The Childhood Lottery

Do you know where it will be available to read Magenta?

So what’s new about that?
Has someone just realised that life is indeed a lottery?

Smileless2012 It has already been reported in the Observer but I expect a fuller report will be available on several other platforms when it comes out tomorrow.

There is also a Children's Commissioner website.

I absolutely agree Oreo but I think that if this report goes towards helping disadvantaged children it is a good thing.

Of course it's a lottery but some people are born with lots of tickets in the draw and some have very few. I've come across people who think they are better than other people when in fact they have just been given a much better chance to succeed in life.

foxie48

Of course it's a lottery but some people are born with lots of tickets in the draw and some have very few. I've come across people who think they are better than other people when in fact they have just been given a much better chance to succeed in life.

I agree!

Anything we can do to “share” these lottery tickets more fairly and evenly has to be a good thing.

That’s what universal healthcare and education for all was meant to do, make life more fair but short of becoming a Communist country ( that didn’t work either) I really don’t see what any government can do.

I don't think universal healthcare or education was meant to make life more fair, why do you think that? Oreo

Surely it’s obvious?
Before the NHS was created seeing your doctor cost money.
Education for all children was to give even very poor children an advantage, reading and writing and an all round education gave them better chances in life.

Oreo

That’s what universal healthcare and education for all was meant to do, make life more fair but short of becoming a Communist country ( that didn’t work either) I really don’t see what any government can do.

So do you think that governments we have lived with have doe everything they could to make life more fair for everyone? That we have reached the limit on what could be done?

Sorry, that should have been 'more fair', rather than just 'fair'.

I think one of the main points of the survey is to see just how "universal" services are by comparing different areas in England.

I put this story up yesterday in news and politics.

mol.im/a/16218723

It’s tge full article from the DM.

Magenta8

I think one of the main points of the survey is to see just how "universal" services are by comparing different areas in England.

Yes that is correct. Some areas in the U.K. are doing particularly badly and these are highlighted, as well as those doing well.

With such glaring inequalities for children from deprived areas our society will always suffer from generational unemployment and rising crime stats, instead of enjoying a society where all children are given a chance to contribute and feel worthwhile.
It is good for all of us to have a country that is more equal.

petra

I put this story up yesterday in news and politics.

mol.im/a/16218723

It’s tge full article from the DM.

Sorry, it wasn’t obvious as to what the link was about.

The DM article reads as though blame is being placed on local authorities for these failings. I doubt if Dame de Souza means it to be interpreted that way, but until we accept that it is primarily a result of government economic policies we will do very little to enable change. Who, after all, allocates the money to LAs? Who, for example, has accepted high regional unemployment as a cost of destroying industries and making no effort to replace them? Who has reduced real terms spending on education over the years? National government, not local.

Maizie is absolutely correct. Not only is central govt responsible for allocating the funding, the widespread introduction of academies, which are funded directly by central govt means that local authorities have been stripped of the funding required to offer valuable support services to those schools that are not an academy. In many areas there are no or few advisors to help schools which are failing or could be prevented from failing their students if they had a bit of specialist help. This also applies to services like safeguarding, special needs and all the curriculum areas. In addition, schools have had to find much of the money needed to pay salary increases and the apprenticeship levy and once a school starts to suffer a falling roll, then even more money is sucked out of it's budget.

Children are not little clones, the same number of lottery tickets, small or large are only half the story. The other half is what is done with the tickets. We all know those who the odds against the odds and those with a handful of winning tickets who waste every one.

Line up 10 children for a race, identical age, size, weight and shoe size, They will not all arrive at the finish line at exactly the same time.

I think that looking at this is the terms of a 'lottery' is nonsense. Winning a lottery is pure luck. It doesn't depend on any way on the effort put in by the winner. All they have to do is enter the lottery.

Children aren't voluntary entrants to this 'lottery' ( if we have to frame life chances in this way) They are born into it and indeed where they end up is a matter of sheer luck. We should be able to do better than just shrug our shoulders and say that 'that's life'.

We should at least be able to try to ensure that, to use another metaphor, they all start on a level playing field and level playing fields are dependent on the effort put into them to level them and keep them level.

Someone said earlier that we have the NHS and free education, what more can governments do? But both of these contain large bumps which prevent people achieving good health care and education; those bumps being the result of government action in withholding the funds needed to run both effectively and accessible to all.

We have to make up our minds. Do we want a state which cares enough for its citizens to focus its resources and its spending power on promoting health and a decent education (and other vital services such as justice and observation of the rule of law) for all or do we want one where the weak and disadvantaged are left to sink?

Anyone who has studied social history will know that we suffered hundreds of years of the latter and we enjoyed an all too brief 'blip' in this reality in the post WW2 period when then 'state' was determined to change the status quo. Implementing as best it could the Beveridge report's attempt to deal with the 'giant evils' of want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness. I know this is boring repetition, but Thatcher put a stop to that as fast as she could and we struggle on with the results...

“ Anyone who has studied social history will know that we suffered hundreds of years of the latter and we enjoyed an all too brief 'blip' in this reality in the post WW2 period when then 'state' was determined to change the status quo. Implementing as best it could the Beveridge report's attempt to deal with the 'giant evils' of want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness. I know this is boring repetition, but Thatcher put a stop to that as fast as she could and we struggle on with the results...”

Well said MaizieD

Mind you, I'm not too sure about the 'giant evil' of 'idleness'. I think that could well be interpreted these days as voluntarily lolling about on benefits (not to mention giant TVs, smart phones and nail bars) and not bothering about finding work.

I suspect that, writing in the late 1930s, Beveridge was talking about involuntary unemployment (caused, needless to say, by the Great Depression resulting from the greed of the wealthy...)

Yet another report.

The more things change. The more things stay the same. Vested interests rule the roost.

May be good intentions behind some of these reports. And sometimes a few things may be acted upon.

However, they are just a temporary distraction to be tolerated and will quickly sink without trace.

Politics right now is purely transactional with no consideration for actual people and their lot in life. This has been gradually taking root in the UK since the late 1970s when Thatcher destroyed the primary and secondary sectors with no thought for the communities who depended on said sectors, privatised national assets and deregulated big business. Together with Reagan a new world order was spawned that would reward the already rich and punish the poor, set to extend the gulf between the two until social mobility became impossible.
The political quagmire we suffer now is down to this. Rectifying it has been too tall an order for any government so we are stuck and voters know this, but they are led to believe it is down to illegal immigration or benefit scroungers. It isn’t. It is down to a political system that allows a trickle up of money from the bottom to the top rather than the trickle down that was promised.

In fact, it's more like a flood upwards than a trickle.

Then people defend the wealthy

I think 'idleness' meant that with no work and no money people were left with no form of activity and sitting around all day with nothing to do is damaging to the mind and body. This was enforced idleness, not chosen idleness.