What has gone wrong?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.guardian.c...oolchildren-breakfast

This is not a story from Dickens Victorian England, it is benefit Britain of 2012.

Are there really families going hungry, if so why?

[ummmm]

Yes, there are.

All the people who go on about benefit claimants having a flat screen TV and having 2 holidays a year are talking out the arris!

If that ^^^ were true...they are on the fiddle.

Benefits wouldn't even cover my food bill...let alone all the other bills.

[wolf63]

I rarely ate breakfast when I was at school and my parents were most certainly not starving us. I was just too lazy to get out of bed in time for school.

A lot of schools have breakfast clubs - it is a good start to the kids day.

[ummmm]

There was a programme on not so long ago about this subject. I can't remember the name....heart breaking though.

[wolf63]

I agree with ummmm in that people who are on benefit struggle to survive on their money. The people who seem to have all the modern technology whilst living on benefits are in the minority.

[ummmm]

Wolf - not having breakfast by choice is a completely different thing than not having it because you have no food.

[Hopkirk]

I bet a lot of these hungry kids have got parents who smoke, carrying iPhones and with Sky TV to watch.

[cathfromsaron]

many people on benefits indeed have many glossy chattels, but there is nothing to say how they were obtained, whether they are paid for in full or whether the credit can be afforded!

plus, i also see poorly dressed and underfed kids whose parents are working, on a low wage!

its all about priorities and sense in the end!

cath x

[anotheoldgit]

/// Benefits wouldn't even cover my food bill...let alone all the other bills. ///

You must eat a great deal or the wrong things.

How did people survive before the 'Welfare State' was introduced?

[emmie]

surely if the parents work, or perhaps are on benefits, which can be quite a lot with child, housing, council tax benefits, why should children be going hungry. Not in modern day Britain. I don't understand this, because we were a damn sight poorer than most, but never went hungry.

[craft1948]

They relied on their families to help them out..................or the workhouse.

[ummmm]

//You must eat a great deal or the wrong things.//

Please elaborate...

I will have you know that I do NOT eat the wrong things!

[daffy654]

As usual the people who have never had to survive on benefits are assuming that the money received is a huge amount. It isn't!

Nobody on basic benefits could afford a huge TV or holiday without having it bought for them by someone else.

[joeluke]

Just cos a kid has no breakfast before school doesn't mean his/her parents can't afford food

In a lot of cases it's probably just bone idle parents too lazy to make any breakfast

[emmie]

many families did go hungry, and yes there was the workhouse, but we don't have that system in place now, and thanks heavens, but i can't get my head round this at all

[ummmm]

Housing benefit and council tax benefit are not paid in cash. So they might have free accommodation, they still have food and bills to pay!

Can anyone remember the name of the programme I mentioned?

[cathfromsaron]

being in 'service' (being servants) andthe workho use, later being in the military and factories to fight the war, was mainly how poor people survived before the welfare state!

[emmie]

there has already been stories like this where in fact the schools have virtually taken over the parenting of children, because the parents have more or less given up.

[joeluke]

^ 'Nobody on basic benefits could afford a huge TV or holiday'...............

.......without working on the side to bump up their income

[factor-fiction]

I'm always amazed at how many turn up at school with large bags of crisps or big bars of chocolate and litre bottles of coke

[craft1948]

I'm surprised there's not more pensioners going hungry..................