Impoverished Britain - UK

Jan 1996
'Newtown' just outside Birmingham is looking dirty, rundown and old. 50 % of its citizens are unemployed, living in grey towerblocks overlooking the urban devastation. The flats are poorly equipped with basic furnishings. All people can do is watch television. As the rich people get richer, the poor get poorer. Chris Pond from the Lay Pay Unit blames poverty and hardship on the Conservative Government's free market economy and their opt out from the social chapter. A tramp slumped on a bench with dirty blanket at his feet is a potent symbol of the such social deprivation. Loretta Matthews is surviving on £121 a week as a single parent with four children. Sometimes she cannot pay for her electricity and she has to sit in the dark. Or she sorts out her problems by drinking a bottle of brandy. In Newtown itself, iron shutters and boarded up windows have rePlaced the shops. No one has any money to spend. Irene, aged 40, is too afraid to walk on streets in case she gets mugged. Chris Pond feels ashamed to be British and grimaces at the thought that low wages in Britain might undermine the rest of Europe in its attempts to achieve some kind of solidarity.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Poverty
• UK
• London
• North
• Journeyman
• Pictures
• Thatcher
• Sqalor
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman
• journeyman pictures

[trippy119]

there are too many foreigners in the uk & too much white trash.all courtesy of this goverment, the place looks poor because of this & its full of people who dont give a shit anymore! no respect, no pride & real reason to posses either trait! britain is a class ridden hell hole, a society that works if you have "money" & can afford to live in the "posh" areas...yes there are worse countries to live in but that doesn't excuse the grotty,expensive cultureless, crime ridden hole the uk has become!!

[imonthebox]

@thedavewalkershow, I am 62 now and have also worked hard all my life, but your analogy comparing us with the third world is a nonsense.

[KevinJKtheman]

@hootskc "Wow...........this blows my fantasy of the quaint view of life in the UK." Your "fantasy" of the "quaint view" is just that, a FANTASY, which was centered around the middle class way of life, that way of life has been fast disapearing ever since the 1950s, and even then there was povery.

[sal8one]

lool....nathan and ashley...backaday.....

[trippy119]

@thedavewalkershow i get sick of people like you who compare western poverty to 3rd world poverty, ofcourse theres poverty in britain you moron, its called western poverty where people who work at he bottom of the social spectrum barely earn enough to cover they're basic needs, so are you telling me a family working for a minimum wage have any quality of life?! BULLSHIT!! coz it means having to live in an area where people piss in the street & bully ya kids, no car, no holidays..so wise up man!

[hootskc]

Wow...........this blows my fantasy of the quaint view of life in the UK.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck when they started talking about "trickle down effect". I don't live in the Uk and so can't speak on the effects of Margaret Thatcher.........but, if her "trickle down" policies were anything like President Reagan's, no wonder the U.K. is hosed. Ronald Reagan's policies destroyed the U.S. Middle class...we're still living with his ghost.

[Shukria123]

more riots!

[ScotteDio]

If you earn about minium & have over three kids, then you're going to be broke for rest your life. As an immigrant that became an American, I learn how manage my money, how to work "smarter".

[neonaction]

@thedavewalkershow You're just saying "I have money, fuck everybody else" Congrats.

[djbenjonson]

Lol I moved out in 97 right from where it was filmed, most of them were my neighbours. 13 years on and i run my own business and ahave a wonderfull woman and family living in london can't blame the area for that or was it the fact I needed to get away.

[hsard]

Is this video like form 20 years ago or is just the people that looks so damn badly dressed and outfashioned??