KIRSTI MURRAY:\u00a0 You cannot save a penny. Even if you save it, something comes up. Or, every week the shopping is getting dearer, you are living hands to mouth, it is ridiculous.<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE, REPORTER:\u00a0For almost 14 million people, this is the harsh reality of life in the United Kingdom. It\u2019s a country where the poor are getting poorer\u00a0<\/p>\n
JAN BOYD, EMS FOODBANK:\u00a0We are the sixth richest country in the world and we’ve got parents skipping meals so they can ensure their children get fed<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 And a divisive populist movement promising to pull old blighty out of its rut is rapidly gaining momentum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
NIGEL FARAGE:\u00a0 The government is deep in crisis!<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 People have lost patience with the political establishment in this country. They want something different.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ANAS SARWAR, FIRST MINISTER OF SCOTLAND:\u00a0 The leadership in Downing Street has to change<\/p>\n
KEIR STARMER, UK PRIME MINISTER:\u00a0 I will never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 We\u2019ve travelled to England\u2019s north to investigate whether Britain is broken and if it can be fixed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hull – a working-class coastal city in England\u2019s northeast. About half of the 200,000 residents here live in state housing including Kirsti Murray. She\u2019s lived in this small terrace for almost a decade with her teenage son who has a disability.\u00a0<\/p>\n
KIRSTI MURRAY:\u00a0 The past, I’d say the past two years it’s been hell because obviously we had COVID and then we couldn’t get a lot of things and then on top of that it’s now cost of living. Like I can’t go to like a food bank and rely on food from them because he’s on a restricted diet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 Are there weeks sometimes where you worry that won’t be able to afford food for you and your son?\u00a0<\/p>\n
KIRSTI MURRAY:\u00a0There’s been times when I’ve gone without, just to make sure that he’s been all right, because he’s my priority, as long as he’s fed, I\u2019m not bothered.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 The bitterly cold English winters are particularly hard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
KIRSTI MURRAY:\u00a0Generally as a rule I don’t put my heating on because we’ve got blankets, if it gets that cold, we’ll bring coats down or we’ll just literally sit in our beds and watch telly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 This area is considered the sixth poorest in the United Kingdom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JAN BOYD:\u00a0 The residents can come in here and take four items once a week for a pound.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 Jan Boyd has run this local food bank for almost a decade and says she\u2019s never seen things this bad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JAN BOYD:\u00a0 Probably over 50 per cent of children in the area are living below the poverty line. So if you’re below the poverty line you’re not going to be able to heat your houses and then you’ve got ongoing health issues as a result of living in cold homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We as an organisation shouldn’t exist. We should not need to be here and our partners around the city shouldn’t need to here because people should be able to heat their homes and feed their children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 The latest census revealed 21 per cent of people across the UK are living in poverty.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Without London, the UK\u2019s GDP would be lower than that of the US\u2019 poorest state \u2013 Mississippi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
PROF. STUART MCANULLA, UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS:\u00a0 We used to constantly tell audiences about our \u2026<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 Stuart McAnulla is a politics professor at the University of Leeds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
PROF. STUART MCANULLA:\u00a0So there was a feeling that in the 1980s, a lot of the economic steps that were taken then, which a lot people felt privileged the interests of finance in the centre of London, tax cuts that tended to favour the already affluent. and in the meantime, underinvestment in parts of the north.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 In 1970s the UK\u2019s manufacturing made up 30 per cent of the country\u2019s GDP.<\/p>\n
But throughout the \u201880\u2019s, under prime minister Margaret Thatcher, much of that industry moved offshore. Today it\u2019s just 8 per cent of the UK\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
There are other factors that have contributed to Britain\u2019s standard of living decline and the increase in poverty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UK productivity growth has slowed significantly since the 2008 market crash going from around 2 per cent annually to 0.6 per cent on average and there\u2019s been massive cuts to local councils and public services.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Real wages have gone backwards and that\u2019s combined with sky rocketing inflation post COVID and Brexit\u00a0<\/p>\n
STUART MCANULLA:\u00a0 I think you’re looking at the sort of economic impacts of deindustrialisation in parts of the north of England, people feeling that they’re losing out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 Here in London, the seat of power, the government is promising to increase the minimum wage, build more homes and invest in infrastructure to create more high paying jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Its conservative opponents are pledging to reduce taxes and end stamp duty. There is also a focus in that building on reducing the level of migration with the claim it will ease pressure on infrastructure as well as housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But you speak to political analysts and economists, and they\u2019ll tell you that the problems in this country are deep seated and for any politician to fix them they will need a lot of time but perhaps most importantly patience from their colleagues, other politicians, and the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there is a man promising a speedy fix – populist Nigel Farage who leads the Reform Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recent polling shows that the Labour government\u2019s support has collapsed and if an election was held in the UK tomorrow \u2013 Nigel Farage could become prime minister.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In recent months he\u2019s been recruiting MPs of the opposition conservative party including former shadow foreign minister Andrew Rossindell\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
ANDREW ROSSINDELL, REFORM UK MP:\u00a0 We\u2019ve been let down by both Conservative and Labour governments for so many years. We need a change, we need reform of our country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 Nigel Farage was one of the most high-profile supporters for Brexit, some people would say that the UK no longer being in Europe is part of what is driving up inflation.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
ANDREW ROSSINDELL:\u00a0The opposite is true. So what\u2019s happened is that since we\u2019ve left the European Union we\u2019re in control of our own laws again. When we were in the EU we had to do what we were told by Brussells, disaster\u00a0<\/p>\n
The idea that Brexit is the cause of our problems is absolutely wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 Reform\u2019s message seems to be cutting through in the UK\u2019s most deprived areas including Hull. Once a traditional Labour heartland, the city recently elected a Reform Party mayor – former Olympic gold medal boxer Luke Campbell.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LUKE CAMPBELL, MAYOR FOR HULL AND EAST YORKSHIRE:\u00a0 I personally think that people were fed up with politicians and they wanted something different. I’ve got a sporting background, I’ve no experience in politics and I was always very clear about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 Why did you decide to run as a Reform candidate?\u00a0<\/p>\n
LUKE CAMPBELL:\u00a0 I just thought it, as it was, it just won’t currently working and I think we needed something different and that was my choice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 But across town Kirsti Murray is doubtful any politician can make material change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
KIRSTI MURRAY:\u00a0 Until you’ve lived it, you don’t know. It’s alright making these promises, but they’re empty promises.<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 Some people have told us that they feel like Britain is broken, would you agree?\u00a0<\/p>\n
KIRSTI MURRAY:\u00a0 It is broken, and it’s not going to get any better.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ELIAS CLURE:\u00a0 Would you live somewhere else if you could?\u00a0<\/p>\n
KIRSTI MURRAY:\u00a0 I would move abroad if I could. I would literally pack up and go because it’s a walking nightmare.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KIRSTI MURRAY:\u00a0 You cannot save a penny. Even if you save it, something comes up. Or, every week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2307,45118,1294,59,57,58,4658,50,633,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-515825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-broken","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-gb","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-greatbritain","14":"tag-housing","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nigel-farage","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}