In the Guardian today Aditya Chakrabortty reports on people in the United Kingdom forced into a choice of stealing food or going hungry, in this example with an 18 month old child to feed.

Lucy Hill, a 35-year-old mother from Kidderminster had her disability benefits stopped because she missed an interview at the Jobcentre.

She missed the interview. Her benefits were stopped. She had no money to live on so she stole a chicken and soap powder from a local shop. This action resulted in her going to court and having to pay £200 in costs and compensation, probably putting her further into the deep, dark hole that she’d been dropped into by the Jobcentre.

This story is shocking in 21st century Britain and a story about people being forced into a choice of starvation or criminality should be consigned to Dickens novels or Victorian-era history books.

What will shock you more is that in 2013 individual Jobcentres were being measured on how many “sanctions” they give to benefits applicants.

Allow me to translate for you. To be sanctioned means “no, you can’t have your benefits money for a number of weeks”

There is a league table of competing centres trying to meet a threshold of applicants that are denied money. Of course the Government is “concerned” and has launched an investigation into such behaviour. Welcome to life in austerity Britain.

A quote from a leaked email from a Jobcenter manager:

“Our district manager is not pleased … because senior managers are under pressure to improve our office output and move up the league he has to apply some pressure downwards.” She continues: “Guys, we really need to up the game here. The 5% target is one thing – the fact that we are seeing over 300 people a week and only submitting six of them for possible doubts is simply not quite credible.”

These stories serve to reinforce the prejudicial association between poverty and morality. In Britain today if you are poor, somehow this is your own fault because of your morality.

Lets quote a comment from todays Guardian article:

After missing an interview at the jobcentre..that’s her fault, not the governments! As for feeding children, that’s what family allowance is for!

I’m know nothing about Laura Hills story except what I’ve read today. I have no knowledge about prior criminal convictions, her morality or why she is on disability benefits.

But in the absence of any other evidence shall we assume that given a choice she would prefer NOT to have to claim benefits for her disability. Or that given a choice that day she wouldn’t have WANTED to miss her interview at the Jobcenter.

Given what we do know — that she has a disability, that she has a 18-month old child, that getting to an interview on a bad day might be a problem. If the child is distressed or her disability causes her transportation problems.

Is it morally right to put her in a position where she makes a choice between stealing food and not being able to feed her family.

Our media in Britain sends us a message that poor is equal to immoral. Look at Channel 4's “Benefits Street”. From Wikipedia

Benefits Street is a British documentary series broadcast on Channel 4. It was first aired on 6 January 2014, and ran for five episodes. The show was filmed by documenting the lives of several residents of James Turner Street, Winson Green, Birmingham, England, where newspapers including the Daily Mail and The Guardian reported that 90% of the residents claim benefits. It shows benefits claimants committing crimes, including a demonstration of how to shoplift, and portrays a situation in which people are dependent on welfare payments and lack the motivation to seek employment. The show was controversial, with the police, Channel 4 and the media regulator Ofcom receiving hundreds of complaints. There were Twitterdeath threats made against the residents of the street. Channel 4 was accused of making poverty porn. Many of those taking part claimed that they were misled by the documentary makers. Ofcom launched an investigation into whether the programme had breached the broadcasting regulations, but ultimately concluded its rules had not been broken.

You don’t have to go too far to find other examples in Television or print media. Living in poverty has an association to immorality.

I support #OccupyDemocracy — a grass-roots movement dedicated to forcing dramatic change in our country. By holding the government and media to account we can start to reverse austerity and address the huge inequality in Britain today.

We need a democracy that works for everyone in the UK, not just the wealthy 1%

Find out more at www.occupydemocracy.org.uk or follow @OccupyDemocracy on Twitter