The Poor You Will Always Have With You

The most important, or at least significant, scene in Dickens’ Oliver Twist is where the trustees are tucking into a sumptuous meal while the residents are doing with their gruel. I’ve not looked into it but I’m presuming that Dickens was careful in describing the workhouse thus. Its not the contrast that is most striking its that these were trustees who would likely consider themselves philanthropists and benefactors. While Oliver’s expulsion exposes their hypocrisy and the brutalness of the workhouse, what’s more important is the ideology behind the abject cruelty and disregard for human life.

Dickens was a devout Christian in a nominally Christian country that was so conscious of sexual impropriety yet deliberately ignorant of the causes of the poverty they could hardly ignore. He must have been mindful of the hypocritical Pharisees in the Christian Gospels and the Jesus who mixed with sinners. As he wrote his novels which pulled no punches in exposing the stark contrasts and glaring double standards he must have been reminded of Jesus’ dismissal of the rich as candidates for heaven while declaring that the last will be first.

Looking back over our decade of austerity, the comparison with Dickens’ world is disturbing. A Casual evaluation of Universal Credit might lead you to the conclusion that the horror stories are down to how its being applied…