Absolute Poverty - Thou Jesteth!

In a well-timed, political rant on some radio station I happened to overhear when out shopping yesterday, I listened to someone - presumably from one of the teaching unions - who was preaching how 'child poverty' is spiralling and has done so over the last few years.
He grossly overstated his dreadfully limited case and then insisted that considerable numbers of UK children are plunging into absolute poverty.
Let us be clear - there are virtually zero children in the UK who: have no access to medical or social care; who are borderline for starvation; who are not able to have schooling; who have no form of shelter. I could continue. We have no absolute poverty other than that caused by appalling parental neglect.
'Absolute' means absolute. The person politicising the issue, nicely in time for the General Election, by the way, was either being mendacious or does not understand the term he was using. (I suspected the former.)

In the UK, we have relative poverty but interestingly enough this comparative concept never makes comparisons with the Third World as this would show how ridiculous the arguments are.

I doubt any child in the nation (other than through parental neglect) has the same degree of poverty of the child my wife and I are currently sponsoring in The Third World!

Within our nation, sadly, relative poverty is a political con in the way it is misused by leftists.

If almost every family has an income of £100k +, by this definition, the family on £80k is living in poverty. Relative poverty.
The scam comes from the fact that somebody must always be earning the least in each and every society. Even if they are well off - even in the top 5% of income in the world by living in a wealthy nation - they may still be defined as living in poverty.
Do you wonder who gets to decide where the line is drawn between poverty and non-poverty in a wealthy nation? - I can explain that. Almost invariably, this will come from a left-leaning group or one of our more heavily politicised charities.

In the schools where I have taught: in pit villages and the back streets of Rotherham - there is zero absolute poverty.
Is there poverty of any sort? - If we, as a nation, have so many food banks then clearly, something is not right. But let us, at least, be honest about it!
Even having to use food banks, compared to the massive poverty of Britain in the 1930s, could be considered as not being in too terrible a state. And yes, Mrs Blogger and I do donate to well-run food banks.

I can think of a single woman with two sons, in a village where I used to teach, who, twenty years ago was getting £400+ weekly from the state.
She smoked and drank and bought 42 takeaway meals a week to feed the family.
The house was a slum by any definition. Are households of this type even in poverty, at all, we may ask?
No. Misuse of your life and incredibly poor control of money do not genuine poverty make! Increasing her benefits could not have helped.
Christians must take great care with their giving. If you give for the sake of it and do not look at the organisation you are donating to - you may be funding things from high salaries to poor administration, from ill-conceived projects to political movements.
Incidentally, Mrs Blogger and I have been unhappy with certain matters with TearFund over a period of time. In our humble view, there is now a politicising which cannot be ignored. We have redirected our giving.