‘Like A Dickens Novel’: Director Armando Iannucci Blasts Government For Growing Child Poverty In UK
Scottish director and satirist Armando Iannucci ripped the government and voiced his distress over the increasing levels of child poverty in the country, likening the situation to that in a novel by Victorian author Charles Dickens.
Speaking on host Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC show on Sunday, the creator of political satire The Thick of It and patron of the Child Poverty Action Group highlighted the distressing statistics revealing 3.6 million children living in poverty and placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Conservative government.
Iannucci said: “This is the very week that the poverty report came out, saying that child poverty has gone up yet again, and it’s almost like we’re in a Dickens novel rather than the sixth biggest economy in the world, saying there’s now 3.6 million children in poverty.”
He continued: “So for every average class of 30, nine are in poverty and to say that we’re turning a corner and we’re on the right track, while ignoring that, is very… it was hard for me to hear him [Chancellor Jeremy Hunt]… You use that phrase, carrot and stick… because [of the] the implication that you need a stick to beat those on welfare, you need a stick to beat those in poverty.”
Iannucci detailed the “the emotional” and “the psychological impact poverty has on children.” Explaining “the shame [and] the embarrassment” faced by children who “are going to school, pretending to have a packed lunch when they don’t have anything in their box, not having had any breakfast, and therefore going to school tired and stressed.”
Arguing that the economy improves when more people are lifted from poverty, he added: “So at the moment, we’re in a situation where we’re actually coming up with policies that are putting more people into poverty, and therefore having a greater impact and detriment to the economy because of it.”
