Product Description

'A passionately reasoned and compelling account of the avoidable cruelties still embedded in the underside of British life - by a writer who has literally worn the clothes, lived in the flats and done the jobs of the poor. Every member of the cabinet should be required to read it, apologise and then act'. - Will Hutton. A frank and breathtaking book, this is journalist and broadcaster Polly Toynbee's account of her courageous intention to live and work on the minimum wage. The 'decent living' wage set by the Council of Europe is set at GBP7.39. The minimum wage in Britain is currently GBP4.10 per hour. And often, people are working for less, their voices unheard, their faces unnoticed. The low-paid are caught in an economic double bind that victimises them and shames the rest of us. Toynbee took whatever jobs she could find, often offered for less than the official minimum wage.Living on an estate in Clapham, she started from scratch and found that if she were truly unemployed, she would not even be able to afford a new job, and that faced with starvation, it's impossible not to sink into debt. In this powerful and compelling book, Polly Toynbee journeys to the inside of Britain today and uncovers that world which is invisible to most. This is a damning portrait of social justice in Britain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8621 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
Few non-fiction books have caused such a stir in America in recent times as Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, in which the writer took a succession of low-paid jobs in order to see whether it was possible to survive on these pitiful wages. Her answer - that it was not - sparked a huge debate in the USA about the working destitute, as opposed to the more familiar stereotype of poor people living on welfare. Polly Toynbee, the well-known Guardian journalist who was asked to write the introduction to the British edition of Nickel and Dimed, was an apt choice for the reason that she is not only a champion of the poor in the UK, but she had herself, some 30 years previously, written a very similar book, in which she travelled the length and breadth of Britain, living and working with those in low-status jobs. Last year she was due for a sabbatical from The Guardian and decided to revisit her earlier experiences in order to find out how much had changed for those at the bottom of the pile. Instead of travelling around, Toynbee managed to arrange a short lease on a council flat in one of South London's most unappealing estates. Her conclusions should shame us all: for those who don't know, the (grudgingly introduced) minimum wage is just #4.10 per hour, and this in an era and a city (London) where living standards for the middle classes, and a huge swathe of the working class have improved immeasurably. Yet for agency-employed kitchen porters, care assistants, call-centre operatives, cleaners and dinner ladies, the world of consumer indulgences, as portrayed in nearly every television drama or advertisement, is unattainable. Toynbee managed, to her credit, to eke out a miserable existence, living on potatoes and split peas, in a bleak flat where household waste, urine and excrement tainted the communal stairwell. Commuting to work by underground was an unaffordable luxury: a journey of two or three buses was the only alternative. Interspersing the narrative are statistics and historical facts that make it clear that the depressing existence she describes is common to many more of our fellow Britons than we might realize. This compelling book should be read by everyone with an interest in public policy - or simply in other people's lives. (Kirkus UK)

Synopsis
'A passionately reasoned and compelling account of the avoidable cruelties still embedded in the underside of British life - by a writer who has literally worn the clothes, lived in the flats and done the jobs of the poor. Every member of the cabinet should be required to read it, apologise and then act'. - Will Hutton. A frank and breathtaking book, this is journalist and broadcaster Polly Toynbee's account of her courageous intention to live and work on the minimum wage. The 'decent living' wage set by the Council of Europe is set at GBP7.39. The minimum wage in Britain is currently GBP4.10 per hour. And often, people are working for less, their voices unheard, their faces unnoticed. The low-paid are caught in an economic double bind that victimises them and shames the rest of us. Toynbee took whatever jobs she could find, often offered for less than the official minimum wage.Living on an estate in Clapham, she started from scratch and found that if she were truly unemployed, she would not even be able to afford a new job, and that faced with starvation, it's impossible not to sink into debt.

In this powerful and compelling book, Polly Toynbee journeys to the inside of Britain today and uncovers that world which is invisible to most. This is a damning portrait of social justice in Britain.

About the Author
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist and broadcaster and was formerly the BBC?s social affairs editor. Previous books include Did Things Get Better? An Audit of the Labour Government (with David Walker), Hospital, Lost Children, The Way We live Now and A Working Life. She has won the National Press Awards and What the Papers Say columnist of the year. She lives in Lambeth and has four children.

Customer Reviews

A woman with a mission
For anybody who thinks that poverty is only relative and the true hardship of poverty only lives in the past or anyone who thinks that Britain is heading steadily in the direction of a classless society---This is a book you MUST read to bring you out of your complacent dreamworld and closer to a understanding of the awful conditions ,wages and yes poverty that many of your fellow citizens live in.Polly Toynbee takes the ultimate and valuable step of stepping into the low paids shoes with an assumed identity in order to truly understand and feel the nature of their circumstances.
Even somebody who has always been far from naive about the persistence of poverty in parts of Britain like Polly was shocked at what she discovered and almost depressed at the thought that so many are trapped in this rut for life.Unethical and greedy employers who exploit your desperation via a cavalier disregard for fair and reasonable working conditions.Knowing that many cant afford to complain.We are spared no details ,and rightly so as those who live the details are the ones who Polly is taking us on a journey to understand.
This excellently written book left me with a very clear understanding of how a multitude of disadvantages collectively combine together to place the low paid in an almost impossible position, over a barrel as they say,each disadvantage exacerbating the other.Educate yourself and read this book--the authors direct and detailed approach will help you feel what its like to walk in others shoes.
All credit to the author for her no apologies in keeping it real attitude and doing what many wouldnt dare attempt--stepping into the world of the most disadvantaged instead of playing it safe and just talking about it.I believe this book is essential reading for anyone serious about social justice and even more essential for those who currently arent serious about it.This book cannot fail in constructively enaging the reader with the issue.A must for any sociology student.Very informative.

An opportunity wasted
The book begins promisingly enough, with the author learning how to "work the system" to obtain grants and loans for furniture and basic necessities to get started.

The squalor of the council flat allocated to her adds to the realism, but it is clear from reading through the book that she spends a minimum of time there, and frequently escapes to the comfort of her upper middle class accommodation.

The search for work is quite realistic, but then chapter after chapter is devoted to a description of a series of quite ordinary and unremarkable jobs, described as if they were the most extreme examples of Calcutta sweat shops, which only illustrates how the author is insulated from the real world. The author is vague on the subject, but I suspect that each of these jobs was only carried out for a few days. A real person in such a situation would not be able to withstand the gaps in income which would result in such rapid changes of employment,

The opening chapters give quite a lot of good detail of the economics of living at this end of the social scale, but as the book progresses, monetary accounts fade away, so the reader is unable to determine whether the author is actually making financial headway, treading water, or getting deeper into debt. In reality, I suspect that the author abandoned quite early any attempt to actually survive on the minimum wage, and treated the whole experience as an exercise in journalism.

In short, a tremendous opportunity wasted.

New Labour at its best
This book is odd. It mocks the Church of England for being the Conservative party at prayer, but then defends it for the good work it does in the community. It attacks Thacherite reforms as being immoral, but then states that Unions discriminated against women workers and kept a tight, therefore unpleasant leash, on the rest of the workforce. It belittles those who want to succeed and make a better life for themselves (take the example of the telesales man) blind to the fact that, for many, that dream of self betterment is all they, me included, have. The list of contradictions goes on and on. The only thing we know for sure is that Toynbee hates the conservative archetype, which she says she finds in an Old People's home. My impression is that she made this character up in order to remind people of who the enemy is. If that man did in fact exist, which I sincerely doubt, the fact that he invested his life, talent and skills in providing jobs and providing care for the elderly is irrelevant. What is important for Toynbee is that he wears a pinstripe suit and that he has small pig-like eyes.
I forced myself to read this book until the end and was mightily relieved when I finished it. It is morally vain, philosophically empty and indescribably haughty. Not worth the paper it was written on.