time to bury bad news. The focus of the media is on the soap opera struggles amongst the respective party elites and what kind of a fist the leaders make of their keynote speech.

While we’ve all been wondering how you mix an ‘exotic sprizm' two stories limped out into the world that deserve more attention than they've received. They shed light on the troubles we face now and suggest a worrying future ahead.

Children in the UK are physically weaker than they were sixteen years ago and life expectancy has stopped improving for the first time since 1982.

A report published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport by academics from the University of Essex examined the strength and fitness levels of 1200 children from Chelmsford in Essex over twenty years, finding that today’s children are taller and heavier than they were sixteen years ago, they also scored lower in strength tests.

The researchers also found that the decline in strength is accelerating, from 0.6% over the decade between 1998 and 2008, between then and 2014 strength levels declined by 1.6%.

Over the period covered levels of obesity have barely changed, 80% of the children tested had a normal BMI yet were found to be unfit, in contrast 70% of the children deemed to be obese were physically fit.

Dr Gavin Sandercock who led the programme told the BBC that the idea of a ‘healthy weight' was misleading and that the findings suggested children were less active now, he said ‘inactive lifestyles are a health risk,’ adding that physical fitness is ‘the single best measure of health in childhood and into adulthood'.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that life expectancy has stopped rising and in some parts of the country it is going into reverse, currently men can expect to live for 79 years and women for 82.
A spokes person for the ONS told the BBC that a higher than expected number of deaths between 2015/17 was down to a bad flu season and that there was an ‘ongoing debate’ over other potential causes.

Some academics have linked the stalling of life expectancy to government austerity policies, Dr Kingsley Purdem of Manchester University told the BBC that ‘poverty, austerity and cuts to public services are impacting on how long people live'.

Others have suggests a wider range of causes, also speaking to the BBC Professor Stephen Evans of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said ‘ we still do not know how much of this is a result of direct health effects such as flu epidemics, how much is a result of social and economic factors and how much is a failure to go on improving smoking cessation and other preventive measures’.

What is clear is that the UK lags behind other developed nations including France, the Netherlands and Japan when it comes to life expectancy.

The story here isn’t, mostly, about bad parents feeding their children burgers and using the TV as a childminder whilst they smoke and drink themselves into an early grave; however much health campaigners might wish that to be the case. There is something else happening that goes to the troubled roots of our society.

At the heart of our bright, busy world is a black knot of feat. If children are less active now than they were just sixteen years ago it is because their parents are fearful about letting them play outside. The schools they go to are run by adults who because fear falling down the Ofstead league tables squeeze any activity that can’t be quantified through testing out of the curriculum.

Life expectancy is stalling because our lives are becoming a toxic cycle of work, stress and worry. Poverty is exhausting, the endless effort needed to get through the day grinds people down, fear is here too, in the shape of a growing dread amongst the working and middle classes that one bit of bad luck could see them joining the line outside the food bank.

For years, maybe decades, we have been able to ignore the elephant in our national drawing room, we can do so no longer. The rising numbers of people sinking like stones because they can no longer swim in the choppy waters of modern life show how badly things have gone wrong.

If we are going to stop the decline in life expectancy and give the next generation any chance of living healthy lives. We have to stop chasing the impossible goal of endless growth and look again at our priorities, swapping those tied to brutal individualism and the demands of business for ones that respond to our needs as human beings instead.

Today’s children may never get the chance to see a local badger or marvel at their complex and amazing setts

This month Environment Secretary Michael Gove authorised a further 11 licences to cull badgers, taking the total across the UK to 31.

Dominic Dyer, chief executive of the Badger Trust said that by doing so he had ‘given the green light to the largest destruction of badgers in living memory’.

The Trust estimate that 40,000 badgers have been culled so far this year, taking the total since 2013 to 75,000, by 2020 the number of badgers culled is predicted to have reached 150,000 at a cost of £50million to the taxpayer.

The cull was instigated, following lobbying by the NFU the League Against Cruel Sports claim on their website, as a measure to combat the spread of bovine TB.

One of the areas where a licence has been granted is Staffordshire, the company charged with implementing the cull has been authorised to kill between 3184 and 4311 badgers.

Staffordshire Wildlife Trust have refused to allow the cull to take place on their land, chief executive Julian Woolford told the Sentinel that it was ‘unacceptable’, adding that it was a ‘dangerous distraction from addressing the main route of TB transmission in cattle'.

Vaccination of cattle against TB is currently banned under EU law, despite the main route of transmission being between cattle.

The League Against Cruel Sports and the Badger Trust both advocate the vaccination of badgers as an alternative to a cull. This approach has also been backed by the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee, which called on the government to produce a clear strategy for doing so in 2013.

The League also oppose the cull on grounds that it is inhumane. They claim that 18% of badgers shot die after a protracted period of suffering.

They also point to the ineffectiveness of a cull in protecting cattle from TB, a point supported by tests conducted in Wales earlier this year.

In July The Independent reported that out of 37 badgers trapped and blood tested 5 were found to be infected with TB and killed. When the tests were repeated under laboratory conditions the tests proved negative, suggesting that no conclusive evidence for badgers transmitting TB is available, a finding the government refutes.

Quoted in the Sentinel Farming Minister George Eustice cites official figures showing that after a cull in Gloucester the incidence of TB in cattle fell from 10.4% to 5.6%, saying that it is ‘evidence that our strategy for dealing with this slow moving and insidious disease is delivering results'.

He added that the government was ‘committed to pursuing a wide range of interventions to protect the future of our dairy and beef industries’.

The issue of badgers culling is hugely emotive and taps into deep concerns about the government’s stewardship of the environment.

In a joint statement quoted in the Sentinel Staffordshire Badger Conservation Group and Staffordshire Against the Cull said they were ‘highly concerned' that a cull will lead to ‘the extinction of badgers in Staffordshire’.

They add that ‘today’s children may never get the chance to see a local badger or marvel at their complex and amazing setts'.

MIND survey finds that people with mental health problems living in social housing are dissatisfied with conditions.

A survey conducted by mental health charity MIND has found a significant proportion of people with mental health problems living in social housing (33%) are dissatisfied with the quality of their accommodation.

The charity spoke to 2009 people in January this year, 1762 of whom had a diagnosed mental health problem and of these 668 were living in social housing.

Respondents described experiencing prejudice and stigma from neighbours and housing officials, as a result 43% of the people questioned said their mental health had declined as a result.

Poor housing conditions have a detrimental effect on physical and mental health, figures produced by homelessness charity Shelter show that a greater proportion of people living in social housing (45%) have a diagnosed mental health problem compared to the general population.

They are also more likely to have issues with addiction, behaviours that are often coping mechanisms associated with mental distress. More people living in social housing (36%) report having poor or very bad physical health, this rises sharply as individuals reach pension age (58%).

Sophie Corlett, Director of External Relations for MIND said, ‘social housing is meant to be safe, secure and low cost, making it a good option for people with mental health problems who need it, she went on to say that currently they are ‘being let down at every stage- the current system just isn’t working'.

Among the problems identified by the MIND survey was stigma and intimidation experienced by people with mental health problems living in social housing from their neighbours.

Kathy from Merseyside and her husband experienced abuse from a noisy neighbour and Nadia a single mother from Hackney suffered a deterioration in her own mental health and that of her son due to living in poor quality social housing.

Nadia told MIND about the impact this had had on her life saying, ‘my son has been set back a year in his studies and I have been hospitalised from the stress of being placed in poor quality housing’.

Both women struggled getting support from either their local council or housing authority, despite both having statutory responsibilities towards tenants in social housing.

Kathy told the MIND survey, ‘everyone deserves a safe place to call home and we are desperate to move. The housing authority said we just have to put up with it’.

The survey found that some respondents (43%) found navigating their way through the social housing system difficult, with 27% saying they had had difficulty claiming either housing benefit or Universal Credit and 15% experienced prejudice from housing officials.

In April a report from the charity Money and Mental Health showed that more than a million adults in the UK with mental health conditions are struggling to meet high housing costs.

MIND is calling on the government to use the launch of its green paper on social housing to place a greater focus on the needs of people living with mental health problems when making policy.

If this does not happen then, as Sophie Corlett put it a social housing system that should be supporting people living difficult lives will continue to let them down.

Voter ID is an expensive solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

The government has launched a call for councils to join a second round of trials of its costly and controversial voter ID scheme.

Campaign group the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) has described the first round of pilots as a ‘dangerous distraction’ from more serious problems. Government sources though have described them as a ‘success' and now want to expand the next round to cover a wider range of communities.

At the local elections this year 350 people were denied the opportunity to vote because they could not produce photo ID. Ellie Reeves, MP for Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich, one of the five areas selected taking part in the trial tweeted ‘just been to vote, was informed that two people had already turned up without ID this morning so had been unable to vote', adding that this was ‘very worrying and backs up all the evidence that voter ID pilot in Bromley is plain wrong' (source: News Shopper, May 2018).

Writing in an article published in the ERS website Darren Hughes says it is ‘welcome' that the government has decided to expand its trials to cover a more economically and socially diverse test group, however he questioned the level of insight this will provide into the likely impact of voter ID on marginalised groups.

The ERS have highlighted concerns that providing photo ID at the polling station might be a barrier to participation for people in low income communities, many of whom do not possess passports or driving licences.

There is also a possibility that following the Windrush scandal members of BAME and immigrant communities might be reluctant to vote for fear that producing ID could put their residency status at risk.

LGBT campaigners have also expressed reservations, earlier this year Ruth Hunt, Stonewall, told the Pink News that ‘for trans and non-binary people in particular this has the potential to cause significant problems, as some may not have photo-ID that reflects their identity'.

Personation, the type of fraud introducing the requirement for voters to produce ID was intended to combat, is scarcely a feature at UK elections. At the 2017 general election just 28 claims of personation were made resulting in a single conviction.

If introduced nationally voter ID would cost, according to cabinet office figures reported by the ERS, between £4.3 and £20 million, with investigating possible cases of personation, were rates to match 2017, costing £700,000 per case.

Writing on the ERS website Willie Sullivan says the government has ‘its priorities all wrong, forking out millions of pounds of taxpayers money on this sledgehammer of a policy', adding that doing so is ‘not just unwise, but irresponsible too'.

Despite the concerns expressed the government is committed to pushing ahead with further trials, minister for the constitution Chloe Smith described the policy as a ‘reasonable and proportionate measure’ and said the trials had been a ‘success’.

A position challenged by UK fact checking organisation FullFact, who are quoted on the ERS website saying that ‘in a single day across five councils twice as many people didn’t vote due to having incorrect ID as have been accused of personation in eight years in the whole of the UK'.

Requiring voters to prove their identity in order to exercise their democratic rights seems like a clumsy, expensive and possibly counterproductive way to address a problem that barely exists.

As Darren Hughes writes ‘to lose one honest voter is an error. To lose thousands is a tragedy and one we can avert. For all minister’s efforts to rope councils into this policy, we can’t help feeling they’d be better promoting improved engagement, not creating additional barriers'.

Holiday hunger is on the rise as life expectancy stalls.

The number of children experiencing ‘holiday hunger', not having access to enough food during the long summer holiday is getting worse according to the findings of a survey reported in the Times Educational Supplement (TES).

The survey was carried out by the National Education Union (NEU) and polled 657 members, 59% of whom said they had seen children coming back to school after the long break ‘looking visibly less well nourished'. A direct consequence of their families not being able to afford to buy enough food.

The members questioned said the problem had got worse in the past couple of years (51%) and more than half said (59%) said support in and out of school for struggling families was not enough to meet demand.

NEU chief executive Ros McNeil told the TES that ‘such extensive poverty simply should not exist in a county with the world’s fifth largest economy', adding that charities and faith groups were ‘left to pick up the pieces where the government has failed'.

Also speaking to the TES children and families minister Nadhim Zahawi said the government wanted ‘every child to have the best chances in life and since 2010 there are 300,000 fewer children living in absolute poverty'.

He drew attention to the £2million the government had made available to be spent providing free meals for struggling families during the school holidays.

Ms McNeil said the extra money was ‘welcome’ but ‘nowhere near enough to tackle the desperate plight of families and children'.

The NEU survey comes hard on the heels of data from the Office for National Statistics showing that the rate at which life expectancy in the UK is slowing down for the first time in decades.

It has fallen from 12.9 weeks a year for women in 2006/11 to 1.2 weeks in 2011/12, and for men from 17.3 weeks to 4.2 weeks over the same period.

Sir Steve Webb, former Liberal Democrat pensions minister and director of policy at insurer Royal London, told the BBC that the UK had ‘slumped from being one of the strongest performers when it comes to improving life expectancy to bottom of the league'.

Adding that ‘there is a real human cost behind these statistics and we urgently need to understand more about why this is happening'.

Figures from the Citizens Advice Bureau published in The Independent recently show household debt ballooning to £19billion with council tax and utilities costs making up the lion’s share of the burden. The Chartered Institute of Housing have also reported that the poorest families living in private rented accommodation face a shortfall of £140 per month thanks to the four-year freeze on housing benefits (source: The Guardian).

There is no question that families on low and increasingly what used to be thought of a modest but adequate income, are caught at the centre of a perfect storm. Debt, poverty and destitution go together to make a grim progress matching anything created by Hogarth. Only they are driven down this route by circumstances outside their control rather than bad choices or moral weakness.

The idea of children going hungry during the holidays or at any other time in a rich country with pretentions to be a world power seems like something belonging to the world of my parent’s childhood in the thirties; not the Britain of the twenty first century. Yet that and worse is the awful reality faced by over a million people.

No wonder life expectancy is stalling, it may soon start to decline, and the fault can be laid nowhere else other than at the door of the government. Since 2010 they have pursued austerity policies that have done huge damage to the most vulnerable members of society.

There is a scene in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, a book often read as a twee fantasy rather than an alarming social allegory, where Scrooge is shown two starving children, the Ghost of Christmas Present thunders at him that ‘written on their foreheads is that which is doom!’

Cut out the Victorian bombast and you can’t help wondering what the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come might show Mrs May and her government, if she stopped dancing long enough to listen. My guess is it would be a riff on the same theme, only played in a darker tone.

When a country’s life expectancy starts to go into reverse and its children go hungry it is a symptom of deep-seated social problems. The sort that no amount of pomp and circumstance, or nostalgia for a misremembered past can hide.

When that same country is on the brink of taking a political and economic leap into the dark; it has that makings of a recipe for disaster.

Maybe the Bohemians can rescue our dying town centres.

One of the occupational hazards of political activism is turning up to a meeting when nobody else does. It is sometimes annoying, but seldom ever a wasted experience.

That was what happened on a drizzly Wednesday night last week when I headed into Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre. It was almost seven o'clock and the town was caught in the hiatus between the shoppers going home and the drinkers coming out to play.

Both are less plentiful than they used to be, Newcastle has fared better than some local town centres, even so it has its problems. The market, which has survived for hundreds of years is in the process of bring killed off by council incompetence and consumer indifference. There are more shops open here than in Stoke or Burslem, but the prevalence of signs screaming ‘sale’ suggests business is far from good

Cultural Squatters occupies a former TV rental shop in a grim sixties shopping precinct newly renamed ‘Astley Walk’ after Phillip Astley a local son credited with inventing the modern circus. There is little of the big top about it as I walk past an employment agency, another coffee shop and somewhere selling electric bicycles. Things are clean and despite the weather people are out and about, but there is an undercurrent of desperation it is hard to ignore.

Cultural Squatters bills itself as a hybrid of pop up coffee shop, arts space and community venue. A melding of town centre as a place for experiences and good intentions that can tempt cynicism when taken at face value.

The reality is, I'm relieved to say, somewhat different and, more importantly, a lot more positive.

The interior is the sort of jumble of mismatched furniture, posters and comfy looking sofas that looks entirely random and probably took weeks to design. At the door I am met by a lively woman who introduced herself as Narina and exudes good humour and friendliness to an infectious degree.

She confirms the meeting I am down to attend is booked in for tonight, but not due to start yet and offers me coffee. At a pound for a mug it is reasonably priced and served without the self-important posturing I have paid over the odds to endure in more self-consciously hip establishments.

One of the virtues of waiting for something to happen is that it gives you an opportunity to watch what is already going on all around you. Settled on one of those comfy sofas I sit back and take in the show.

Through the window I can see the evening passada of a provincial town getting under way. Stylishly dressed young women getting out of taxis and running across the road to the cash machine, one with a scarf over her head, looking for all the world like a chic babushka. Early evening drinkers going from one pub to another and at the bus stop opposite a family, together in terms of proximity, but separately engaged with the glowing screens of their phones.

Inside Cultural Squatters a sort of writer’s circle is taking place in the room behind me, a dozen people reading stories each one received with polite interest and positive comments. On the wall opposite where I am sitting visitors have chalked positive messages, most are greeting card stuff about being nice and seizing the day; one reads ‘play or be played'.

So what game, if any, is Cultural Squatters playing? The atmosphere is friendly without trying to recruit visitors into being happy by decree. Its ethos is rooted firmly in the welcome all as equals values of the counterculture, but without the often-tedious introspection dressed up as profound insights.

The meeting didn’t happen and after a second coffee I left and walked home the long way along Merrial Street, past the former council offices. These were down to be redeveloped for retail and high- end apartments, the project has been put on a back burner due to uncertainty about the future of the high street.

The talk now is of high streets and the towns to which they are attached becoming places where people go to have experienced rather than to buy things. That makes me nervous, largely because it makes me think of hipsters paying over the odds for bowls of cereal while the services everyday people depend on atrophy.

Cultural Squatters suggests another and more rewarding sort of experience, one based around the desire for friendship, community and being valued for who we are that is fundamentally human. In a country where we are too often encouraged to focus on those things that force us apart rather than bring us together that can only be a good thing.

I don’t know whether that or anything else will save the high street from going the way of the dinosaurs; but it might just make us a whole lot happier.

Greenery keeps our air clean, so why are we so keen to bulldoze the green belt?

Figures produced by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and published by the Office for National Statistics show that vegetation removed 1.4billion kilograms of air pollutants from the environment in 2015.

Currently five times more pollutants are emitted, by traffic fumes, burning fossil fuels, domestic heating systems and other sources. Even so the amount removed has had a positive health impact and generated savings for the NHS.

The figures are taken from the UK Natural Capital account, a survey of natural assets including soil, air, water and wildlife. It is intended as an audit of the ‘health’ of the UK's environment.

The survey also looks at the cultural value we put on nature, the extent of which is something that often gets ignored.

As a result of the pollutants removed from the air by trees, grasslands and other vegetation there were 7100 fewer heart and lung admissions to UK hospitals and 1900 fewer early deaths. This generated £1billion in avoided health costs.

Although vegetation, particularly trees, plays a significant role in removing pollutants from the air and generating health benefits as a result, it cannot be relied on to solve the problem entirely.

The benefits generated are not shared equally between the regions of the UK, the leafy South East fares best, whilst the four areas with the lowest levels of pollutants removed by vegetation are in London. Many other cities have widely varying levels of removal, with inner-city, often disadvantaged areas faring worst.

Despite their obviously key role in protecting the environment green spaces are something we frequently undervalue. This is down, perhaps, to a complacent belief that because they have always been there they always will be there.

In a world where business and government alike find it ever harder to value anything that can’t be quantified into pounds and pence to think that way is to subscribe to a massive false sense of security.

The threat is embodied in the comments made this week by Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss that protection against development of greenbelt land or risk voters frustrated at not being able to buy a home of their own turning to Jeremy Corbyn.

What her comments lack in common sense they make up for in political calculation. Truss has cleverly yoked the aspiration of every shire Tory to have his or her own castle called home together with the fear that a Corbyn government will turn Britain into Venezuela by the first Whitsun after getting elected.

Two bites at the paranoid cherry, surely a winning combination? Not this time though since she has faced a vociferous backlash in her own backyard, turns out the one thing shire Tories value more than having a home of their own is the semi-mythical concept of the greenbelt girding our cities.

Out of a silly season controversy a dangerous seed has been sown, sweetly reasonable sounding developers have been able to go on television and say that the greenbelt is an illusion, backed up by some bizarre instances where that status has been applied to things like disused car-washes.

Thiers is the dangerous logic of ‘a little bit can’t do any harm’, building on the odd field here and there, maybe losing a little bit of woodland won’t do any real harm; will it? Until it does because what we had has been chipped away one little bit at a time until there is nothing left.

The ONS figures show that vegetation, even if it is just the weeds growing through the roof of a disused car-wash, does have a positive impact on our national health. Far from building on the greenbelt we need to be expanding it and finding ways of designing more green spaces into our towns and cities.

A nation drowning in debt.

UK households are increasingly ‘living beyond their means’ as outgoings surpass income for the first time in thirty years according to figures produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This comes at the same time as a report by the Treasury select committee reveals the worrying state of household finances, with a growing number lacking a ‘rainy day' fund from which to meet unexpected expenses.

On average UK households spent £900 more than they received in 2017, amounting to £25billion, a quarter of the cost of running the NHS. The last time outgoings surpassed earnings was in 1988 then the shortfall was £0.3billion.

Chair of the Treasury select committee Nicky Morgan said “many households are facing challenges that are putting pressure on the health and sustainability of their finances “.

The pressures placed on family budgets by the rising cost of food and housing have contributed to households across the country increasingly relying on borrowing to make ends meet. In 2017 borrowing reached £80billion, with savings falling to £37billion.

The ONS figures show that the poorest 10% of households spend two and a half times their disposable income on basic living expenses, the richest 10% spend less than half theirs on the same outgoings.

Although praising the FCA for putting a cap on the interest rates charged by payday lenders the committee used their report to criticize government attempts to encourage saving.

Policies like giving tax relief on pensions and ISA's, they claim, do not provide a big enough incentive for people to save. They suggest using cash bonuses and direct matching schemes instead.

Responding to the ONS figures shadow chancellor John McDonnell, speaking to the Morning Star, said they were a “stark example of how brutal Tory pay restraint and austerity had led to living costs outstripping earnings for families “.

Also speaking to the Morning Star Phil Andrew, chief executive of debt charity Step change said it was “unfortunate “that the ONS talked about people ‘living beyond their means’, since it implied people had a choice “when too many people do not”.

He added that “the reality is that too many households, here in Britain, in 2018, simply cannot make ends meet, however hard they try”.

Tom Selby, a research analyst at financial adviser AJ Bell told the Guardian the ONS figures presented the government with a major challenge as they try to “build financial resilience in the UK”.

The burden of debt they carry is limiting the ability of families across the country to plan for the future and their ability to withstand any potential shocks such as a lengthy Brexit induced recession.

Attempts by the government to make it easier and more attractive to save have, so far, underperformed, creating a situation where, as Tom Selby told the Guardian “for people having to borrow to make ends meet, saving for the future might feel like a luxury they simply cannot afford”.

Campaign group launches charter for ownership.

If there were more employee owned businesses would the UK have a fairer economy than it does now?

The Equality Trust, a group that campaigns on issues related to economic equality and social justice think it would. They have launched an ‘Ownership Charter’ to promote the creation of a new economy, marked by lower levels of inequality and a broader based prosperity.

Economic inequality is shown in differences in income and wealth and is influenced by factors such as gender, ethnicity and disability.

Graded using the Gini Coefficient, a measure of inequality across the whole of society the UK scores 0.35, making it an unequal society, although less so than the United States with a score of 0.38. More egalitarian countries such as Denmark score in the range of 0.25, the average for OECD countries is 0.32.

In the UK inequality has risen steadily since 1979, reaching a peak in 1990 and then plateauing for the next decade, since the crisis of 2008 levels have started to rise again.

In 2010 the top 10% of earners received 31% of the country’s wealth, the poorest 10% by contrast held just 1% of both wealth and income.

The Equality Trust claims that employee owned businesses have ‘stronger roots' in the community, are more democratic and are better employers.

Their ten-point charter calls on parties from across the political spectrum to, amongst other things, commit to growing the number of democratic employee owned companies, establishing a bank to support employee buy outs and reviewing legislation to make it easier for employees to buy out the companies they work for.

Commenting on the rising level of inequality in the UK Dr Wanda Wyporska, the executive director of the Equality Trust said, “the UK's appalling wealth inequality is a gross injustice and a dire threat to our economy.”

She added a warning that it could threaten social cohesion, saying that if wealth continues to “gush upwards”, it could be a “recipe for resentment, division and potentially disaster.”

Read more about the Ownership Charter and sign the Equality Trust petition by following this link: https://equalitytrust.eaction.org.uk/petition/ownershipcharter

Cost of living rise means low income families need a third more income to make ends meet.

Low income families need a third more income than they did a decade ago just to get by according to a leading charity.

Research conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University shows that rises in transport, energy and food costs are major causes.

Researchers used the Minimum Income Standard (MIS), a ‘barometer’ of living standards in the UK based on the level of income members of the public think necessary to achieve a decent standard of living. This is regularly updated to reflect changes in the economy.

They found that respondents beloved a single person needs an income of £18,400 a year to achieve MIS and a couple with two children needs £20,000, a lone parent needs £28,450.

These estimates do not match the sort of incomes on which many individuals and families have to try and make ends meet.

Since 2008 the cost of basic goods and services has risen by 35% for single adults, by 30% for a couple with two children and by 50% for a pensioner couple.

In 2018 a lone parent in work has an income 20% below MIS level, a couple where both partners are in work falls 11% short and a couple where just one partner works by 27%.

The rise in the cost of goods and services has been driven by factors including a 65% increase in the cost of using public transport, a 40% hike in energy costs and a 50% rise in childcare costs. All this in an environment of seemingly unending ‘austerity’ where government support for working families has failed to keep pace.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation chief executive Campbell Robb said the figure shows ‘just how precarious life can be for low income households’.

This despite record low levels of unemployment, 4.2% in March-May this year, the lowest level since 1975 according to research carried out for the Library of the House of Commons. At the same time wages have increased by just 2.5%, only a fraction ahead of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which increased by 2.4% over the same period.

Professor Donald Hirsch of Loughborough University said the past decade had been ‘particularly difficulty’ for low income families because the costs they have to pay have risen faster than the consumer prices index, whilst the support they get from the state have lagged behind.

The JRF are calling on the government to allow low income families to keep more of their earnings by increasing the work allowance aspect of Universal Credit. This, they say, would help three million families reach the MIS.

It was time, said Campbell Robb, for the government to ‘put things right by allowing families to keep more of their earnings’.

Changes to supported housing could put people with mental health problems on the streets.

People with mental health issues living in short-term housing could see the support they receive put in ‘jeopardy’ by the roll out of Universal Credit according to a leading charity.

RETHINK surveyed 117 members working in housing services, most of whom said they feared the service they offered would be forced to close by changes to funding.

Under Universal Credit funding for stays in supported housing of only a few weeks duration will be increasingly hard to find, forcing claimants to fall back on hard pressed council services.

As a result, people living with defined mental health problems may face longer stays in hospital as they wait for a placement and may end up on the streets if one cannot be found.

Sean Duggan, chief executive of the Mental Health Network, told Mental Health Today that supported housing plays ‘a crucial role in preventing homelessness for people with mental health issues'.

He added that under the proposals people living in short-term supported housing will have ‘no guarantee their housing costs will be met', forcing them to ‘live from day to say' without any security.

The legislation to introduce Universal Credit was passed in 2011 and the amalgamation of several separate benefits into a single payment was scheduled to be rolled out in 2017.

Its introduction has been delayed by IT problems and in those areas where Universal Credit has been implemented beset by concerns that the housing element is forcing vulnerable people into debt and the risk of becoming homeless.

Labour MP Frank Field, a long-term advocate of benefit reform, described Universal Credit as ‘a shambles; leaving a trail of destruction in its wake'.

Once full implementation has been achieved seven million claimants will be covered by Universal Credit and it will account for £63billion in government spending.

Commenting in Mental Health Today on the likely impact of the changes Danielle Hamm, assistant director for campaigns and policy at RETHINK said ‘supported housing is a lifeline for people living with mental illness’.

She called on the government to ‘reconsider this potentially disastrous funding model' and to treat ‘short-term’ tenancies ‘as just that, as weeks not years'

There is something seriously wrong with a society where destitute people cycle round at night to keep warm

A couple of weeks ago going to a meeting at One Smithfield, the large and locally controversial office complex built by the council in my home town of Stoke-on-Trent, I met a man our society pretends isn’t there.

He was one of the 1.5million people in the UK who are, according to a report published recently by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, classed as destitute. This means that at some point in the past year they have been unable to afford the basics necessary to have food, clothing and shelter.

The number of people in the UK classed as being destitute fell between 2015 and 2017 thanks to changes to the way benefit sanctions are enforced. It is feared that the introduction of Universal Credit will drive levels back up again.

Destitution is most prevalent in North and the Midlands in cities like Stoke-on-Trent that have been hit hard by the loss of their traditional industries, and the poorer London boroughs. Almost all the people experiencing destitution live in rented, temporary or shared accommodation and single men under 35 face the highest risk.

The causes are complex and multiple, they include delays to benefit payments, high housing and utility costs and harsh debt collection practices on the part of public agencies including councils.

Despite the last point in this instance it wasn’t a government agency that was the villain of the piece. In fact, a woman employed by the local health authority was going above and beyond her role to find him a bed for the night.

The story this man bent out of shape by hardship and bad luck told was one of falling through the widening cracks in our society. Raised by alcoholic parents and abused in the care system he had followed the well trodden route to the streets via prison.

For two years since being released he had made determined, if not entirely successful, efforts to stay clean whilst living on the streets. In the worst of the past winter, he told us, he had had to cycle around the streets to keep from freezing, despite having painfully swollen legs.

A significant proportion of the 1.5million destitute people in the UK, some 364,000, are children, potentially setting up more stories where misery us handed on from one generation to the next.

Research carried out in 2017 for the Child Poverty Action Group found that GPs felt child poverty was a growing cause of I’ll health amongst their parents, with poor diet and inadequate housing being major contributors.

A further survey carried out by the charity in conjunction with the National Education Union found that 87%of the teachers questioned said living in a low-income home affects children’s ability to learn.

In their report the Joseph Rowntree Foundation call for an end to the freeze on working age benefits and changes to how sanctions are imposed under Universal Credit. They also call for reforms to how councils and the DWP collect debts.

In an article written for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website earlier this year Claire Ainsley said the ‘nature’ of poverty had changed and so the means by which it is challenged ‘must change too'.

Adding that the current approaches to the problem placed too much reliance on the ability of the market to provide a solution and were, as a result, ‘running out of steam'.

She used her article to advocate for the creation of a more inclusive economy, a ‘living rent' linked to local earnings and for social security and employment services to work harder to get claimants into good jobs rather than just any job.

She also called for more people with ‘lived experience’ of poverty to be involved in making policy.

People like the lost man made old before his time I met outside Smithfield, where he went I do not know. Although she made superhuman efforts the woman from the health authority was unable to find him a bed for the night, he wandered away to another night on the streets followed by a day that would surely bring fresh troubles.

That a million and a half people live lives of similar hardship in a rich country with pretensions to status as a world power should shame policy makers and everyone else.

Gender and geography dictate how politically powerful we feel.

Reports published by the Hansard Society and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Sex Equality claim that gender and where they live influence how much political power individuals feel they are able to exert.

Research conducted by Lawrence McKay of Manchester University using data from the Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement shows the influence geography had on how people relate to politics, particularly how much influence they feel themselves to have over decision making.

McKay found that people living in London felt they had most influence, whilst those living in Wales and Scotland felt they had the least. Out of the English regions people in the North East felt they had the least influence over the political process.

Where voters live, McKay suggests, nay have a greater influence on how people engage with politics than factors such as income or education.

This distancing of people outside London from the political process could, he suggests, by their physical distance from the seat of power and the fact that people living in the regions seldom see people who are like them represented as members of the political class.

Gender and health, both physical and mental, are also powerful indicators of how influential individuals are likely to feel. A point made by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sex Equality in the report ‘Invisible Women’ written in partnership with the Fawcett Society and the Young Women’s Trust.

Launching the report Chair of the group Jess Phillips MP said, ‘millions of women are invisible in Westminster’s evidence and thinking', adding that ‘unless we see women in all their diversity, we will make the wrong decisions and will not achieve equality'.

The report shows that women and particularly women of colour are often overlooked by policy makers and those responsible for designing services. This is especially evident in relation to employment support and mental health services, creating what the group describe as a climate of ‘multiple discrimination’.

The report calls for improved data collection to allow policy makers to understand the experience of diverse groups of women and for a review of how services respond to the needs of women and members of other protected groups. It also recommends that it be made easier for individuals to bring claims of bring discriminated against on the grounds of more than one characteristic.

At the launch of the report Fawcett Society chief executive Sam Smithers said that policy makers ‘repeatedly overlook the women who are in the most need and who experience the greatest disadvantage; that has to change’.

Dr Carole Easton, chief executive of the Young Women’s Trust, said that ‘more needs to be done to improve young women’s prospects,’ particularly those from groups that face disadvantage if they are not to face ‘a lifetime of inequality’.

The aim of the report was, Jess Phillips said to work towards a situation where the UK has ‘data, policy, the law and services’ capable of recognising ‘women’s diverse experiences’ and furthering their interests.

Walking our way back to health.

Walking is good for us, walking briskly for just ten minutes every day can bring about dramatic improvements in physical and mental health.

Globally the World Health Organisation cites being physically inactive as the fourth greatest risk factor for early mortality. People with active lifestyles have a 25% to 35% lower risk of heart disease, they also have a lower risk of obesity, cancer and diabetes.

Being physically active is also something that helps to promotes mental wellbeing.

Figures published by Public Health England show that 4 in 10 adults aged between 40 and 60, 40% of the people surveyed said they walked briskly less than once a month.

This is matched by figures for the number of people who reported being physically inactive, meaning they do less than thirty minutes moderately intense activity a week.

Three million adults in the 40 to 60 age group reported being physically inactive, with proportionally more living in the West Midlands (23%), compared to the South East and South West (15%).

Professor Paul Cosford Managing Director of Public Health England said in a statement to the media 'managing all the pressures of everyday life can mean that exercise takes a back seat, building a brisk walk into your daily routine is a simple way to get more active.'

The NHS Choices website recommends building walking more into what you do every day by getting off the bus one stop earlier and using the stairs instead of taking the lift.

We all know being more active is good for our health, but the sofa exerts a magnetic pull, never mind, if you are of the generation most in need of moving more, having been put off exercise for life by Kes style games lessons at school.

Walking, perhaps, offers a gentler and less competitive alternative requiring no expensive kit and unflattering Lycra outfits. At least it would if it were made a bit easier to do.

Advising people to walk briskly for ten minutes a day and giving them a whizzy app with which to track their progress is all well and good; but creating an environment where that isn't a chore would be even better.

That means spending money on making public spaces safe and welcoming and creating a working culture where people can go for a, not so gentle, stroll at lunchtime without feeling they are at risk of being judged as slackers.

Tasks that put the ball firmly back in the court of local and national government, with employers and the NHS warming up on the side-lines.

The poverty gap for working families is turning into a chasm.

Families with children where one or both parents work are living further below the poverty line than they were in 2008 with those employed in the public- sector faring worst.

Using data from the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) statistics produced by the Department of Work and Pensions Professor Jonathan Bradshaw and Dr Antonia Keung of the Department of Social Policy at the University of York have identified an increase in the median poverty gap.

In 2007/08 the gap before housing costs stood at £41.60 per week, after housing costs were added this rose to £50.40. The 2016/17 HBAI data shows a respective rise to £57.40 and £63.00.

Further pressures are added to squeezed family budgets by in work benefits failing to keep pace with rises in the cost of living. The harsh conditionality of the welfare system has, according the University of York's WELCOND project, resulted in poor health and financial outcomes for many claimants and may have driven some to commit crime to survive.

Writing in the report Bradshaw and Keung say ' the UK has tended in the past to have had comparatively high poverty rates, but low poverty gaps. This has been thanks to a fairly comprehensive but quite low minimum income scheme'.

They go on to say that since the recession this has been undermined by the government's austerity policies, leading to a situation where poverty rates may be falling, but the number of children living in poverty is increasing and they are further below the poverty line than ever before.

Figures produced by Landman Economics for the TUC show there will be a million more working households with children living in poverty this year, a rise of 50% since 2010, taking the total to 3.1million. The factors driving this increase, the research claims, include weak wage growth and the rising number of people in insecure work.

Public sector workers have been hit hardest with their average income falling by £83.00 a week since 2010, workers in the private sector have seen their wages fall by £32.00 a week over the same period.

The rise in child poverty has been highest in the East Midlands (76%), with the West Midlands (66%) and Northern Ireland (60%) close behind.

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the government was 'in denial over how many working families can't make ends meet '.

She concluded that the government needs to ' boost the minimum wage now and use the social security system to make sure no child grows up in a family struggling to get by'.

National Parks are a good thing, but less photogenic green spaces matter too.

Britain may get some new National Parks, according to ‘energetic' environment secretary Michael Give. There are currently ten, along with thirty- four sites designated as areas of outstanding natural beauty.

The first national parks, the Peak District, Snowdonia and Dartmoor, were created in 1951, as the seventieth anniversary rolls around Give has ordered a review to be led by former Conservative Party aide Julian Glover.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph last week Mr Gove said it was ‘time to look afresh' at these iconic landscapes with a view to making ‘sure they are not only conserved but enhanced for the next generation’.

You would need to be a true cynic not to have your heart lifted by landscapes that have been inspiring artists and everyone else since the Enlightenment. The trouble is when it comes to Tory environment policy in general and pretty much everything involving Michael Gove; a little bit of me will always be profoundly cynical.

The Tories talk a good game on the environmental, not least because it plays into the ‘blood and soil' patriotism of members in the shire counties once described by David Cameron as the ‘turnip Taliban’. When it comes to delivering anything tangible they tend to be found wanting.

Their enthusiasm for fracking and the expensive white elephant that is HS2 knows no bounds, New Labour may have had form when it comes to selling off school playing fields to developers, but the Tories have hardly donned armour to protect them since 2010.

As for the perennially busy Mr Gove, he is the archetype of a politician in a hurry. Why waste time with half measures when you can charge at an issue head on? Particularly when doing so might help with the great (to him anyway) of seeing our hero standing on the doorstep of Downing Street.

What really worries me though is that the wrong problem is being addressed. It would be cause for air punching joy if any government were to create more national parks, they aren’t perfect, but they do protect landscapes that are a public good from being exploited.

The real issue is protecting those green spaces that aren’t as photogenic as Dartmoor or the Cairngorm’s, but matter hugely to the communities that use them. These are the places most threatened by drive the regeneration of areas facing economic challenges by building executive housing.

The thinking behind this is that all it takes is a ready supply of detached houses and investment will follow, except for when it doesn’t of course. Needless to say, the shortage of affordable housing is ignored by this ‘if you build it they will come' approach.

We need, desperately, to build the right sort of houses in the right places, with decent transport links and amenities. Gobbling up the wood at the end of the road or the scrubby bit of field where people have walked their dogs since forever to build a pocket estate of executive boxes will be of benefit to nobody.

In fact, it is hugely damaging to communities that have used these spaces for decades and risk along with being made more cramped and polluted as a result. It shouldn’t surprise anyone outside Whitehall that such spaces tend to get developed in areas that are already facing serious challenges.

The idea behind creating the national parks back in the fifties was that access to the countryside with all the benefits associated should be for everyone. In the spirit of which we should fight for every green space as a common good that should be held in trust for those to as much as those landscapes deemed iconic.

We may not always win; but it would send a powerful message about what we value and how we want to live.

Stress is proving seriously bad for the health of our society and the economy.

Stress is an issue of growing concern for policy makers, a report published by the Mental Health Foundation shows the extent of the damage it is causing to our national health.

The report based on a YouGov poll of 4169 UK adults shows that 74% of the respondents said they had been so stressed in the past year they found it difficult to function.

The causes of stress are multiple and complex, ranging from major life events to multiple minor annoyances.

Amongst those cited by respondents coping with their own long- term illness or that of a relative was a major cause of stress in the over 55’s (44%).

Young people report high levels of stress associated with feeling pressure to be or appear successful (60%) and constantly comparing themselves to others (49%).

Debt was cited as a cause of stress by 22% of respondents along with worries connected to housing. Younger people were significantly more stressed about this issue (32% of 18-24 year olds), the older people get the less of a concern it appears to be, 22% of 44-54 year olds were stressed about housing and by age 55 this falls to 7%.

In general stress seems to be a problem that inversely affects younger people with only 7% of respondents in the 18-24 age group saying they never felt stressed compared to 30% of older ones.

Conditions in the workplace also feed the UK’s problem with stress, figures produced by the Health and Safety Executive(H&SE) for 2016/17 show 526,000 instances of stress related absence. Public sector workers are more likely to take time off sick due to stress with tight deadlines and lack of support from management being given as the main causes.

A report produced by the Centre for Economic and Business Research in 2017 gives the annual cost to the UK of time off taken due to stress as £18billion, saying the problem has increased dramatically since 2011 and could cost the economy £26 billion by 2030 if nothing is done to address the issue (Source: Personnel Today).

Stress can be helpful in controlled amounts because it helps us to be alert and maximizes performance in the short term. Experienced for long periods it can exacerbate or cause serious physical and mental health problems.

This can include damaging the body’s immune and digestive systems, it can also encourage unhealthy behaviours. Respondents to the YouGov poll spoke about eating unhealthily (46%) and drinking too much (29%) to try and cope with stress.

They also described the impact stress, which is not seen as a condition in its own right, has had on their mental health, 51% reported feeling depressed, 61% said it had made them feel anxious and 37% said they had experienced loneliness as a result of being stressed.

The report makes several recommendations for tackling the problems associated with stress. These include better support for public sector workers, mental health literacy training in schools and for employers to treat mental health in the workplace as a health and safety issue.

It also calls on health professionals to treat stress more seriously, there is still a residual scepticism as the ‘stiff upper lip’ school of medical thought continues to, if only implicitly, shape policy.

The most important recommendation the report makes though is that the government funds detailed research into the causes and prevalence of stress, focussing on the impact of welfare reforms.

Poverty in the classroom teaches us a painful lesson about inequality.

Classrooms across the UK are fast becoming the front line in the struggle to get by after almost a decade of austerity.

A report compiled by the Child Poverty Action Group and the National Education Union, based on a survey of 908 union members working across the education sector from nurseries to secondary schools reveals the extent of the problem.

It also highlights the increasing role played by teachers and support workers in picking up the slack as benefits are frozen and services cut to the bone.

Amongst the members surveyed 53% said they had dipped into their own pocket to subsidize books and stationary, one teacher quoted in the report said staff ‘regularly purchase clothing, food and supplies for students and their families’.

This includes sanitary towels and other hygiene products.

In addition, 13% said their school ran a low- cost food club and 16% said their school either ran a food bank or provided subsidized meals for students.

Access to a warm meal during the school day was an area of concern for many respondents, with children with disabilities or special educational needs and those from refugee families most at risk of missing out.

As one teacher put it ‘the bar has been raised, so some families who would have had free school meals no longer do'.

Over half the respondents (56%) said children entitled to free school meals are missing out because their parents are either intimidated by the bureaucratic process involved or fear they will be stigmatized as a result.

One respondent parents fearing their child would be ‘seen as a statistic:’ and so were missing out on nutrition vital to their development.

In general, 87% of the teachers surveyed said they believed that poverty was having a negative impact on their student’s education, with 60% saying the problem has got worse in the past three years.

The struggle to get by faced by families in poverty of living on low incomes has created a situation where many young people miss out on basic things like bring able to travel to visit friends or family, as one respondent said this is ‘heart breaking’.

Poverty experienced in childhood can have an impact on physical health and mental wellbeing that lasts a lifetime. This had been attested to by academic research going back for decades, to which this report only adds.

The only place where this truth does not seem to be self- evident is in the corridors of power. New Labour made limited attempts to address the problem but were hamstrung by a fear of appearing socialist; the coalition and the Tories have ignored it entirely.

Faced up to or ignored the problem of poverty and its social consequences still exits, there is a real risk that future generations will be seriously harmed along with the future stability of our economy and society.

We need to look beyond the shiny tech sector to solve the productivity puzzle.

We have record levels of employment and yet the UK lags behind Europe and much of the rest of the world in productivity.

When it comes to addressing the conundrum of why British workers produce less than their French and German counterparts the default setting of most politicians is to talk about technology as the solution. Partly, you suspect, because they like being photographed with the latest piece of space age kit almost as much as they do bring snapped walking around a hospital.

A year long research project carried out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) suggests we should be looking elsewhere. The real productivity problem lies with low waged sectors like hospitality and retail.

This isn’t a reflection on a lack of investment or any deficiency in the skills of workers. It is a result of how staff are used and the problem that has dogged British industry for decades; poor management.

Low productivity, described in an editorial written for Prospect magazine by Rain Newton Smith and Ashwin Kumar as the ‘most intractable problem’ faced by the UK doesn’t just hit the profits of corporations, it drives down wages and living standards too.

Government responses, they write, has tended to focus on the ‘shiny and new frontier firms' at the economy’s cutting edge. Important stuff no doubt, but it misses the point.

There are and always will be more people doing, allegedly, mundane jobs than brilliant innovators. A balanced economy with a sense of purpose values both because both are necessary.

A few companies, Newton Smith and Kumar cite cosmetics retailer Lush and the nation’s favourite pie seller Gregg’s, as examples of employers who are working to ‘improve staff skills and wages, keeping them motivated and adding value to each store.

The majority though take the fork in the road marked ‘Taylorism’ with its relentless micromanagement and deadening imperatives to make humans act like robots. This, as our flat lining national productivity shows, hasn’t been a success; more to the point any limited benefits gained haven’t been shared with workers.

This is a reprise of an old, old story in British industry, frantic and frankly pointless bean counting on a voyage to the narrowest of horizons. Having been cut out of the loop when it comes from profiting from working harder you wonder not so much at employees being demotivated so much as that they continue to make anything more than a token effort.

The JRF recommend that any future interventions aimed at improving productivity must benefit workers as well as their capital owning bosses. They also call for better management practices and less use of casual labour.

It has taken a Conservative Party constitutionally disposed to think having an industrial strategy is the first step towards Communism an age to come around to the idea that the UK needs one.

Now they have with the shadow of Brexit hanging over the economy it needs to be written with the findings published by the JRF in mind. If that doesn’t happen we risk slipping into an economic backwater and a dangerous political crisis.

Record numbers of people using food banks a new report for the Trussell Trust shows.

The Trussell trust says that it distributed 1,332,952 three- day food parcels between April 2017 and the end of March, a 13% increase on last year. Out of these 484,026 were given to children.

The trust operates 428 food banks around the UK, serving an average of 666,476 unique users every year, most of whom visit at least twice.

A report published by the Trussell Trust in April, ‘Left Behind: Is Universal Credit Truly Universal?, based on a survey of 248 people using their food banks shows the impact of the initial wait to claim Universal Credit and the failure of payments to cover the cost of living on individuals and households.

Amongst the other reasons for using a food bank given by respondents were low income (28%), debt (9%) and benefits delays (24%). All these show significant rises over the past year.

As a whole the number of people using food banks has risen by 52% in the year following the year since the roll out of Universal Credit began.

Launching the report Emma Revie, the chief executive of the Trussell Trust spoke about the challenges people using their food banks face, including illness, unemployment and family breakdown, saying ‘as a nation we expect no one should be left hungry’, adding that ‘we owe it to each other to make sure sufficient financial support is in place for those who need it most'.

The charity is calling on the government to ‘uprate’ Universal Credit so that payments meet the cost of living and for councils to offer more support to people who are struggling.

Emma Revie said Universal Credit was the ‘future of our benefits system' and as such it was ‘vital’ the government got it right to prevent further suffering for vulnerable people.

There is no doubting the good work done by the Trussell Trust and its many volunteers in communities across the country. It is though worrying that they take such a, perhaps unconsciously, defeatist attitude to Universal Credit.

Far from being, as Emma Revie suggests, the ‘future’ of the benefits system it seems like an attempt to drag welfare policy back into its dark and troubling past. The sour faced suspicion and institutional cruelty are painfully redolent of Victorian workhouse committees.

This isn’t a bold new approach to dealing with the long -standing problems of economic inequality, let alone the fresh challenges automation will bring. It is, at best, an exercise in playing to the lowest political denominator on the unthinking right; at worst, it could be the driver of the sort of right wing fundamentalism.

What is needed is some real fresh thinking. The sort that looks beyond the five- year political cycle and asks questions that can only have troubling answers.

Questions like is it time to move away from the orthodoxy that says the market has a solution to every problem and is the Protestant work ethic now doing us more harm than good?

This will not be an easy process and every group that takes part will see some of its cherished standpoints if not overthrown then certainly cast in an unflattering light. If we ignore it though, then as the rise in food bank use shows, inequality will continue to grow and with it the threat to our democracy.

The government must deal with the shortage of CAMHS psychiatrists if it is serious about helping children living with addicted parents.

This week the government pledged to pump an extra £6million into helping the children of parents who are struggling with dug or alcohol addiction get support.

There are currently 200,000 children of addicted parents in the UK according to charity the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).

Figures produced by the NSPCC for 2016/17 show that their helpline received on average 200 calls from the children of parents with substance abuse problems, a rise of 30% from 2015/16. A third of the children referred to the police or local council safeguarding teams were aged between one and five and 581 were less than one year old.

In a statement on the charity’s website John Cameron Head of Helplines for the NSPCC said ‘every child should be able to grow up in a home where they feel safe and supported. The sad fact is that many young people are being deprived of this simple right due to one or both their parents abusing drink or drugs’.


The charity provides support for families in this situation through its Parents Under Pressure programme, which helps parents with addiction or other issues to develop secure and healthy relationships with their children.

Announcing the extra funding on Monday Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC, ‘these measures will ensure thousands of children affected by their parent’s alcohol dependency have access to the support they need’.

The funding will come jointly from the Department of Work and Pensions and the Department of Health and Social care. Local authorities will be able to bid for a share of £4.5million to use to help speed up referrals and cut the number of children going into care.

Also speaking to the BBC Labour MP Jon Ashworth, himself the son of an alcoholic, welcomed the funding as a ‘real breakthrough’, adding that it was a ‘huge step forwards for Britain’s innocent victims of booze’, going on to that the children of parents who drink to excess can ‘end up scarred for life’.

There is no doubting that alcohol addiction is a real problem with around 9% of men and 3% of women showing signs of alcohol dependence and the NHS recording 6592 alcohol related deaths in 2013 (source: www.drinkaware.co.uk).

It is also clear that, as John Cameron of the NSPCC says, ‘vitally important for the wellbeing of the whole family’ that parents struggling with addiction can get treatment and their children are able to access support.

The problem, as all too often in government interventions in mental health policy, that good intentions are not backed by adequate resources. In real terms £6million is a comparatively small amount of money being handed out to address a problem requiring a much larger investment.

As for councils bidding for a share of £4.5million to improve support for children of parents with substance abuse issues any funding is better than nothing. However, the small slices of this budget they are likely to win will not plug the gap left by the drug and alcohol services many have been obliged to cut to the bone as part of the relentless demands of ‘austerity’.

The other area what is, essentially, little more than an eye- catching announcement, fails to address is the shortage of psychiatrists trained to work with children and the general demoralization of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) workforce, which has been haemorrhaging staff for several years.

Figures released by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) earlier this year show that in some parts of the country there are fewer than four CAMHS trained psychiatrists for every hundred thousand children. A problem partly fuelled by government intransigence over recruiting from overseas.

Dr Bernadka Dubika, Chair of the college’s Child and Adolescent faculty said in a press statement, short staffing in CAMHS services is no secret, we are already struggling, and the government’s own Green Paper Impact Assessment predicts a rise in referrals’, adding that ‘recruiting from overseas is key to quickly recruiting more qualified doctors specializing in children’s mental health’.

The RCP has called for CAMHS trained psychiatrists to be added to the Home Office’s ‘shortage occupation list’, which gives priority to recruiting priority areas that cannot be sourced from within the EU.

Children of parents with substance abuse problems are over-represented in the 10% of children aged between five and sixteen who have a mental health condition, 70% of whom according to the Children’s Society do not receive and an adequate or timely intervention. This is vitally important because as research conducted for the Mental Health Foundation shows 50% of enduring mental health problems are established by the age of fourteen.

Policies move in and out of fashion, at the moment thanks to media prominence and the involvement of the funkier members of the royal family, mental health is something every politician seeking some good PR wants to be associated with. For a subject often surrounded by stigma and awkwardness this is a good thing because it breaks down barriers and gets people talking.

The problem is that taking meaningful action will cost money and may take longer than the political cycle feels comfortable with. Any extra funding is helpful, but it does not compensate for the exhaustion of CAMHS staff of all grades who feel stretched to breaking point.

All children who are struggling with their mental health, for whatever reason, deserve access to adequate services when they need them. If that doesn’t happen, then as Jon Ashworth, a man who knows from hard experience says; they risk being ‘scarred for life’.