0:00:04 > 0:00:06'Let me introduce you to someone who was
0:00:06 > 0:00:10'so well-known in early 19th-century London that he was included
0:00:10 > 0:00:15'in artists' views of the city, just like any other famous landmark.'
0:00:15 > 0:00:18I reckon he's in the middle of the road.
0:00:18 > 0:00:23'But he wasn't a king, soldier or politician - he was a beggar.'
0:00:23 > 0:00:24Right. He was standing right here.
0:00:26 > 0:00:31Charles McGee was a one-eyed Jamaican ex-sailor with a broom.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33And what he did was sweep away the rubbish
0:00:33 > 0:00:37and horse manure out of the way of people on this busy crossing.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40He was the equivalent of someone at the traffic lights with a rag,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43offering to wipe your windscreen clean.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47Suits ya! About time you done a bit of work.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49- Clean your window, guv?- Yes, please.
0:00:49 > 0:00:53'McGee worked and begged at this very spot for 40 years,
0:00:53 > 0:00:55'which made him controversial and earned him
0:00:55 > 0:00:59'a place here in a book of biographies of London's poor.'
0:01:01 > 0:01:06In his preface, the author explains that many of the curious characters
0:01:06 > 0:01:10that he's collected are, in fact, clever scoundrels
0:01:10 > 0:01:13rather than genuine poor people in need.
0:01:13 > 0:01:16He says, "The deceptions of the idle and sturdy were
0:01:16 > 0:01:20"so various, cunning and extensive,
0:01:20 > 0:01:23"that it was in most instances extremely difficult to discover
0:01:23 > 0:01:26"the real object of charity from the impostor."
0:01:28 > 0:01:33That hunch, that there were many scroungers, has never gone away.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35It motivated some extraordinary individuals
0:01:35 > 0:01:39over the next hundred years to try to crack the problem of the poor.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44'This is a story of a still divisive dilemma -
0:01:44 > 0:01:47'that some people do need help...'
0:01:47 > 0:01:49Charities for the deserving poor!
0:01:49 > 0:01:52..but others, frankly, are taking the piss.'
0:01:52 > 0:01:55Sleeping off a life on benefits...
0:01:55 > 0:01:57'It's about the media who stir things up...'
0:01:57 > 0:02:02I'm not a bad person. I wasn't being a bad person.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04'..and about the state we're in.'
0:02:04 > 0:02:08We moved away from the Victorian approach to poverty...
0:02:08 > 0:02:11Gamblers, alcoholics, fallen women...
0:02:11 > 0:02:13..but we've gone back again.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17There's no doubt, we're confused about all of this,
0:02:17 > 0:02:19and have been for hundreds of years.
0:02:19 > 0:02:20But can history tell us
0:02:20 > 0:02:24whether poverty is an inevitable fact of life,
0:02:24 > 0:02:29a moral fault of individuals or a failure of our whole society?
0:02:43 > 0:02:45Benefits - what to give, what to cut?
0:02:45 > 0:02:47It's a massive issue in Britain today,
0:02:47 > 0:02:50where certain strong opinions will always come up.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56It's unfair that those in work should be paid less than
0:02:56 > 0:02:57those on benefit.
0:02:58 > 0:03:02You can't just stand by and do nothing to help people in need.
0:03:04 > 0:03:07If hand-outs are too generous, then there's no incentive to work.
0:03:10 > 0:03:11The truth is,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14this isn't a new argument - it's been around for centuries.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18But what are its implications for the way we tackle poverty today?
0:03:18 > 0:03:22Well, to answer that, we have to go back to the 1830s
0:03:22 > 0:03:26to the man who made these public opinions public policy.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30He was one of the prime architects of the notorious workhouse system -
0:03:30 > 0:03:31Edwin Chadwick.
0:03:35 > 0:03:41Chadwick was geeky, pernickety, cantankerous
0:03:41 > 0:03:43and also a brilliantly original thinker.
0:03:44 > 0:03:46As a dedicated civil servant,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49he's remembered as one of the greatest bean counters
0:03:49 > 0:03:53of the 19th century, said to be the only man
0:03:53 > 0:03:56who'd actually counted the rats in London's prisons.
0:04:00 > 0:04:02The thing about the Victorians is
0:04:02 > 0:04:04they thought they were terribly rational and scientific.
0:04:04 > 0:04:09You know, this was this great age of reason and everything
0:04:09 > 0:04:12now suddenly could be solved with rational solutions
0:04:12 > 0:04:15and good, decent, educated, rational men just sat down in a room
0:04:15 > 0:04:17and sorted everything out.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19And that's how they approached the world.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22Chadwick's progressive ideas were heavily influenced
0:04:22 > 0:04:27by Jeremy Bentham - the godfather of Victorian rationalism.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30His Table of Cases Calling for Relief,
0:04:30 > 0:04:32found among Chadwick's personal papers,
0:04:32 > 0:04:35shows a systematic attempt to classify
0:04:35 > 0:04:38all the different types of poor people.
0:04:38 > 0:04:42He starts with people who you can see he's reasonably sympathetic to -
0:04:42 > 0:04:48those who are infirm in mind, those verging towards idiotism.
0:04:48 > 0:04:49There's people who've lost work.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53He talks about canal diggers on completion of the canal.
0:04:53 > 0:04:56He lists gardeners who can't work
0:04:56 > 0:04:59because they're in a time of long-continued frost.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02And also, a category of immigrant foreigners
0:05:02 > 0:05:06driven from home in multitudes, all at a time.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09Got to find some way to cope with them!
0:05:09 > 0:05:13Then there are people who he's clearly less sympathetic to -
0:05:13 > 0:05:15inability to work through badness of character.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19And here we have thieves, habitual beggars, vagrants,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22gypsies and prostitutes.
0:05:23 > 0:05:25What I love about this document is its energy
0:05:25 > 0:05:30and its refusal to accept that any problem is not solvable.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32The poor - oh, they've always been there,
0:05:32 > 0:05:34there's nothing you can do about it, it's intractable -
0:05:34 > 0:05:38no, no! You can sit down, you can write lists of them
0:05:38 > 0:05:42and put them in neat columns and work out what to do.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45So Chadwick took this exhaustive list of all the kinds of people
0:05:45 > 0:05:47claiming poor relief,
0:05:47 > 0:05:50which was a sort of 19th-century version of benefits,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53then moved on to the next stage, which is how to get
0:05:53 > 0:05:56people off welfare and into work.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02His chance came in 1832,
0:06:02 > 0:06:05when he joined a government commission tasked with
0:06:05 > 0:06:08reforming Britain's poor relief system, known as the Poor Law.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14For centuries, local parishes had given hand-outs - food, clothes
0:06:14 > 0:06:18and money - to the destitute in what was known as outdoor relief.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23And for the few who really couldn't look after themselves,
0:06:23 > 0:06:27mostly the sick, elderly or orphaned, there was indoor relief -
0:06:27 > 0:06:31those special buildings known as poorhouses or workhouses.
0:06:35 > 0:06:37But the system wasn't working.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42Edwin Chadwick was really trying to deal with what we'd call today
0:06:42 > 0:06:45spiralling welfare costs.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47This outdated system
0:06:47 > 0:06:52of what was known as outdoor relief was costing far too much money
0:06:52 > 0:06:56and the new Poor Law was meant to rein in some of the costs,
0:06:56 > 0:07:00but it was also meant to change the behaviour of the poor.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07Chadwick felt that hand-outs for the poor encouraged them
0:07:07 > 0:07:12to be lazy and were fundamentally unfair.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16He wrote, "The poor hard-working rate-payer rises early
0:07:16 > 0:07:19"and retires late to his rest - he works hard.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23"He would, from what he has to spare of his hard earnings,
0:07:23 > 0:07:25"give greater comforts to his own offspring
0:07:25 > 0:07:27"and to his own aged parents,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30"but the parents of the pauper and of the criminal
0:07:30 > 0:07:32"must first be comforted."
0:07:35 > 0:07:38That, of course, sounds familiar.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift worker,
0:07:42 > 0:07:45leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning,
0:07:45 > 0:07:49who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour
0:07:49 > 0:07:52sleeping off a life on benefits?
0:07:52 > 0:07:54APPLAUSE
0:07:56 > 0:07:58The vast, vast majority of people
0:07:58 > 0:08:02would like to get on, improve their lot and have their kids do well,
0:08:02 > 0:08:03if not better than they are doing.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06So they have a very dim view of those who don't share that view
0:08:06 > 0:08:09and that's pretty much, I think,
0:08:09 > 0:08:13a perennial feeling for people down all the ages, I think.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17In a sense, what Chadwick hits is the core of the issue, which is,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21everybody needs incentives in life and they respond to incentives.
0:08:23 > 0:08:28Chadwick's solution was an expanded national system of workhouses.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34This one in Southwell in Nottinghamshire was the prototype,
0:08:34 > 0:08:36and hundreds of them were built throughout
0:08:36 > 0:08:41the country in a drastic programme of reform of the Poor Law.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46"Into such a house none will enter voluntarily.
0:08:46 > 0:08:50"Work, confinement and discipline will deter the indolent."
0:08:52 > 0:08:53HE KNOCKS
0:08:56 > 0:09:00From now on, the only help the poor were meant to get was on the inside.
0:09:05 > 0:09:08This is the forbidding world of the workhouse, which
0:09:08 > 0:09:13we all learnt about at school and can still evoke in our mind's eye -
0:09:13 > 0:09:17a Dickensian world of shuffling paupers, of hungry urchins,
0:09:17 > 0:09:22of sanctimony and cruelty, of thin gruel and stale crusts.
0:09:24 > 0:09:25If you please, Sir?
0:09:27 > 0:09:30Please, Sir, I want some more.
0:09:30 > 0:09:31What?
0:09:31 > 0:09:34Please, Sir, I want some more.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40Mr Bumble! Mr Bumble!
0:09:40 > 0:09:42The workhouse cruelty Dickens portrayed
0:09:42 > 0:09:45so memorably was deliberate policy.
0:09:47 > 0:09:51The thinking was that man wasn't necessarily this higher being
0:09:51 > 0:09:56with a great soul but, actually, was quite an animalistic individual,
0:09:56 > 0:09:59drawn to pleasure and repelled by pain.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01So the conditions in the workhouse had to be
0:10:01 > 0:10:05so terrible that you would never really want to go there - it would
0:10:05 > 0:10:11always be better to work rather than to be in support by the state.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19Families would be broken up and placed in separate dormitories.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23The able-bodied men in here...
0:10:25 > 0:10:27..the elderly and the infirm in here...
0:10:29 > 0:10:34..the women in here - a long way from the men -
0:10:34 > 0:10:39and the children in here, separated from both their parents.
0:10:44 > 0:10:49And almost everyone was put to work - recycling rope, making glue
0:10:49 > 0:10:54from old bones or breaking rocks - for which they weren't paid a penny.
0:11:00 > 0:11:05The place feels a bit like a prison and a bit like a hospital,
0:11:05 > 0:11:07and I think that's probably deliberate.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10I mean, a prison because they didn't want people to come here.
0:11:10 > 0:11:12It was meant to be awful.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16It was meant to be worse than if you were a hard-working family.
0:11:16 > 0:11:17You had to be desperate to come here,
0:11:17 > 0:11:21and once you came here, you had to be desperate to get out again.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24So it was awful, deliberately.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26But also, it is a bit like a hospital
0:11:26 > 0:11:30cos the Victorians saw poverty as a sort of public health issue.
0:11:30 > 0:11:32It was something that could be cured.
0:11:34 > 0:11:38The new Poor Law succeeded, as Chadwick had hoped,
0:11:38 > 0:11:42in drastically cutting the amount spent on poor relief.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46But there was widespread opposition to his harsh reforms,
0:11:46 > 0:11:50which were accused of having turned poverty into a crime.
0:11:50 > 0:11:54In some places, riots broke out, attacking the workhouses.
0:11:54 > 0:12:00And Chadwick himself was criticised for being all head and no heart.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04He was said to be a cold-blooded martinet, who was eager to sacrifice
0:12:04 > 0:12:07the comfort, the feelings and the physical welfare of the poor
0:12:07 > 0:12:13to his theoretical crotchets of mathematical exactness.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18Most workhouses were harsh places.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21But occasionally managers ignored the punishing conditions
0:12:21 > 0:12:24the law demanded and were more humane.
0:12:25 > 0:12:30My mother told me that her great grandfather, William Bragger,
0:12:30 > 0:12:33was master of the Wrexham workhouse.
0:12:33 > 0:12:35I have got a photograph that might show William.
0:12:35 > 0:12:37Ah, that will do.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40I'm guessing that's William on the left.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43Well, he was the fencing instructor for the
0:12:43 > 0:12:45Denbighshire Yeomanry Cavalry.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47He was wonderful.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50- A wonderful workhouse master. - Yes, yes, that's what I thought.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53He was well known for taking toys
0:12:53 > 0:12:56and cakes back for the children in the workhouse.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58Tobacco for the old men.
0:12:58 > 0:13:01He's meant to be handing out gruel, not giving people sweets.
0:13:01 > 0:13:02Oh, I know. I know.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07Did anyone ever complain that it was so nice in the workhouse
0:13:07 > 0:13:09that you couldn't get them to do anything?
0:13:09 > 0:13:13Well, there was a farmer who said that one of his servants said
0:13:13 > 0:13:15she was going to go back to the workhouse
0:13:15 > 0:13:18because she got better food and a warmer bed.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21- More than he was offering. - Yes, that's right, yeah.
0:13:21 > 0:13:26The newspapers actually reported that there were no
0:13:26 > 0:13:32Oliver Twists in the workhouse, that they didn't fear asking for more.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34- Right, because they'd get it. - Yes, that's right.
0:13:42 > 0:13:46I suppose the moral of the story is that the British public isn't
0:13:46 > 0:13:53always as strict and as judgmental as the rhetoric that appeals to it.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56So they hear someone is going to sort out the problem
0:13:56 > 0:13:58and make sure you're poorer when you're not working,
0:13:58 > 0:14:01than when you're working, and all this sounds terrific.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03And then they're confronted by the reality,
0:14:03 > 0:14:07say in the workhouses, and they say, "This is appalling."
0:14:07 > 0:14:10I mean this must be stopped and then the compassion kicks in.
0:14:13 > 0:14:17Even ultra-rational Chadwick had his compassionate side.
0:14:17 > 0:14:21He realised that the biggest budget savings of all would come from
0:14:21 > 0:14:25a healthier population and became the driving force behind sanitation
0:14:25 > 0:14:30reforms that would bring better sewers and clean water for everyone.
0:14:32 > 0:14:38Edwin Chadwick was clearly obsessive and opinionated but he was committed
0:14:38 > 0:14:42to what we in modern jargon would call investing in people.
0:14:42 > 0:14:47Not just giving them a hand-out, but creating conditions in housing,
0:14:47 > 0:14:50health and at work in which they could thrive.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53Obituaries rarely put the boot in and this
0:14:53 > 0:14:58one in the Daily News of Monday, July 7th 1890, is no exception.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02Goes through all his achievements, makes a Victorian joke.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06His epitaph shouldn't be "vanitas, vanitatum", the vanity of vanities.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10It should be "sanitas, sanitatum". Very good.
0:15:10 > 0:15:11But it ends by saying,
0:15:11 > 0:15:15"Had he killed in battle as many as he saved by sanitation, he
0:15:15 > 0:15:20"would have had equestrian statues by the dozen put up in his memory."
0:15:36 > 0:15:37What are you filming, then, today?
0:15:37 > 0:15:43Well, it's a documentary about British attitudes to the poor.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46'I'm certainly not the first journalist to go
0:15:46 > 0:15:48'poking around this subject.'
0:15:48 > 0:15:52Do you believe all the stuff in the media about scroungers
0:15:52 > 0:15:54living on benefits?
0:15:54 > 0:15:58Well, you read so much about it but funnily enough, there's a couple
0:15:58 > 0:15:59down my street who actually...
0:15:59 > 0:16:03Ever since I've been living there, have never worked a day in their
0:16:03 > 0:16:06life and they're a lot younger than me.
0:16:07 > 0:16:09So would you cut the benefits?
0:16:09 > 0:16:12There's a certain part of me that wants to crack down
0:16:12 > 0:16:16but I wouldn't cut it to everyone, no, actually.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20There's people that are out of work and it's no fault of their own.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24You're a perfect picture of confusion.
0:16:24 > 0:16:26I certainly am at times, I'm sure.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31When the British public are confused about this,
0:16:31 > 0:16:33they usually turn to the media.
0:16:35 > 0:16:40Back in 1866, a tenacious British journalist drove in a taxi
0:16:40 > 0:16:43carriage in pursuit of a story that would spark the debate.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52The man inside that carriage was James Greenwood,
0:16:52 > 0:16:56one of 11 children of a coach trimmer.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59He was well connected in the press.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02His brother, Frederick, was the editor of the very tabloid
0:17:02 > 0:17:04Pall Mall Gazette.
0:17:04 > 0:17:09And James himself wrote rip-roaring adventures like The Bear King,
0:17:09 > 0:17:14Wild Sports of the World and Curiosities of Savage Life.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19It was a different type of savage curiosity
0:17:19 > 0:17:24that James Greenwood was investigating that night in 1866.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27His brother, Frederick, like all editors,
0:17:27 > 0:17:29was worried about circulation figures.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32And those of the Pall Mall Gazette were on the way down.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36His solution - to get his brother to write a sensational piece
0:17:36 > 0:17:39called a Night in the Workhouse.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45The big idea was to take a new immersive approach.
0:17:48 > 0:17:53James Greenwood got out. He looked dirty, unkempt, poor.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56Not because he was a journalist but because he was in disguise.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58He wore a filthy long black coat
0:17:58 > 0:18:03and underneath, the typical rags of a Victorian pauper.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06He was Britain's first undercover reporter.
0:18:10 > 0:18:11Can I have a receipt, please?
0:18:11 > 0:18:15'Greenwood had come to spend a night in the Casual Ward
0:18:15 > 0:18:17'of the Lambeth Workhouse,'
0:18:17 > 0:18:20as he wrote, "There to learn by actual experience,
0:18:20 > 0:18:22"how casual paupers are lodged and fed."
0:18:23 > 0:18:27This is the first of James Greenwood's three-part
0:18:27 > 0:18:31sensational expose of his night in the workhouse.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37It's written in beautiful first-person tabloidese
0:18:37 > 0:18:41in an attempt to grab and distress his readers.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45He starts off by saying,
0:18:45 > 0:18:49"I am telling a story which cannot all be told.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52"Some parts of it are far too shocking,
0:18:52 > 0:18:55"but what I may tell, has not a single touch of colour in it."
0:18:57 > 0:18:59He goes into the workhouse,
0:18:59 > 0:19:04he has a grimy bath and then he's given a mattress for a bed.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08"In the middle of the bed I'd selected was a stain of blood
0:19:08 > 0:19:10"bigger than a man's hand.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13"To lie on such a horrid thing seemed impossible."
0:19:15 > 0:19:19And he finds the worst thing as the night wears on, is the coughing.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22"The hollow cough, the short cough, the hysterical cough,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25"the bark coming at regular intervals."
0:19:29 > 0:19:32I think he is genuinely distressed by the poor people who
0:19:32 > 0:19:36are down on their luck who need this and it is humiliating and you see
0:19:36 > 0:19:41the filth and grime and the complete lack of dignity, but I think
0:19:41 > 0:19:46he is still shocked by the more resilient of the young men,
0:19:46 > 0:19:49who just turn up, smoke, take the bread,
0:19:49 > 0:19:52take anything that is on offer, swear all night,
0:19:52 > 0:19:55try and get out of the work and run for it in the morning.
0:19:57 > 0:20:01At the end of his description, Greenwood comes across as the
0:20:01 > 0:20:05objective and balanced journalist and he says,
0:20:05 > 0:20:07"The moral of all this I leave to you."
0:20:07 > 0:20:14He is, in fairly classic style, unsure where he's coming down.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Greenwood's article was lapped up by the public,
0:20:23 > 0:20:29and it was reprinted again and again, taking on a life of its own.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35Within a month it had even become a popular stage play and made
0:20:35 > 0:20:39some of the workhouse characters he wrote about overnight celebrities.
0:20:43 > 0:20:49Hi, I'm White Dee and I'd like to welcome you to my BeneFIT video.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53Greenwood's article helped establish a long tradition of the media
0:20:53 > 0:20:57making judgments about those receiving hand-outs.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00Are you going to put the sugar in first?
0:21:00 > 0:21:03I, I put the sugar in first. Do you not put the sugar in first?
0:21:03 > 0:21:04- Oh, no.- No? Why?
0:21:04 > 0:21:08Deirdre Kelly, also known as White Dee, recently found
0:21:08 > 0:21:12herself at the centre of a similar media storm, when she emerged
0:21:12 > 0:21:15as a central character of the Channel 4 series
0:21:15 > 0:21:17Benefit Street.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21At the heart of James Turner is single mum, White Dee.
0:21:21 > 0:21:25She's bringing up two kids on benefits.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28You see, I was going to say, I'll be single mother.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30But, you know, I didn't. Which was lucky.
0:21:31 > 0:21:35Dee, who was once convicted for theft, split opinions
0:21:35 > 0:21:39amongst the British public, many of whom condemned her as a scrounger.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42I've suspended your claim as there's been change in your income.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45Do you know, hand on heart don't worry about it.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47I had one of them and I ignored it
0:21:47 > 0:21:49and then they paid my landlord anyway.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52It created an enormous storm, didn't it?
0:21:52 > 0:21:55I mean, you know, you became unbelievably famous,
0:21:55 > 0:21:56everybody had an opinion on it.
0:21:56 > 0:22:00It's one of the things that people are so passionate about.
0:22:00 > 0:22:02You've got the, you know, the taxpayer that some of them
0:22:02 > 0:22:06do begrudge, you know, people who are on benefits.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10It's just a group of people that were just catapulted into this
0:22:10 > 0:22:13complete world of hatred and this, that and the other.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16But it wasn't only that because a lot of people ended up
0:22:16 > 0:22:18rather liking you, didn't they?
0:22:18 > 0:22:22I think... A lot of people, did they, Ian?
0:22:22 > 0:22:24Yeah, obviously not me.
0:22:24 > 0:22:25I'm just saying "a lot of people".
0:22:25 > 0:22:27I'll just drink my tea.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32I mean there's a long history in Britain of journalists going
0:22:32 > 0:22:33and having a look at the poor.
0:22:33 > 0:22:38And their motives were partly sensational, but partly
0:22:38 > 0:22:41they wanted to show everyone else what the poor looked like.
0:22:41 > 0:22:44Show people what the poor look like?
0:22:44 > 0:22:47It's like you might as well just shove them all in a big tent
0:22:47 > 0:22:50and sell tickets to people and say, "Come on down,
0:22:50 > 0:22:52"this is what the poor look like."
0:22:52 > 0:22:55It's like, you know, it can happen to anybody.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57It's... It's not a joke, it's not a laughing matter,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00- they're not there to be ridiculed. - Yeah.- Do you know what I'm saying?
0:23:00 > 0:23:03It's like they're just people, normal people like anybody
0:23:03 > 0:23:08else who's in a certain situation at that particular time of their life.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12I suppose this is a tradition which goes
0:23:12 > 0:23:16back before the age of television, what we now call poverty porn, the
0:23:16 > 0:23:21idea of being titillated by people in poverty, that we are entertained
0:23:21 > 0:23:27by them, that we have this kind of mixture of horror and astonishment.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30You know it can be the sense of the Victorian freak show.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34Someone like Greenwood would have said,
0:23:34 > 0:23:37they don't have a voice unless I give them one, that's why I've
0:23:37 > 0:23:41gone to do this rather sensational article about the workhouse.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43Is that not a fair point?
0:23:43 > 0:23:47The issue is not that he's writing about it, it's that others aren't.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50If it's not your lived experience being in a workhouse or just
0:23:50 > 0:23:55being poor, full stop, and you're writing about others,
0:23:55 > 0:23:56you end up othering them.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59They become this exotic... These exotic creatures with their...
0:23:59 > 0:24:01Look at their lives and how awful it is.
0:24:01 > 0:24:05You turn them into objects of pity. You know, there's a flipside.
0:24:05 > 0:24:10You either end up with poor people being demonised or the other
0:24:10 > 0:24:14is being turned into saints, and in both cases you strip them
0:24:14 > 0:24:17of their humanity, they're no longer quite people.
0:24:19 > 0:24:23So, should we middle-class journalists ignore the subject?
0:24:24 > 0:24:27The press and the media are perfectly capable of producing
0:24:27 > 0:24:31poverty porn and exploitive pieces about the poor as
0:24:31 > 0:24:33though there only interest was as a sort of zoo.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37Erm, but on the other hand, they are at least focusing
0:24:37 > 0:24:41attention on one of the major problems in any society.
0:24:41 > 0:24:46For the Victorians, concentrating on the poor was a new idea.
0:24:46 > 0:24:48The idea you had to do something about the poor,
0:24:48 > 0:24:52as opposed to just ignore them, was partly the result of people
0:24:52 > 0:24:57shoving it in your face in newspaper articles and the equivalent.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05So as soon as you've said there is a problem with the poor,
0:25:05 > 0:25:08the next question is, what do we do about it?
0:25:10 > 0:25:13For some, the answer is charity.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16Following Greenwood's article, it became fashionable for the better
0:25:16 > 0:25:22off to go and see how the poor lived, driven both by curiosity
0:25:22 > 0:25:25and by deep moral purpose.
0:25:25 > 0:25:31There was at the heart of the gilded middle class life, this sense of sin
0:25:31 > 0:25:36this notion of the wealth and riches of late Victorian life was built
0:25:36 > 0:25:40upon the terrible urban slavery of those working in the cotton industry
0:25:40 > 0:25:45in Manchester, the pot banks in Stoke, the docks in Liverpool.
0:25:45 > 0:25:47And in order to alleviate this sin, well,
0:25:47 > 0:25:50something had to be done about the poor.
0:25:51 > 0:25:55A culture of philanthropic do-gooding led to voluntary
0:25:55 > 0:25:58organisations springing up across the country.
0:26:00 > 0:26:01This is one of them,
0:26:01 > 0:26:07the Providence Row Night Refuge for Deserving Women, Men and Children.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11On a winter's night there was cocoa, bread and a bed
0:26:11 > 0:26:15for up to 300 people. There was even a giant footbath
0:26:15 > 0:26:18which could accommodate 12 pairs of tired feet.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22And this sort of charity was happening on an enormous scale.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25There were institutions for every conceivable niche.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29Shipwrecked sailors, homeless cabbies, orphan girls,
0:26:29 > 0:26:33lame painters, a reference to their disability rather than
0:26:33 > 0:26:34the quality of their work.
0:26:36 > 0:26:42But the tricky question with charity is always who do you give it to?
0:26:47 > 0:26:51One of the do-gooders with strong opinions on that score was
0:26:51 > 0:26:56Helen Bosanquet, a quiet, ironic and donnish woman, whose old-fashioned,
0:26:56 > 0:27:01high-handed manner had given her the university nickname Tone Raiser.
0:27:02 > 0:27:06Given her moral approach to life, perhaps it's not surprising
0:27:06 > 0:27:11that she met her philosopher husband at the London Ethical Society.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17Bosanquet worked in the East End as a social
0:27:17 > 0:27:21worker for the Charity Organisation Society, which wanted to stop
0:27:21 > 0:27:26all this haphazard giving and target help to the most deserving.
0:27:26 > 0:27:29She made detailed inquiries into the lives of the poor...
0:27:32 > 0:27:35..sometimes by looking out of her own back window.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45She wrote, "I am fortunate in commanding the survey of
0:27:45 > 0:27:50"five or six of these gardens, sooty, dingy strips they are."
0:27:52 > 0:27:55"Number one consists of four or five little boys.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58"They are as sturdy well cared for little fellows as one could
0:27:58 > 0:27:59"wish to see."
0:28:02 > 0:28:05"But at number four, the children
0:28:05 > 0:28:08"are half-starved, cross little things.
0:28:08 > 0:28:10"In a few years' time the boys will be running
0:28:10 > 0:28:14wild on the street, qualifying for reformatory or prison."
0:28:16 > 0:28:19But, Bosanquet concluded, "Their life might be as good as
0:28:19 > 0:28:23" number one. They live in the same surroundings,
0:28:23 > 0:28:25"they might go to the same school.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29"It is the wholesome home atmosphere that is wanting."
0:28:30 > 0:28:34Bosanquet's big idea was that to tackle poverty, you need to do
0:28:34 > 0:28:36more than just dole out money.
0:28:36 > 0:28:40You have to intervene early with chaotic families.
0:28:41 > 0:28:43That view is still pretty popular.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47We need to tackle the root causes of poverty.
0:28:47 > 0:28:52Homes where no-one works, children growing up in chaos,
0:28:52 > 0:28:57addiction, mental health problems, abuse, family breakdown.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00We will never deal with poverty unless we get to grips
0:29:00 > 0:29:01with these issues.
0:29:05 > 0:29:07What sympathy does the man who spent six
0:29:07 > 0:29:11years in charge of benefits have for Bosanquet's approach?
0:29:12 > 0:29:15Sometimes people grow up in a household, for example,
0:29:15 > 0:29:20where your parents didn't work and you imbibe a sense that work
0:29:20 > 0:29:24isn't that important in your life, you don't go to school very much,
0:29:24 > 0:29:27and therefore you enter the world of work with no skilling and no
0:29:27 > 0:29:30sense of this is what you do.
0:29:30 > 0:29:33That, in a sense, you need to put right. So you...
0:29:33 > 0:29:36Like her, you would intervene at that point.
0:29:36 > 0:29:42I remember visiting a lone parent a few years ago in an estate
0:29:42 > 0:29:48which had a very high number of single parents, young women.
0:29:48 > 0:29:53And when I sat and talked to her, I sensed that she wanted
0:29:53 > 0:29:57to do something, she wanted to be better than her circumstances.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00But she had no skills, she had fallen out of school,
0:30:00 > 0:30:02she didn't know where to go.
0:30:02 > 0:30:07And I remember leaving there thinking very simply, "This is my daughter."
0:30:07 > 0:30:09I'm sorry, I got emotional about it.
0:30:09 > 0:30:1119-years-old.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18My aspiration for my daughter was boundless.
0:30:18 > 0:30:22And here I'm sitting with a 19-year-old girl who had
0:30:22 > 0:30:26written off her life and had no aspiration and no self worth.
0:30:26 > 0:30:30She was a product of a system. And my point was...
0:30:30 > 0:30:33What could I have done, what could we do, to change her life?
0:30:35 > 0:30:39- So that really is heart as well as head?- Yes.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44You want people to be responsible, you want them to make choices.
0:30:44 > 0:30:48You want them to improve themselves.
0:30:48 > 0:30:49That's quite Victorian.
0:30:49 > 0:30:52You want people to make every step of the way as much as
0:30:52 > 0:30:56they can, to be able to be then be masters of their,
0:30:56 > 0:31:00their own fate, not leaving me as master of their destiny.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03- Yeah, Helen Bosanquet would love this.- Exactly.
0:31:06 > 0:31:10The idea of bettering yourself was an incredibly powerful one to
0:31:10 > 0:31:12Victorians like Bosanquet.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20She believed that charitable help should be targeted
0:31:20 > 0:31:24only at those who were willing to help themselves.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27Mind Management.
0:31:27 > 0:31:31It was down to each individual to make a success of their own life.
0:31:33 > 0:31:35Alistair Campbell - Winners.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42And here it is, the one that inspired all the others that
0:31:42 > 0:31:47launched the entire genre - Samuel Smiles' Self Help.,
0:31:47 > 0:31:52First published in 1859 and still in print.
0:31:52 > 0:31:56The idea of self help was hugely attractive to the Victorians,
0:31:56 > 0:32:00who turned this book into a major best seller.
0:32:00 > 0:32:05It contained a series of inspiring portraits of go-getters who'd
0:32:05 > 0:32:08pulled themselves up by their boot-straps from humble
0:32:08 > 0:32:11beginnings to become high achievers.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16Idleness is "the curse of man,"
0:32:16 > 0:32:21said Smiles, while labour is "an honour and a glory."
0:32:21 > 0:32:24Smiles' mantra was industry and thrift.
0:32:24 > 0:32:28You worked hard and you saved, preferably in a savings account,
0:32:28 > 0:32:33and that prevented you from becoming poor.
0:32:33 > 0:32:36It was basically this idea that if you do well, then that shows
0:32:36 > 0:32:39you are a good, thriving individual and if you fail, well,
0:32:39 > 0:32:42that's your own fault and you've brought it on yourself.
0:32:42 > 0:32:44Self-help is very convenient for justifying inequality,
0:32:44 > 0:32:47because inequality looks quite irrational, you know,
0:32:47 > 0:32:49why should some people live incredible luxurious lives
0:32:49 > 0:32:51while other people live in such abject poverty?
0:32:51 > 0:32:54But if you say, "Ah, well, the people at the top deserve to be there,
0:32:54 > 0:32:57"they work harder, they're more intelligent, they're brighter.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00"The people at the bottom, on the other hand, they're stupid,
0:33:00 > 0:33:03"they're feckless, they're lazy," that's a convenient way of saying
0:33:03 > 0:33:04inequality is deserved.
0:33:04 > 0:33:07MUSIC: Joy To The World
0:33:14 > 0:33:17What you saw through the 19th century
0:33:17 > 0:33:22was a notion of the deserving and the undeserving poor.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28Collecting for the poor, both deserving and undeserving!
0:33:30 > 0:33:35There were those who were wantonly unwilling to work and support
0:33:35 > 0:33:41themselves and there were those who had fallen on hard times.
0:33:41 > 0:33:45And charitable relief had to make a distinction
0:33:45 > 0:33:50and a difference between the two types of poverty.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53You have to decide whether to give money to the deserving poor,
0:33:53 > 0:33:59the industrious workers, old people, orphans or the undeserving poor?
0:33:59 > 0:34:03Gamblers, alcoholics, fallen women?
0:34:03 > 0:34:04That sounds good.
0:34:04 > 0:34:08Well, obviously, the deserving poor.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10Deserving poor.
0:34:10 > 0:34:12I think the deserving poor.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15Deserving.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18It's easy to laugh at Victorian censoriousness
0:34:18 > 0:34:20and that vocabulary they developed.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23But even now, if we're honest just for an instant,
0:34:23 > 0:34:27when someone comes up to you on the street asking for money,
0:34:27 > 0:34:32you think or part of you thinks, "Do they really deserve my compassion?"
0:34:32 > 0:34:35- Why do you say that?- Because it's basically their fault.
0:34:35 > 0:34:37Do you feel sorry for these people at all?
0:34:37 > 0:34:38Do you think we should help them?
0:34:38 > 0:34:40What state they are in is their fault.
0:34:40 > 0:34:42So it's this lot that you feel sorry for?
0:34:42 > 0:34:43It's this lot that need it.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47Do you think there are deserving and undeserving?
0:34:47 > 0:34:49Yes, always. Yes.
0:34:50 > 0:34:53The trouble with only helping the deserving, though,
0:34:53 > 0:34:56is that it often implies not helping those in greatest need
0:34:56 > 0:34:58because they might squander it.
0:35:01 > 0:35:04It was a problem brilliantly satirized in the film
0:35:04 > 0:35:08My Fair Lady, based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12Stanley Holloway expertly plays dustman Alfred Doolittle,
0:35:12 > 0:35:16gloriously poking fun at Victorian pieties about the deserving poor.
0:35:16 > 0:35:20I'm one of the undeserving poor, that's what I am.
0:35:20 > 0:35:22Think of what that means to a man.
0:35:22 > 0:35:24It means that he's up against
0:35:24 > 0:35:26middle-class morality for all of time.
0:35:26 > 0:35:29If there's anything going, and I puts in for a bit of it,
0:35:29 > 0:35:33it's always the same story. You're undeserving, so you can't have it.
0:35:33 > 0:35:36But my needs is as great as the most deserving widows that ever
0:35:36 > 0:35:38got money out of six different charities in one
0:35:38 > 0:35:41week for the death of the same husband.
0:35:41 > 0:35:45I don't need less than a deserving man. I need more.
0:35:45 > 0:35:49I don't eat less hearty than he does, and I drink, oh, a lot more.
0:35:49 > 0:35:54I'm playing straight with you. I ain't pretending to be deserving.
0:35:54 > 0:35:58No, I'm undeserving and I mean to go on being undeserving.
0:35:58 > 0:36:00I like it and that's the truth!
0:36:03 > 0:36:06The satire highlights how difficult these issues can be.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18I'm going to a St Mungo's Shelter for the Homeless to hear
0:36:18 > 0:36:22from some of those who have been on the receiving end of such attitudes.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29I think sometimes poor people fall into two camps.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31There's people that are really trying to get back into work
0:36:31 > 0:36:35and they're just being squeezed so much, and there are people
0:36:35 > 0:36:38that deliberately do want to live off benefits, unfortunately.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41This sounds like the deserving and the undeserving poor to me.
0:36:41 > 0:36:44Yeah, well you get people trying it on all over the place.
0:36:44 > 0:36:47You know they don't have to be homeless to try it on.
0:36:47 > 0:36:48This is true.
0:36:48 > 0:36:51They might want a bit of crack or something like that.
0:36:52 > 0:36:57I don't think it takes away from the fact that people need help.
0:36:57 > 0:37:01I don't think anybody would have chosen to be homeless.
0:37:01 > 0:37:05You know that's something that unfortunately life throws at you.
0:37:05 > 0:37:08It's how you deal with it and that's the thing,
0:37:08 > 0:37:10some people know how to deal with it and some people don't.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13And the people that don't, fall into that spiral.
0:37:13 > 0:37:16Some fall into drugs, some fall into alcohol, prostitution,
0:37:16 > 0:37:18who knows, you know.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21They've had a really hard life and for you to start saying
0:37:21 > 0:37:24try and look over them, and lord it over them saying
0:37:24 > 0:37:27you should do this, you should do that. How dare you.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32I've been on the streets recently and I couldn't get a hostel place
0:37:32 > 0:37:37because I'd been accused of an assault which was fabricated
0:37:37 > 0:37:42and for a whole year and I had lung cancer at the time,
0:37:42 > 0:37:43they wouldn't give me a hostel place
0:37:43 > 0:37:49because the court case was pending and I was sleeping on a derelict
0:37:49 > 0:37:53houseboat on the canal and then it went to court and the guy didn't
0:37:53 > 0:37:57even turn up, and then within a couple of days I had a hostel place.
0:37:57 > 0:38:02Was I deserving or undeserving? I don't know, you know.
0:38:05 > 0:38:09I think a lot of people in modern Britain still have an inner
0:38:09 > 0:38:13Bosanquet that wants to give the moral high ground to those
0:38:13 > 0:38:15who work hard and those who play by the rules.
0:38:15 > 0:38:19Yet they're less certain than she was that those who don't
0:38:19 > 0:38:24survive, who can't thrive, are somehow immoral.
0:38:24 > 0:38:25I don't think anyone deserves to be poor.
0:38:25 > 0:38:28I probably veer more towards the deserving poor
0:38:28 > 0:38:33but I also have sympathy for drunks and alcoholics etc.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35I would absolutely give a pound to each.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38It's impossible to determine whether someone's
0:38:38 > 0:38:43conditions are a product of their own behaviour or as product of their
0:38:43 > 0:38:47mental health or of the situation they've found themselves in.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57Distinguishing between the deserving and undeserving was felt to
0:38:57 > 0:38:59be problematic, even in the 19th century.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04Late-Victorian society was deeply unequal.
0:39:04 > 0:39:09Empire and industrialization had made Britain rich as never before,
0:39:09 > 0:39:13but many of its population was still desperately poor.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16And surely it made no sense to blame them.
0:39:16 > 0:39:21That was the position advocated by Bosanquet's ideological adversary,
0:39:21 > 0:39:24another forceful woman - Beatrice Webb.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32Beatrice Webb was born into a life of luxury.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35Her family owned several country houses
0:39:35 > 0:39:38and she never learnt to boil an egg.
0:39:38 > 0:39:40But she was deeply earnest.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43She married socialist theorist Sidney Webb.
0:39:43 > 0:39:46They spent their honeymoon working on a weighty history
0:39:46 > 0:39:48of trade unionism.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55Like Bosanquet, Webb wanted to investigate the underlying
0:39:55 > 0:39:57causes of poverty.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00She worked for the social reformer Charles Booth, who discovered in a
0:40:00 > 0:40:05shocking survey that nearly a third of London's population were poor.
0:40:08 > 0:40:10He sent Webb undercover...
0:40:11 > 0:40:15..into one of the sweatshops in London's East End.
0:40:15 > 0:40:17She assumed a false identity
0:40:17 > 0:40:20and got herself hired as a trouser finisher.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25But with her privileged and resolutely intellectual
0:40:25 > 0:40:28upbringing, she was completely useless at the job.
0:40:28 > 0:40:31She had to leave after four days to avoid being
0:40:31 > 0:40:35unmasked as an impostor or fired as an incompetent.
0:40:37 > 0:40:41Still, her experiences led her to observe that the poverty
0:40:41 > 0:40:45she encountered could not be blamed on individuals.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48It wasn't their fault they were poor, it was society's.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52Beatrice Webb rejected the idea of trying to
0:40:52 > 0:40:56distinguish between the undeserving and the deserving poor.
0:40:56 > 0:40:58As far as she was concerned, there was
0:40:58 > 0:41:02no room for morality in a discussion about unemployment.
0:41:02 > 0:41:07She said, "Poverty is not due to a weakness of individual character
0:41:07 > 0:41:09"but is a failure of social structure
0:41:09 > 0:41:11"and economic mismanagement."
0:41:14 > 0:41:18Charity and do-gooding could never be enough, thought Webb.
0:41:19 > 0:41:23Instead, she believed the state should provide an array
0:41:23 > 0:41:27of centralised services, from labour exchanges to old-age pensions.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36As the 20th century began,
0:41:36 > 0:41:40attitudes to the poor were becoming ever more polarized.
0:41:42 > 0:41:45So what did the government decide to do?
0:41:45 > 0:41:49What governments always do in the face of a controversial issue
0:41:49 > 0:41:51that divides public opinion.
0:41:51 > 0:41:52It set up an inquiry.
0:41:54 > 0:42:01In 1905, a new Royal Commission on the Poor Laws was appointed,
0:42:01 > 0:42:05just like Edwin Chadwick's over 70 years earlier.
0:42:05 > 0:42:10This time, both Webb and Bosanquet were among the commissioners asked
0:42:10 > 0:42:12to give their advice to government.
0:42:12 > 0:42:16Thousands of visits and interviews were conducted
0:42:16 > 0:42:19and nearly 50 volumes of evidence produced.
0:42:20 > 0:42:23But Bosanquet and Webb could not agree.
0:42:26 > 0:42:30For Helen Bosanquet, the origins of poverty were basically moral.
0:42:31 > 0:42:36For Beatrice Webb, the origins of poverty were basically economic.
0:42:37 > 0:42:40So differently did they see the issues that they published
0:42:40 > 0:42:42two completely different reports,
0:42:42 > 0:42:46with completely different recommendations for the government.
0:42:47 > 0:42:51Bosanquet proposed an outdoor relief system mainly run
0:42:51 > 0:42:55by private charity, which was thousands of volunteer social
0:42:55 > 0:42:59workers descending upon the houses of the poor in order to help them
0:42:59 > 0:43:01and train them out of poverty.
0:43:02 > 0:43:06Webb, meanwhile, proposed a sort of prototype welfare state,
0:43:06 > 0:43:09with separate government departments running education,
0:43:09 > 0:43:14employment, health and pensions with a national minimum
0:43:14 > 0:43:18of benefits available so that people could be kept out of poverty.
0:43:19 > 0:43:24Bosanquet felt Webb was the thin end of the Communist wedge.
0:43:24 > 0:43:27She sarcastically asked, "Will there will be a department for boiling
0:43:27 > 0:43:30"kettles for old women, thus obviating the need for
0:43:30 > 0:43:32"neighbourly kindliness?"
0:43:36 > 0:43:41It was a philosophical battle between the mid-Victorian
0:43:41 > 0:43:47vision of the night-watchman state, the minimal laissez faire,
0:43:47 > 0:43:52let alone, stand on your own two feet, self-help state
0:43:52 > 0:43:58and the much stronger vision for the later 19th century that both
0:43:58 > 0:44:01local government and central government had a role to
0:44:01 > 0:44:02play in helping the poor.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06And people like Helen Bosanquet were adamantly opposed
0:44:06 > 0:44:09because this would just create a culture...
0:44:09 > 0:44:11A culture of dependency, we'd call it.
0:44:11 > 0:44:14A culture of dependency where people wouldn't stand on their own
0:44:14 > 0:44:16two feet, wouldn't look after their children.
0:44:16 > 0:44:21And that's always been, I think, the battle in welfare thinking.
0:44:24 > 0:44:29Faced with this battle, the government chose a third way.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32They introduced a new National Insurance scheme,
0:44:32 > 0:44:35aimed at helping workers who were temporarily unemployed.
0:44:43 > 0:44:48The system, still with us today, was based on contribution.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52If you pay in, you can get benefits when you are out of work.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56And there were also the first non-contributory benefits,
0:44:56 > 0:44:59including old-age pensions.
0:45:04 > 0:45:09Deserving or undeserving, the state judged far less.
0:45:09 > 0:45:13These new benefits were hailed as a breakthrough towards a new,
0:45:13 > 0:45:15progressive and more democratic world.
0:45:26 > 0:45:30But would the system cope in unknown economic circumstances?
0:45:30 > 0:45:33Are there limits on how much we can spend on welfare?
0:45:35 > 0:45:38Just 20 years after National Insurance was introduced,
0:45:38 > 0:45:41the question of austerity cuts, so familiar today,
0:45:41 > 0:45:45absolutely haunted a government in crisis.
0:45:47 > 0:45:52The evening of August 23rd 1931, witnessed one of the most
0:45:52 > 0:45:56significant peacetime Cabinet meetings in British history.
0:45:56 > 0:45:59It was unseasonably chilly for the time of year,
0:45:59 > 0:46:01matching the political mood in Number Ten.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06As each of the ministers trudged up to the door heavy in heart,
0:46:06 > 0:46:09they knew that the decision they were about to take would
0:46:09 > 0:46:12shape Britain for the next decade.
0:46:15 > 0:46:18The man at Number Ten was Ramsay MacDonald.
0:46:18 > 0:46:21And his government was Labour, a young political party
0:46:21 > 0:46:24voted into power by working-class men and women,
0:46:24 > 0:46:26many with the vote for the first time.
0:46:30 > 0:46:34But it was the worst possible moment for Labour to realise their dreams.
0:46:35 > 0:46:37As the Great Depression set in,
0:46:37 > 0:46:41the Bank of England warned that national bankruptcy was near.
0:46:43 > 0:46:46Ramsay MacDonald looked round at his cabinet that evening
0:46:46 > 0:46:49and told them there is no alternative.
0:46:49 > 0:46:51It has to be austerity.
0:46:51 > 0:46:53Drastically cutting assistance to the poor,
0:46:53 > 0:46:56who were self-evidently the victims of economic
0:46:56 > 0:46:59forces beyond their control, was, he acknowledged,
0:46:59 > 0:47:03a negation of everything the Labour Party stood for.
0:47:03 > 0:47:06But, he went on, he was absolutely satisfied
0:47:06 > 0:47:10that it was necessary, in the national interest, to implement
0:47:10 > 0:47:12these measures to secure the country.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18The Cabinet now had to choose which side they were on.
0:47:20 > 0:47:24For one of them, the decision would be particularly uncomfortable.
0:47:24 > 0:47:28She had come an extraordinarily long way in a life of struggle.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31A tough iron lady, known as Maggie.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39Over 40 years earlier, at the age of just 14,
0:47:39 > 0:47:42Margaret Bondfield had left her large, working-class
0:47:42 > 0:47:46family in Somerset, to work as an apprentice shop girl in Brighton.
0:47:48 > 0:47:52By saving carefully, in a few years she'd earned enough
0:47:52 > 0:47:54to fund a move to London.
0:47:57 > 0:48:01"For the next three months I was nearer to starvation
0:48:01 > 0:48:04"than at any time since," she later wrote.
0:48:04 > 0:48:06"I have taken the whole of Oxford Street,
0:48:06 > 0:48:10"going into every shop on the chance that there might be a vacancy.
0:48:10 > 0:48:16"I learnt the bitterness of a hopeless search for work."
0:48:16 > 0:48:20Eventually Bondfield did find a job, but it was awful.
0:48:22 > 0:48:25Fed up with long hours, poor pay and grim working conditions,
0:48:25 > 0:48:29she joined the shop girls' trade union, the NAUSAWC, the
0:48:29 > 0:48:34National Amalgamated Union for Shop Assistants, Warehouseman and Clerks,
0:48:34 > 0:48:38and she committed herself to fighting for a better deal.
0:48:41 > 0:48:45From here Bondfield's story transforms from one typical of
0:48:45 > 0:48:48so many working-class women of the time, of the daily struggle
0:48:48 > 0:48:52to make ends meet, to an absolutely extraordinary one.
0:48:52 > 0:48:57With a ruthless determination she pursued her cause and rose through
0:48:57 > 0:49:02the ranks, becoming the first woman to be elected to the TUC executive,
0:49:02 > 0:49:04the first female chair of the TUC
0:49:04 > 0:49:07and eventually one of the first three women MPs.
0:49:12 > 0:49:16In 1926, Bondfield's high-flying career took her to
0:49:16 > 0:49:18Wallsend in the industrial north-east,
0:49:18 > 0:49:22where she hoped to gain her second parliamentary seat in a by-election.
0:49:23 > 0:49:26As the election results were due to be announced,
0:49:26 > 0:49:29everybody gravitated towards the town hall.
0:49:32 > 0:49:35Margaret Bondfield posed for the cameras...
0:49:37 > 0:49:39..before going in...
0:49:45 > 0:49:49..and went upstairs to the balcony, where, with her rivals,
0:49:49 > 0:49:52she waited for the results of the election.
0:49:54 > 0:49:59The enormous crowd was thrilled to hear that she was to represent them.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02As an open-top bus took her on a victory lap around town,
0:50:02 > 0:50:07they cheered, "Maggie MP! Maggie MP! Maggie MP!"
0:50:08 > 0:50:12So a lot of hopes were pinned on the new Labour MP.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20Within months their faith would be tested.
0:50:20 > 0:50:24Although in opposition, Bondfield was appointed to a committee
0:50:24 > 0:50:28investigating the abuse of National Insurance benefits.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31To reduce costs at a time of high unemployment,
0:50:31 > 0:50:34a controversial test had been introduced.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37Claimants had to prove that they weren't skiving.
0:50:39 > 0:50:43You can imagine the indignation of people living in Wallsend
0:50:43 > 0:50:44and places like it.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47They'd already paid into the unemployment fund,
0:50:47 > 0:50:50and now suddenly they had to prove that they were genuinely seeking
0:50:50 > 0:50:55work, even though they knew perfectly well there was no work to be had.
0:50:55 > 0:50:57It felt like another subjective moral
0:50:57 > 0:51:00judgment on their character, a return to the Victorian
0:51:00 > 0:51:05idea of deserving and undeserving poor all over again.
0:51:05 > 0:51:07Assessors were sent in,
0:51:07 > 0:51:11essentially snooping, asking people to report on their neighbours.
0:51:11 > 0:51:15You could appeal to the umpire, very British idea, he'd insure
0:51:15 > 0:51:21fair play, but in some areas up to a third of all claims were dismissed.
0:51:21 > 0:51:25But Margaret Bondfield, surely, with her history and background
0:51:25 > 0:51:28would be on the side of the hard up unemployed?
0:51:32 > 0:51:35Her first instincts were to sympathise with
0:51:35 > 0:51:38the plight of her constituents, but Bondfield was convinced that
0:51:38 > 0:51:41when times were tight, compromises were necessary.
0:51:42 > 0:51:47The committee recommended keeping the Genuinely Seeking Work Test
0:51:47 > 0:51:50and cuts to unemployment benefit.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52And Bondfield signed her agreement.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57Bondfield's old supporters felt utterly betrayed.
0:51:57 > 0:52:01She was speaking at the National Conference of Labour Women and she
0:52:01 > 0:52:02was heckled.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05"A women who has been a member of the working classes and
0:52:05 > 0:52:07"has forgotten their struggle to make ends meet
0:52:07 > 0:52:09"has betrayed the workers."
0:52:10 > 0:52:14"Well, how would Mrs Bondfield like to live on eight shillings a week?"
0:52:15 > 0:52:18"Our class has been let down by its own people."
0:52:22 > 0:52:25But that was under a Tory government.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28From 1929 Labour were in power
0:52:28 > 0:52:32having promised to provide more generous benefits.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35And Bondfield became Britain's first-ever woman in the cabinet,
0:52:35 > 0:52:38as Minister for Labour.
0:52:38 > 0:52:43I just want to say how awfully glad we are that we have a
0:52:43 > 0:52:46woman in our second Labour government,
0:52:46 > 0:52:51a woman who started life as a shop assistant and who is today
0:52:51 > 0:52:55the first Privy Councillor, a woman Privy Councillor of this country.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00But in power, it wasn't going to be easy.
0:53:03 > 0:53:08Wall Street crashed, followed by a banking crisis, then economic slump.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12Unemployment hit record levels.
0:53:12 > 0:53:15The country was running out of money.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20It seemed that the answer was massive further spending
0:53:20 > 0:53:22cuts to the dole.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30So here we are back where we started, at Ramsay MacDonald's crisis
0:53:30 > 0:53:34Cabinet meeting in August 1931.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37The first time a Labour government explicitly had to try
0:53:37 > 0:53:43and square its ideals with the harsh realities of an austerity budget.
0:53:43 > 0:53:48The Cabinet was split. Few could stomach the proposed cuts.
0:53:48 > 0:53:50Which way would Maggie turn?
0:53:52 > 0:53:54Bondfield, believing it to be in the national interest,
0:53:54 > 0:53:56voted for the cuts.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00For the shop girl made good it was career suicide.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05Unable to agree, the government collapsed.
0:54:05 > 0:54:08Bondfield lost her seat at the next election
0:54:08 > 0:54:10and never returned to Parliament.
0:54:14 > 0:54:16You have to sympathise with Margaret Bondfield.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20I mean, that is the ultimate dilemma for a politician who seeks
0:54:20 > 0:54:24power, gets into power and finds that the economy doesn't
0:54:24 > 0:54:28allow you to make changes in the way that you would like to make them.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31Because at the end of it all, you know, a government is
0:54:31 > 0:54:33only as good as the economy allows it to be.
0:54:33 > 0:54:36You can be as big-hearted as you like, you can
0:54:36 > 0:54:41want to eliminate poverty, but people will only trust you to
0:54:41 > 0:54:45do it if they also trust you with the public finances.
0:54:52 > 0:54:54Despite her outstanding achievements,
0:54:54 > 0:54:58Bondfield has largely been written out of history,
0:54:58 > 0:55:01condemned by some as a class traitor.
0:55:06 > 0:55:13Now, I'm here to try and find out if anyone still knows who this is.
0:55:13 > 0:55:14No.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19From Wallsend itself? Very good.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23She was your MP. Not yours, I know you're younger than that.
0:55:23 > 0:55:25Up to the '30s she was like the local heroine.
0:55:28 > 0:55:30Her name was Margaret Bondfield.
0:55:30 > 0:55:31Margaret Bondfield.
0:55:31 > 0:55:34What about you?
0:55:34 > 0:55:38- What does he think?- That's a good smile. That's recognition!
0:55:39 > 0:55:42I can't find anybody who remembers her.
0:55:42 > 0:55:43So I'm going to give it to you.
0:55:51 > 0:55:54The Margaret Bondfield story is rather sad in a sense
0:55:54 > 0:55:58because it questions what happens at the outer limits of generosity.
0:55:58 > 0:56:00What if there is no money left?
0:56:00 > 0:56:02What if you have made a point of saying,
0:56:02 > 0:56:08"This is the class I come from, I know these people are on the whole
0:56:08 > 0:56:12"decent and deserving of support and there just isn't any money."
0:56:12 > 0:56:14I mean, you know, what happens to governments
0:56:14 > 0:56:16throughout history, presumably.
0:56:16 > 0:56:18They hit a point where they have to make choices,
0:56:18 > 0:56:22and those choices will be, "Who do I give this money to?"
0:56:22 > 0:56:25And the only answer to that is, "I give it to the people
0:56:25 > 0:56:27"who I think are the most deserving."
0:56:27 > 0:56:30Even if you don't accept any of those categories, that's what
0:56:30 > 0:56:31you end up doing.
0:56:39 > 0:56:43Southwell, the quintessential Victorian workhouse, is now
0:56:43 > 0:56:45almost 200 years old.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48And today it's part of the heritage business.
0:56:51 > 0:56:53This is one of the top items in the gift shop.
0:56:53 > 0:56:59It's a bowl for putting your gruel in, but on the side of it
0:56:59 > 0:57:02are printed all the options of what you could be.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05Blameless and deserving.
0:57:05 > 0:57:08Idle and profligate.
0:57:08 > 0:57:10Or just old and infirm.
0:57:10 > 0:57:12Anyway, for nine quid for a bowl,
0:57:12 > 0:57:15you're not going to be poor if you're buying it.
0:57:18 > 0:57:21Even after the arrival of the post-war welfare state,
0:57:21 > 0:57:25with its principle of care from cradle to grave,
0:57:25 > 0:57:27Southwell continued to play a role.
0:57:27 > 0:57:31It was used to provide shelter for those in need well into the 1970s.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38Whilst we've moved on since the days of Oliver Twist,
0:57:38 > 0:57:44the dilemmas raised by the past are not remotely consigned to history.
0:57:44 > 0:57:48No-one is seriously suggesting we bring back the workhouses.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51But they are an extreme symbol of the contradictions
0:57:51 > 0:57:55that are still inherent in our attitude to poverty.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57We do want to be generous to the poor,
0:57:57 > 0:58:00but not, I think, on any terms.
0:58:01 > 0:58:05The vocabulary has changed, but the essential problem hasn't.
0:58:05 > 0:58:08We want to give people a hand-up not a hand-out,
0:58:08 > 0:58:12we want to help those who help themselves, we want to help
0:58:12 > 0:58:16hard-working families, we don't want welfare, we want workfare.
0:58:16 > 0:58:20It's always more or less the same attempt to find a balance.
0:58:21 > 0:58:25Some solutions work, some don't work, and if history is
0:58:25 > 0:58:28divided into the workers, those who tried to solve the problem,
0:58:28 > 0:58:31and the shirkers, those who said, "Well, there is nothing
0:58:31 > 0:58:33"we can do about it, that is just how it is,"
0:58:33 > 0:58:35then I'm with the workers.