UK POVERTY & HOMELESSNESS IS A MYTH.

When I see the appalling conditions in which many people in the world have to live, I am disgusted by the regular complaints of supposed poverty and homelessness in the United Kingdom. With Christmas now only a couple of days away, the media is, as usual, filling space with reports of there being huge numbers of people living rough or just having a hard time, though they rarely tell us why these people are so afflicted. Why is this ?

For starters, there is little if any real poverty in this country. No one lives as they do in parts of Africa, where large numbers of people have neither food nor clean water, nor any way of accessing such essentials. Our 'homeless' have many organisations to turn to, as well as the government, and one has to wonder why they are where they are. Of  course, there are some genuine inadequates who are simply incapable of keeping a job or managing their lives. Some people have been discharged from long term mental health establishments with out receiving the support needed, but most are just indigent.

Immigrants who have travelled here without a job offer and find themselves without money can always go back to their own countries. Those with alcohol or drug addictions can always seek treatment; for those without jobs, there are always vacancies and 'beggars can't be choosers' when it comes to employment. I have no sympathy with the claimed plight of teenagers, reported to be 'sofa surfing'; where are their parents and other family members ?

In this country we seem to have forgotten that we are each responsible for managing our own lives. Sadly, the notion has taken hold that 'the State', or someone else, will forever look after us regardless of our own lack of effort. Drug addicts and alcoholics deny any personal responsibility for their problems and, instead, claim that their plight is the fault of the State, their parents, their lack of education or anything else they can think of. When they find themselves unemployable and on the streets, they whinge and whine until someone takes pity on them, but what do they do to help themselves ?

When I hear that there are 'tens of thousands' living on the streets of some of our major cities, as was claimed on the television today, I find it very hard to believe. Indeed, I don't believe it. Every time some television reporter interviews a supposedly homeless person, I ask myself why they are homeless, a question which is rarely, if ever, asked. The usual approach seems to be to find a few 'hard luck' stories and then to use these as the basis for wild claims of the extent of poverty and homelessness, none of which are ever properly substantiated.

When people talk of 'fake news', these are the kinds of stories I immediately think of.