ANOTHER VOICE

The immense implications of not giving Lisa three bears for Christmas

AUBERON WAUGH

Christmas in Grub Street means more than writing hysterical, fatuous and unin- formed articles about the dangers of alco- hol on the roads. It is also a traditional time for brooding about the poor. In other places and at other times — not just the brief ill-fated reign of Wenceslaus, Duke of Bohemia from 925 to 929 — it was even customary to do something about them. Perhaps few of our 16 million fellow- citizens who are claimed, by the poverty lobby, to be 'living in poverty or on its margins', would be grateful for a visit from well-wishers bringing them flesh, wine and pine-logs. Even so, I do not see that this releases us from our obligation to track down those people living in genuine pover- ty just as Good King Wenceslaus and his trembling page tracked a poor man all the way back to St Agnes' Fountain.

But that is not the fashion of the times. Instead, we celebrate Christmas by giving a free rein to all the poverty lobby pressure groups — of which Ruth Lister's Child Poverty Action Group is only the most strident — to overwhelm us with their special pleading. The first shot was fired in a full-page article in this week's Sunday Times by Tim Rayment. It was decorated by a huge photograph of a supposedly deprived six-year-old kiddy called Gary standing by a window of Christmas goodies: 'For most people this Christmas will be a festive spree fuelled by the highest ever level of incomes and spending power. In the past 20 years under successive governments the affluence of the majority has increased but the poor have grown poorer,' it starts.

Seventeen paragraphs further down, we learn that this simply is not true.

Calculations for the Sunday Times by the Institute of Fiscal Studies show that the real value of supplementary benefit is up 17 per cent since 1965. This means that not only are more people included in the statistics, but they can buy more now than they could then.

In other words, it is a lie to say that the rich have got richer and the poor have got poorer. Everybody has got significantly richer. Mr Rayment explains:

This, however, is not the whole story. The calculations also show that average wages have risen by a real 41 per cent in the same period. So the rest of the population has got richer much faster than the poor, and they are therefore relatively [my italics] worse off.

They may, in fact, be richer, but for the purposes of the poverty lobby they are poorer: 'Few researchers now measure poverty by assessing simple changes in buying power. Instead, they try to assess people's ability to participate in society.'

And who, one might ask, are these researchers?

`The relative gap has immense psychological implications,' says Ruth Lister, the Child Poverty Action Group's director. The more the average person is able to afford a particular Christmas present . . . the more painful it is to be poor.'

Rayment cites the case of an underpri- vileged eight-year-old called Lisa who has seen something called a Care Bear on television. When asked what she wants for Christmas, little Lisa says: 'I want about three Care Bears.'

Ooo. C000. What could be sweeter? What the poverty lobby is trying to do and what Grub Street in its laziness is prepared to allow — is to transfer the powerful images and strong emotions which have traditionally and quite correct- ly been associated with the word 'poverty' — destitution, physical hardship, hunger and cold, insecurity, dread, misery and despair — to cover the 'immense psycholo- gical implications' of a spoiled little brat who is not able to have three toy bears when she wants them. And the purpose of this exercise in sentimental pilgering is not to advance the material welfare of the poor, but to agitate for a society based on material equality.

I am grateful to Mr Paul Ashton, of the Department of Economic and Business Studies at Liverpool University, for point- ing out, in a letter to the Independent, that the official calculation of those 'living in poverty or on its margins', being based on supplementary benefit level plus 40 per cent, would include the couple with two children buying their own home with a mortgage of £25,000 on an income of £10,500. Ruth Lister's reply to that one was to draw attention to the number of people who do not claim means-tested entitlements — 'This must raise a big question mark over a social security system that relies so heavily on means testing.'

A bigger question mark raised by the Child Poverty Action Group's activities is whether, by ceaselessly exaggerating the extent of the problem, they are deliberate- ly discouraging anyone from tackling the real problem — or whether this is an accidental result of their good intentions.

Meanwhile, the pilgering continues un- abated, with assistance from every depart- ment of government anxious to add to its empire. Official figures show that 1.2 million homes in England and Wales are unfit for human habitation, one in 14 (3.4 million people) live in over-crowded condi- tions and about 900,000 in 'extremely overcrowded' conditions. At least this last description is defined. It means more than 1.5 people to a room. So the childless couple living in a large bed-sitter are `extremely overcrowded'. Tell that to the Russians. A home is unfit for human habitation when a local housing inspector finds that its windows do not open proper- ly, or it lacks a damp course.

And so we go on. Some people sincerely want to believe this pilgerish guff, which effectively prevents anything being done for those who really do live in unspeakable conditions, and allows a huge number of undeserving cases to benefit. But the greatest absurdity — one might even call it insanity — is revealed when one comes to examine the evidence for this widening gap between the rich and the poor since Mrs Thatcher came to power.

In 1979, they tell us, the average take- home pay of the married man with two children (at 1986 constants) was £100.56p for the poorest ten per cent, £195.52 for the richest ten per cent. In 1986, the average was £103.45 for the poorest ten per cent, £236.50 for the richest. Yes, indeed, it would appear that gap has widened. Now let us take a look at the actual gap. In 1979, the top ten per cent took home less than twice as much as the bottom ten per cent. In 1986, the top ten per cent take home less than 2.3 times as much as the bottom ten per cent. Can anyone, apart from a de- mented egalitarian extremist, claim that the gap is excessive? Rather, I should have thought, its smallness explains why Britain is going down the drain, why the Calibans are coming out on top. Another explana- tion may be found in Gary's answer to Mr Rayment's question of where money com- es from. 'It comes from Father Christmas,' he replied. Will anybody, ever, disabuse him?