PLATELL'S PEOPLE: A self-indulgent mother and the myth of 'starving' Britain

This week, a charity called Church Action On Poverty launched a poster campaign that says ‘Britain Isn’t Eating’, mocking the Tories’ famous 1979 election campaign poster ‘Britain Isn’t Working’ that helped Margaret Thatcher to victory.

This time, the charity claims, the long queues are not for the dole office, but for food banks. ‘Thousands are going hungry because of benefits changes,’ it protests.

I thought of those posters when I read the story of Katie McGill, a 28-year-old unemployed single mum.

Poverty UK? Katie McGill, 28, with her two children Mya-Renee, 3, and Calvin, 8, used money lending service Wonga to buy her Christmas gifts this year

In an interview this week, Katie claimed her benefits payments soon won’t leave her enough to buy food and basic necessities for her two children.

Another victim of ‘cruel Tory cuts’? Hardly.

This Christmas, Katie gave her two children Mya-Renee, three, and Calvin, eight, two new bikes, TVs, DVDs and numerous computer games — all paid for after she took out eight payday loans that have left her £3,000 in debt.

The result? The repayments mean she’ll have no money left over from her welfare cheques to feed her children. Another candidate for the food banks, then.

Now, I realise that not all families in need have been as foolish as Katie — and that there are thousands who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own, and who, with the cost of living soaring, are in genuine need. But I also suspect that there are a lot of self-indulgent and irresponsible fools like Katie.

Part of the problem is that the very definition of ‘poverty’ in the UK has become so blurred that it’s hard to know who’s genuinely in desperate need — and who’s just not as well-off as they’d like to be. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, for instance, there are 3.5 million children living in poverty in Britain — more than one in four of all children.

Common sense alone tells you such statistics simply cannot be true — until you read their small print which defines ‘poverty’ as being families who ‘lack resources to obtain the type of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or at least widely encouraged and approved, in the societies to which they belong’.

In other words, if families can’t afford takeaways, go on foreign holidays, wear designer trainers and have satellite TV like their better-off neighbours then they’re ‘living in poverty’.

Try telling that to a starving child in Africa, or an orphan fleeing war-torn Syria with just the rags on their back.

Yes, those in crisis deserve our help and support — especially at this time of year. But cynically misleading campaigns about Britain’s starving masses help no one.

As it's revealed Britain’s on track to become the strongest economy in Europe, thanks to austerity measures which have seen us avoid the catastrophe brought about in other nations by unfettered State spending, it’s worth remembering that a strong economy — and the jobs it provides — remains the best means of lifting families out of poverty.

Or, in the words of one veteran campaigner: ‘Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid.’

His name? Bono. Funny how you never read that on charity billboards.

Oona King's learning blended families can cause turmoil

Christmas questions: Oona King holds her surrogate son, Tullio

One could not help but be moved when Baroness Oona King described the joy of her first Christmas with the biological child she had longed for.

Baby Tullio was no normal child. He was conceived with Oona’s own eggs and carried by a surrogate — a lengthy, expensive and emotionally draining procedure.

And one, she now admits, that has risked alienating her existing adopted children, eight-year-old son, Elia, and daughters Kaia, six, and Ariel, two.

Unsurprisingly, they have found their mum’s determination to have a child that shared her DNA rather upsetting — particularly when they discovered that Oona had replaced a picture of them on her mobile phone with one of her new baby.

As she said this week: ‘The first time Elia saw it, he said: “Oh, I see you’ve abandoned us. You’ve swapped our picture for his.”’

His comment, she says, was ‘like a dagger to my heart’.

No doubt. But isn’t the children’s reaction also entirely understandable?

However much she longed for a biological baby, I can’t help feeling that Oona should have placed her adopted children’s concerns first and foremost.

Celebrity mothers such as Madonna and Angelina Jolie may espouse the joys of ‘blended families’, made up of a mix of biological and adopted children, but life is seldom that simple. As Oona is now discovering, such arrangements can also provoke emotional turmoil in existing children — all the more so when they have been adopted from troubled backgrounds.

The sad truth is that any adopted child in the same situation as Oona’s kids will inevitably wonder why Mummy went to such lengths to have her own baby when she already had them?

That’s a question I fear the baroness — an admirable woman in so many ways — will spend some difficult years trying to answer.

The model Cara Delevingne has had the words ‘don’t worry, be happy’ tattooed under her pert, 21-year-old breasts. Bet she will worry when she’s 50, and her skin has sagged so far that the tattoos are hanging around her waist like a badly-drawn belt.

Whistleblower Edward Snowden warns of the dangers posed by a loss of privacy in an age of all-pervading surveillance.



In a two-minute video recorded from his sanctuary in Moscow, he said: ‘We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go. Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person.’



Strange how the preposterous Snowden didn’t spare a thought for all the people in our intelligence service who devote their lives to protecting us from terrorist atrocities and whose own lives he put at risk when he decided to reveal thousands of pages of stolen secret documents.

Christmas Royal Watch

Lovely to see William and Kate arriving at the Sandringham church service holding hands — a public gesture of happiness that senior royals have previously shied away from. I just wish they had brought Prince George with them. It seems a shame that they are planning to take their baby on a tour of Australia next year, yet not allow him to be seen at his first Sandringham Christmas.

Lasting love: Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge arrive for the Christmas Day service at Sandringham

Full marks to Harry, who has become a worthy champion of those disabled in war. And what fun ahead as his relationship with his adorable ‘blue-blooded blonde’ Cressida Bonas develops. Let’s hope Kate warms to her potential sister-in-law more than she did to Harry’s ex, Chelsy Davy. With all that new money, Chelsy was always a bit too ‘doors-to-manual’ for the increasingly imperious Middletons.

We love her dearly, but was it not a silly mistake and unintentionally provocative of the Queen to turn up at the private church service in a fur coat? If it had been Camilla, she’d have been skinned alive.

Former Westlife star Kian Egan complains he was starved, isolated and ruthlessly manipulated when he appeared on I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! Meanwhile, The Great British Bake Off finalist Kimberley Wilson says the show’s producers deliberately presented her as arrogant and over-confident.

Why such surprise? Reality TV shows have been part of our lives for more than a decade. Contestants must surely know by now that taking part involves a Faustian pact: producers pay you large sums of money and offer endless publicity either to resurrect or create a TV career — and in return you sell them your soul.

Even that thicko Joey Essex, who couldn’t tell the time on his own watch, understood that.

Praised for admitting he has a gay lover, Tom Daley Tweeted a picture of himself dressed in an apron with the slogan ‘Gay Icon’ on it. I’m only surprised we haven’t seen the motto stitched on to his ‘budgie-smuggler’ swimming skimpies yet.

The magnificent Mary Berry is launching her own brand of designer cookware. A tad disappointing as the whole point of Bake Off was to encourage ordinary folk to cook with whatever they had to hand, not splash out on costly equipment.



Paul Hollywood may have sought to capitalise on the show’s success with a host of commercial tie-ins (even trademarking his name for a range of underwear). I just wish Mary had risen above such matters.

Mystic Mandy's New Year

Nigella Bites Back: Amanda Platell predicts a year of revenge for celebrity chef/superwoman Nigella Lawson

As revenge on her ex-husband, I predict the Domestic Goddess will write a best-selling new book called Nigella Bites Back — Dishes Best Served Cold.

None will include boiled eggs, Charles Saatchi’s favourite food. She will throw herself into her career (did she ever do anything else?) and again employ a small army of staff to take care of her neglected children.

Team Cupcake will be replaced by Team Fruitcake. Or after those cocaine admissions, should that be Team Tootcake?

Their first task: cleaning up their employer’s reputation. It’ll be a tough job.

The engagement of Pippa Middleton to boyfriend Nico Jackson will be sold to Hello! for three weeks of exclusive coverage.

It will be followed by the launch of her Party Pieces wedding range. ‘Now you too can look as classy as Pippa for just £399.99.’ Her accompanying Wedding Handbook, for which she will demand a £1 million advance, will fail to shift more than a dozen copies, despite such pearls of wisdom as ‘wearing white can help a bride look her best’ and ‘some of your guests may enjoy a glass of champagne’.

UKIP will slaughter the Tories in the European elections and David Cameron will have to do a deal with Nigel Farage, first by apologising for attacking anyone who believes Britain should leave Europe as swivel-eyed loons.

After winning The X Factor, Sam Bailey said fame wouldn’t change her. Her wish will be granted rather more quickly than she imagined. After one flop album, she will return to where she belongs, on a cruise ship belting out cheesy anthems to an audience who can’t remember her name.

Pope's lesson for the Church of England

Man of the year: Pope Francis

Time Magazine named him its Person of the Year — now we learn that Pope Francis is officially the most talked about individual on the internet.

This most humble of Christian leaders refuses the luxury of the Vatican palace and lives instead in a nearby B&B, where he carries his own suitcases and knows every member of staff by name.

Most important, he is a charismatic communicator who does not place himself above the people, but among them. As a result, he has quadrupled the number of worshippers who attend his masses.

Meanwhile, under the cerebral stewardships of Archbishops Williams and Welby, the Anglican congregations have fallen by 10 per cent in the UK.

There’s a lesson there somewhere.

Mostyn makes a mockery of justice

Mr Justice Mostyn is the judge who, in the secret Court of Protection, allowed doctors to perform a Caesarean on a mother without her know-ledge or consent, then immediately remove her child for adoption.

Now he’s ruled that a Bangladeshi woman who tried to murder her own child can remain in the UK on the grounds that sending her back to her country would violate her human right to a family life.

What kind of warped country do we live in when a mother who has never threatened her child can be denied any rights, while one who tried to slaughter hers is given lifelong access?

After the Jimmy Savile scandal and eye-watering payouts to departing executives, former BBC director-general Greg Dyke says the current BBC chairman, Chris Patten, is a ‘busted flush’ that we licence fee payers would be better off without.

True enough. Trouble is, Patten knows so many of the BBC’s dirty little secrets that his demise is about as likely as the death of Lady Mary in Downton Abbey. It ain’t going to happen any time soon, no matter how ‘busted’.

The UN refugee agency condemns David Cameron’s new immigration laws, warning they could stigmatise foreigners, deny housing to people in need and create a ‘climate of ethnic profiling’.

What the so-called High Commissioners are really worried about is that, after curbing immigration, our PM may try to limit their numbers — the unelected, unaccountable, overpaid, Lefty meddlers who’ve had a first-class ticket on the gravy train for far too long.