22.18


People are poor because of their lifestyles; worklessness, family breakdown, bad parenting, drink and drug addiction, irresponsible debt, crime and lack of aspiration … All week expect that message to be blasted out by ministers trying to drown out Thursday's official poverty figures. **************The government's poverty mantras will echo through this week: personal failings are the cause; anyone who tries hard enough can get a job; Labour "threw money at poverty" with no result; the poverty measure is nonsense. ***************Nordic countries have all but eliminated poverty by pulling the bottom up towards the middle: it can be done.