Theft on the rise in British schools

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/education-43611527

Fortunately, the govt. is already well on the way to tackling this problem, having commissioned a report on how to impose military discipline in British schools.

The UK defines households earning £25,000 ($35,000) as "in poverty".

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

The UK defines households earning £25,000 ($35,000) as "in poverty".

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How is that relevant or even informative?

I mean, apart from your claim being wrong or at the very least misleading.

The article is about those "in poverty". It is entirely relevant to define what "in poverty" is.

It is neither wrong nor misleading. Those on $35k per annum in the UK are defined as being in poverty. In America I believe for a family of 4 the equivalent threshold is $25,000.

So, you're saying these families aren't poor, and these guys are filling their pockets with beans for a laugh?

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

The article is about those "in poverty". It is entirely relevant to define what "in poverty" is.

It is neither wrong nor misleading. Those on $35k per annum in the UK are defined as being in poverty. In America I believe for a family of 4 the equivalent threshold is $25,000.

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It's both wrong and misleading. The UK defines relative poverty--typically described as "low income"--as an equivalised household income below 60% of the median. That's because two households can have the same income while having drastically different living standards, eg. because one household has several teenaged children. The UK doesn't define relative poverty as an absolute figure. Even if it did, your number is not correct. In 2016/17, median household income in the UK, before housing costs, was around £25,700. Your claim is doubly wrong.

It is also irrelevant, because there are degrees of poverty, and those at the high end of relative poverty are probably not the ones stealing food from school because they're so hungry they look and feel sick. Your number says nothing about the distribution of income among those below the relative poverty threshold.

£25,000 < £25,700

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Originally Posted by Steely Glint

So, you're saying these families aren't poor, and these guys are filling their pockets with beans for a laugh?

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They are relatively poor yes. Whether they're too poor to afford food or they could afford food but prefer to spend their money on tobacco, alcohol and gambling rather than food is not demonstrated by the article.

fucking what

Despite smoking being very expensive, the lowest quintile of households by income have the highest smoking rates. Over 30% adult in the lowest quintile of income smoke. That's against a national average of 19%.
https://digital.nhs.uk/media/28831/S...k-eng-2016-rep

The lowest decile of households spend the highest proportion of their income on gambling.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...osable-income/

Struggling to find the figures for alcohol.

I find it appalling if people are putting tobacco etc ahead of putting food on their childrens plate. If poverty in this country was real the smoking rate for those in "poverty" ought to be zero. Real poverty exists outside this country and it is ridiculous to call what we have "poverty" when real poverty is something completely different.

You're a nasty piece of work, you know that?

Because I want people to feed their kids before their nicotine habit?

Because I've seen real poverty?

Because I'm grateful we don't have real poverty in this nation?

Why?

You read a story about kids going hungry and your first response is to be like 'yeah but what if the parents are buying tobacco instead of food for their children' apropos of nothing. Do you think poor children all have parents out of a Roald Dahl novel?

Sorry, that was your second response. Your first response was to post something totally irrelevant the level the government statistics use to measure poverty.

So, a sad story about children going hungry and two nasty, dismissive responses from you designed to a) change the subject and b) blame poor people.

That's why.

This is a Debate and Discussion forum not an Emo forum.

Aimless wasn't looking for an Emo response either which is why he used words like theft and discipline to draw a response rather than "how sad" or anything like that.

I can read between the lines. You can too so you can shove your high horse up your arse.

I'm glad everyone in this country gets the support they need to be able to afford food. I do find it sad some people don't. I find it sad that children suffer based upon the choices of their parents but am glad we as a nation provide free schooling and food at school to those who need it as well as financial support to their parents to be able to buy food at home ... whether they do or not.

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I find it sad that children suffer based upon the choices of their parents

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You're a nasty piece of work, you know that?

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You don't find that sad?

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Real poverty exists outside this country and it is ridiculous to call what we have "poverty" when real poverty is something completely different.

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Its called working poverty, and schools acting as a safety net for such things is not sustainable. Families where the parents are working 2 or 3 jobs and end up worse off than those who end up mooching off a benefits system, but to proud to take advantage of the system. You're looking at a slippery slope toward civil unrest, no matter how much you manage to turn your nose up at them while simultaneously sticking your head up your ass. Moralizing being a poor as a fault of the parent/family does absolutely nothing towards actually fixing the problem.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

£25,000 < £25,700

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Is £25,000 60% of £25,700? Is it, RB? Help me understand your thought process. When you attempt to calculate 60% of £25,700, do you arrive at £25,000? Do you?

Let's put aside the fact that the UK doesn't define relative poverty as a single fixed number for all households in any given year. Let's start with the basics. What is 60% of the median household income, which was approximately £25,700 about a year ago? What's the number, RB?

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

I can read between the lines.

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Look, before trying to read between the lines I think perhaps you should start by trying to read the lines.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

It's both wrong and misleading.

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:looks at your thread title and text:

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

:looks at your thread title and text:

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It can be argued that covertly taking food home from school constitutes theft, which is acknowledged by one teacher interviewed for the BBC article:

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Children are filling their pockets with food. In some establishments that would be called stealing.

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As for military discipline, that was a reference to this:

https://www.google.se/amp/metro.co.u...n-7434494/amp/


RB, meanwhile, made a factually incorrect claim about poverty in the UK.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

It can be argued that covertly taking food home from school constitutes theft,

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It's both wrong and misleading.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

It can be argued that covertly taking food home from school constitutes theft,

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It's both wrong and misleading.

Not really. What's more, the details can be easily found in the linked article, and the sarcasm is clearly apparent in the OP. There is no meaningful comparison, but if you insist on trying to make this inane point then, by all means, have at it. When you're done, the claim about poverty in the UK being defined as £25,000 will still be wrong and misleading, and the observation will still be irrelevant.

The way I see it, you set the tone. You've been setting this tone for a while now, and I'm starting to wonder if I need to start ignoring your threads the way I ignore Lewk's.

And no, there is no sarcasm apparent. It just looks like sensationalist lying to generate more thread-views. Which is one of the reasons I ignore Lewk's threads.

Fuzzy, I have no desire to take any responsibility for your inability to understand context, or your inability to understand the difference between being sarcastic--or even facetious--and sincerely espousing a belief in something that is factually incorrect. But sure, if it'll make you feel better, I can put more informative disclaimers in my OPs so that you don't feel a need to hijack threads to share your displeasure over whatever you imagine I'm saying. The subject of the thread is a BBC article about what some believe is an increasing number of increasingly poor children in some schools in some parts of the UK. Some of these children steal food from school. In unrelated but current news, the British government is looking into solving a number of problems by implementing military practices in some schools.

Also, having gone through my threads on the first few pages of this forum, I'm going to call bullshit on any suggestion that any more than a handful of those threads are deliberately misleading. A small number of them have less informative titles that are nevertheless easy to understand when you read the OP or the heading and subheading of whatever article they link to. If you believed I'd really started a thread trying to make you believe Facebook was announcing a decision to literally close a literal stable door, I can assure you that was not my intention, and if you don't believe me, there's nothing I can do about that.

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

And no, there is no sarcasm apparent.

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fucking what

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Originally Posted by Steely Glint

fucking what

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He was being sarcastic.

I figured it was a spin on how the US fires employees who buy lunches for poor kids.

But I was reading about the poverty problem in the UK only a few hours before hand.