Paws @ Number 10: Where's the beef? @ No. 10

With all the horse-meat kerfuffle going on, Arturo and I have been busy examining every morsel of meat from both the No 11 and No 10 kitchens. Arturo swears he sniffed a whiff of horse-meat from the spaghetti bolognese leftovers put out for me by the cook!! But to cut to the chase, as they say! And I don't mean a steeplechase either! It isn't just beef that's occupied our minds, no siree!

On Valentine's Day, I perused the Guardian and spotted a letter from several academics. They had written about 'Child poverty measures'. What they wrote made both Arturo and me sit up. They wrote:

Tomorrow marks the end of the consultation period for the government's proposals to measure child poverty in a new way. Several of us, fellows of the British Academy, with colleagues, have responded, pointing out the ways in which the proposals are confused and would meet neither the government's objectives nor international standards.
We agree that as well as tracking how many children are in poverty as currently measured, it is helpful to track what is happening to the factors that lead to poverty and the barriers to children's life chances. But it does not make sense to combine all of these into a single measure. To do so would open up the government to the accusation that it aims to dilute the importance of income in monitoring the extent of "poverty" at precisely the time that its policies will be reducing the real incomes of poor families. We call on the government to reconsider its proposals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/14/child-poverty-government-measures

In the same edition of the Guardian, there was an article on the topic written by Amelia Gentleman. She wrote:

A consultation on how to measure child poverty more accurately that was launched last November, seeking input from charities and experts into "better measures of child poverty", comes to an end on Friday. The government believes that a wider definition of what constitutes poverty will give a better picture of what it means to "grow up experiencing deep disadvantage".

She quotes from the academics' letter and then goes on to add:

Professor Jonathan Bradshaw, the lead consultant on the UK's contribution to Unicef's Child Well-Being report, said he believed that the government was "trying to move the goalposts" at a time when child poverty was increasing rapidly.
He described the consultation document as the worst paper setting down government policy direction he had ever read, questioned whether it was written by civil servants and said it read more like it had been "plagiarised from a right-wing thinktank tract".

Further on, in her article, Amelia Gentleman writes:

In a speech to launch the consultation, Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, outlined his theory that other factors aside from money caused poverty, highlighting his concern about children growing up in "dysfunctional families".
He argued: "It cannot be right that experiences so vital to childhood, like seeing a parent go out to work or growing up in a stable family, are not reflected in our understanding of child poverty." He was critical of the Labour government's focus on "income as the significant cause and solution".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/14/child-poverty-ministers-downplaying-importance-income

"Ay! Ay!", Arturo said, "What's old 'Silent Man' Iain Duncan Smith up to? He may pretend he has one - but he's no 'bleeding heart' Tory! He cries crocodile tears!"

Arturo usually knows his onions! So I decided to look into the matter a bit more. I discovered that as far back as November 2012, Amelia Gentleman had been writing about this self-same issue. In the Guardian, at that time, she quoted several experts who had strong misgivings about the proposal to re-define 'child poverty'. She wrote:

Poverty-fighting charities have expressed unease about the government's argument that shortage of money is not the most significant cause of poverty, but the launch of the CSJ's research project is set to bolster the shift in thinking at the heart of government.
... Imran Hussain, head of policy at the Child Poverty Action Group, said he was not convinced that a better understanding of family breakdown was key to understanding poverty. "In other countries where you have less inequality, and decent benefits and good social protection, typically Scandinavian countries, then family breakdown doesn't lead to poverty."
... For Professor John Hills, an inequality expert at the LSE, it is simply a question of balance. "It is not that acute problems of addiction or family disruption are not major problems in people's lives and are not among the causes of people having low incomes; the problem is in suggesting that these are the main drivers."
He wondered if having a debate over poverty definitions would have a muddying effect, at a time when poverty levels are set to rise.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/28/child-poverty-debate-conservatives-analysis

Now, we know that the Coalition is not quite as cohesive as it once pretended to be. The LibDems and the Tories are both aching to win the Eastleigh by-election. Maybe, just maybe, the issue of defining child poverty will widen the gap. Who knows? If it doesn't - questions will have to be asked about how effective their 'softening approach' is on the 'hard-hearted' Tories!! Arturo thinks there's more mileage in the topic. I'm sure he's right.

Another little detail has exercised my mind, this week. It's not that I'm jealous, you understand! But - how come that lazy so-and-so upstairs - Larry - was chosen to receive a cuddly toy tiger from the London Zoological Society? And how did I get to hear of it? On Twitter!!!