General Chat

What a load of bull!!!!
I am overweight am not poor. I own my own house outright. Claim no benefits whatsoever, live within my means.

I live in one of the poorest borough of London (Greenwich) in Plumstead, which is part of Woolwich. Greenwich is not all like the pretty Greenwich town centre!!!!

Once again hit the poor, whilst they are highlighting their 'problems' and others waste time agreeing with them, this a good way to hide bad news yet again.....

I think the Parliamentary Under Secretary will get a lot of stick. I think they talk about trends, probabilities, macro things. Whereas we talk about Joe in Bognor, how the welfare/education system is letting Alice down, micro things.

I have no problem with a Government statement like poor areas have more obesity. I feel sure as a rule of thumb for planning initiatives it is right. People in poor areas are generally not as active, eat cheap food which is full of fat and salt. And have more heart and mobility problems from an earlier age.

My county is one of poorest in UK, and if they targetted these Valleys with programmes about how to shop for healthy, economical food and how to cook it. And perhaps tied that initiative into food banks and anti smoking and drinking campaigns and subsidised cooking equipment, we would start to see an improvement in health.

Well known that a very large estate in next county has an average age of male death of 58. 58!! In 2013. Women live as old as 61 on average. :-( :-(

At least, not a drag on pension budget :-(

...Apparently, many governments are under the impression that any woman who isn't married and has children is a feckless teenager. Totally ignore the fact that:

a) It takes two to make a baby, so where's the other party?
b)They aren't all teenagers
c)They may have been married and it's their spouse who's feckless

Many people believe that children who are entitled to free school meals (ie from poor families - particularly single parents) are the same ones who receive extra help, at school. Not necessarily so!!

As for being influenced by the Japanese - I think he already is!! Unless you can afford a decent pension, aren't we 'poorer' members of society (for poorer, read 'normal') meant to work until we drop??

In the UK the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State responsible for Public Health has said It is easy to identify the poorest people in society because many of them are overweight or obese.

Is the Under Secretary of State suggesting that there a lot of Government Ministers and MP's who are poor ;-)

In Japan their 72 year old Finance Minister has claimed that the elderly should "hurry up and die" to help ease the cost to the taxpayer of caring for them, does that include him ;-)

Lets hope the Japanese Finance Ministers comments don't give our Chancellor George Osborne and our Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Ian Duncan Smith any ideas :-(