35,000 children in Coventry and Warwickshire living in poverty - 'It's time we put the millions before the millionaires'

A shocking piece in today's ‘Coventry Evening Telegraph’ highlights the devastating poverty tens of thousands of children across Coventry and Warwickshire currently face. In the St Michaels area of Coventry, which Coventry Socialist Party Councillor Dave Nellist represents,  four out of every nine children are growing up below the poverty line

An angry Cllr Nellist said today:

"This report paints a disturbing picture of family life, and children's poverty, in Coventry in general and in St Michael's in particular, where children start their lives with all the odds stacked against them.

But this hasn't just happened overnight - successive governments have failed children, and put business interests before ordinary people. They have failed during the 'good times' to invest in jobs and homes, and now they wring their hands saying we can't keep as many children centres, youth workers, or public services because 'we've all got to make sacrifices'.

Children are the victims. They haven't caused the banking crisis. These shocking figures are an indictment of all politicians who want merely to manage or 'better manage' the crisis back to 'business as usual'!
Our country has become much more unequal with directors of the top 100 companies last year getting a 49% rise, whilst ordinary wages and benefits are cut. That's a country being run for the 1%, not the 99%.

I agree with the Director of Public Health, the key to lifting people out of poverty is more income and full employment.
But that won't happen without a radical change in policy. Instead of spending billions to bail out the banking system, we should be creating jobs and homes for all; putting the millions before the millionaires. The trouble is all three major parties tolerate poverty such as this, because to really change it would mean challenging the big business interests in whose favour the country is run."
 
Cllr Dave Nellist (Socialist Party, St Michaels)

see the full article here http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/2012/01/23/35-000-children-in-coventry-and-warwickshire-living-in-poverty-92746-30177344/#ixzz1kI9k0NxV

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