John Pilger: ‘I spoke to impoverished families in 1975 and little has changed since then’

26 November 2020 — John Pilger

John Pilger interviewed Irene Brunsden in Hackney, east London about only being able to feed her two-year-old a plate of cornflakes in 1975. Now he sees nervous women queueing at foodbanks with their children as it’s revealed 600,000 more kids are in poverty now than in 2012.

A British family from the film ‘Smashing Kids’, 1975. Photograph: John Garrett

When I first reported on child poverty in Britain, I was struck by the faces of children I spoke to, especially the eyes. They were different: watchful, fearful.

In Hackney, in 1975, I filmed Irene Brunsden’s family. Irene told me she gave her two-year-old a plate of cornflakes. “She doesn’t tell me she’s hungry, she just moans. When she moans, I know something is wrong.”

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NYT’s Kristof Blames Poverty on Too Many TVs, Not Too Little Money

31 October 2016 — FAIR

New York Times: Three TVs and No FoodThe New York Times‘ Nicholas Kristof (10/28/16) blames the United States’ 21 percent child poverty rate on people who buy too many television sets.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for giving “voice to the voiceless” on international social justice issues, wrote an op-ed in yesterday’s Times (10/30/16) arguing for increased government action on poverty. His calls for heightened attention to economic deprivation, though, were buried in a larger message that was familiar to longtime Kristof-watchers: that the poor aren’t actually poor because they lack enough money, but because of their own moral failings.

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Child Tax Credits: The Cruelest Cut

24 June 2015 — 38 Degrees

The government knows their plans to cut child tax credits will push more kids into poverty. So today they’re trying to cover it up – changing the definition of child poverty to hide the effects of their cuts. They’re panicking about official evidence showing that the number of children living in poverty in the UK has risen for the first time in a decade. [1]

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