Bernard Ingham: Poverty of ambition is the root of deprivation in Britain

This is unlikely to end Ed Miliband’s cost of living crisis. He will always be able to find someone – pensioners like me, for instance – who is worse off than they were six years ago, if only because of a historically low interest rate of 0.5 per cent.

Nor can we expect to hear less of poverty. To hear some people talk, it flourishes as never before and the gap between rich and poor yawns ever more widely. It is, quite simply, bunkum.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that many people are not struggling. I marvel how many pensioners – and especially women who were never able to build up a decent retirement pot of their own – manage to get by. They are caught by circumstance and upbringing in a cruel trap. Moreover, their independent spirit makes them least likely to seek or accept charity.

But what about the rest? It’s a complicated story. This is because there is no absolute definition of poverty. There are three measures – absolute (or extreme) poverty, relative poverty and social deprivation.

Absolute poverty is taken to mean a lack of sufficient resources to keep body and soul together. In the USA you are in a very poor way if you have less than $15.15 a day or $22,000 a year for a family of four. In China it is $0.55 a day.

Relative poverty is judged by average income – say, 50-60 per cent of the national average. In the UK you are in “fuel poverty” if you spend more than 10 per cent of your disposable income on heat and light.

Social exclusion arises from deprivation such as unemployment, lack of skill, poor housing, low income, a high crime environment, bad health and family breakdown.

In short, poverty is a very subjective condition unless you have only what you stand up in and no prospect of improvement. It will always be with us as collective wealth rises and definitions are adjusted. The poverty lobby is guaranteed a job for life.

And much though I admire the ideals of those who minister to the down and outs, let us face the fact that soup kitchens and food banks create their own demand in a society where, except among the elderly, shame over dependence on others has gone out of the window. This means that we need to look at poverty much more critically. The first point to be made is that the mass of people are materially far better off than they were in my childhood. This is largely down to technology, which has generated vast wealth as well as convenience, comfort and a certain democratisation of society.

People are generally better housed. Housewives have been relieved of much drudgery. Families have the world on their doorstep, thanks to cheap air travel. Entertainment, information and education are on tap as never before through TV and the internet. Our diet is ever more varied. People generally do not wonder – as they did when I was a kid – whether they can afford the odd quid, let alone the odd tanner.

This makes nonsense of the poverty gap unless it is judged inadequately in terms of income.

So, where – apart from the tragedies of unemployment, sickness and governmental economic incompetence – does “poverty” come from? I suggest it is more appropriately called deprivation and is largely driven by society demanding too little of its people and indulging them too much.

The UK is obsessively egalitarian instead of focused on achievement. It is not very disciplined. Its education system does not prepare people for a modern working life. It scarcely lifts a finger to end the meltdown of the family, the great stabiliser.

Indeed, it connives at the upbringing of children on the state without a decent male role model.

The soft penalties for kicking over the traces mean we scarcely have a criminal justice system worthy of the name.

Moreover, government – local and national – is simply not organised to put the young unemployed to gainful community work. It is outrageous they are not out there clearing up the awful mess caused by litter.

We won’t get rid of poverty, however defined, by toughening up Britain. But we could and should end the deprivation arising from low expectations. That is the real problem.