Blog Action Day 2008: 2

Today I'm joining more than 9,000 bloggers in talking about poverty. I'm saying today, but around the world Blog Action Day 2008 the conversation has started already. You can see some of the posts linked here. But talking about poverty isn't just about heartbreaking stories about starving children in far away lands.

It's local and it's also about solutions. It's the guy outside M&S selling the Big Issue trying to earn a living. It's Citizen's Advice giving that vital help and hope. It's even volunteers helping children learn how to read. It's those and a thousand other stories.


During the recent problems in the banking system one sector of the finance industry has remained unscathed. Credit unions.

Credit unions don't rely on borrowing from banks or money markets. They don't buy up debt or loan books from other financial institutions. Risk is controlled very carefully. Members' interests come before profit and there are no shareholders. Credit unions operate simply, using the savings of their members to make loans to other members.

They are mostly run by volunteer members: for the community, by the community.

All credit unions exist in a limited environment called a Common Bond. It could be anything from a simple staff or union savings scheme, to larger service organisations serving a community like the excellent South Tyneside Credit Union.

Often, credit unions are a way for those who have been abandoned by the big banks to save and borrow sustainably. People have been helped out of the poverty traps of pawn shops, cheque cashing shops and doorstep loan sharks. They've avoided being ripped off by high street high interest electrical goods stores. Some even used credit unions a couple of years back to fill the funding gap after the collapse of hamper firm Farepak.

What's more, savings in credit unions are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme in the same way as deposits held in banks and building societies.

Anyone can have a credit union savings account, and at the minute you'd be daft not to. If you haven't joined one, you can find your local one now. As well as members, credit unions need volunteers, so if you've got some spare time and want to learn some new skills (or teach some of yours) your local credit union would like to hear from you.

South Tyneside Credit Union
Central Office,
119-121 Prince Edward Road,
Harton Nook,
South Shields
Tel (0191) 454 7677

Blog Action Day 2008: 1

Three years ago last July, I joined the thousands in the Make Poverty History event held in Edinburgh. The participants in the march around Edinburgh's historic city centre were from many backgrounds, a coalition of campaign groups, charities, religious groups, trade unions and individuals who wanted to try and make a difference. From babies to the elderly, and from most, if not all, ethnic backgrounds.

The sea of people in white walking down Princess Street was something to see with your own eyes, and be part of.

But it achieved fuck all.

There was some disappointment from many who thought, like me, that Bob Geldof's Live 8 hijacked the event, focussing media attention on the televised concerts and pretty people looking concerned. His event turned the eyes away from Edinburgh to the wealthy stars who arrived in jets and limos, performing in their designer gear to a crowd consisting largely of the label generation.

This wasn't helped by MPH's own little branding tool, the white band.

The reality is, that after the events, the world's governments got on with business as usual carving up the world for their wealthy benefactors.

Despite the disappointment and lack of global action, it doesn't mean we should give up. As well as global justice, there's poverty on our streets, in our faces. But our government don't care about these people. They don't invite you to posh dinners, contribute to election campaigns. Bejaysus - most of them don't even vote! MPH was one of those things which helped politicise me and realise that the current raft of the three 'grey' political parties really don't give a shit about anyone.


I'm lucky enough not to have experienced extreme poverty. Whilst our family was one of the many thousands to exposed to Thatcher's brutal and ruthless culling of traditional Tyneside industries I was young enough not to realise or not care that we were poor. Looking back, I'm under no illusions - despite some of the hardships we encountered we had food on our table and a roof over our heads. There were many people in South Shields and on our own estate much worse off than us.

The Thatcher era heralded a me, me, me UK which is still with us today, from the rich robber bankers to the feckless hoodies and chavs, to twats in 4x4s parking on pavements. This is as much as a poverty of ethics, expectations and responsibility. No such thing as society.

Now the world is experiencing a brief blip in it's economic fortunes, partly because of greed, partly because of stupidity and partly because of the strict adherence to the religion of free market economics. Many people in the UK will suffer, but the repercussions will fall the hardest on the developing nations as the developed nations reign in aid spending.

It's a disturbing irony that since MPH western governments have kept their hands and their cash in their pockets whilst developing nations struggled, yet quickly found money to throw at the financial system.

Blog Action Day is in a small way, with thousands of people, trying to keep the issue of poverty on the agenda. If we keep having the conversation, we won't be letting anyone forget.

Less well off language

An issue which almost slipped under the radar on David Miliband's 'keep the poor making the rich richer' Gazette article was his use of language.

Poverty is bad news, and the Labour spinners know it. So discussions of poverty have become clouded by obscurantist language. The phrase "less well off" is a classic example of an Orwellian euphemism, recognising that terms like "poor" or "low income" are taboo words which don't score enough happy voter points on the spin-o-meter. Grinding poverty gets a kind of 'glass half full' re-branding exercise.

It's all very doubleplusungood.