Manchester Poverty

An article in the Manchester Evening News says this on poverty and race.

Despite a great deal of positive action – and money spent – by the government and the council, some significant and troubling gaps remain unbridged. In terms of life expectancy, health, job prospects, and chances of being a victim of crime, wards like Harpurhey score significantly lower than the likes of Chorlton and Didsbury. Some gap is perhaps inevitable; it is the size of the gap which, despite closing slightly, remains unacceptable.the cycle of inequality is being repeated through the city’s schools. While more than 60 per cent of children in Didsbury get good GCSE results, the same is true of fewer than 25 per cent of pupils in Harpurhey. In other words, there seems to be a clear correlation between the prospects of our young people and the relative poverty of the area in which they are being raised.

Those who fret about the changing ethnic make-up of Manchester are missing a much more important point.

"The divide that should really concern us has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with poverty."