Desire to create underclass causes poverty in UK: Analyst

Rodney Shakespeare

The problem of poverty in the United Kingdom is rooted in an “old class system which seems to have a deep-seated need to create an underclass,” says a political analyst.

Rodney Shakespeare made the remarks Sunday when asked about a report in The Independent that showed UK child poverty was worsening as many pupils had no means to continue education.

The report cited a survey of 8,600 teachers by the National Education Union (NEU) which showed students’ ability to learn had been undermined by lack of equipment as well as proper food and clothes.

More than a third of teachers reported bullying of children in UK schools because of hunger or ill health as a result of poverty, a fact more than half of the teachers confirmed existed in schools across the country.

The teachers said pupils were reluctant to attend schools in non-uniform days as they were noticed and shamed by their classmates.

“It is absolutely astonishing that the world’s fifth largest economy is suffering an extraordinary level of poverty, in which one-fifth of the population is in poverty and of that, five million children are in poverty,” Shakespeare told Press TV.

“It is disgraceful that the UK is now a society in which everybody lives in poverty and reasonable needs, for example, the basic needs, physical needs for the education of children are not being implemented.”

“At the heart of this really lies the old UK class system which seems to have a deep-seated need to create an underclass so that others who are snobbish and insecure themselves can feel better,” he added.


Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Press TV News Roku