The decades-long scandal of Bognor's 'invisible' poverty

One in four Bognor children living in poverty in 2016, in one of the most affluent shire counties in the country.   If that doesn't make people sit back and take a long hard look at this Town, nothing will.

A new problem, caused by Austerity, the 2008-crash, Labour overspending?    Not a bit of it -  the problem has been here for decades, at least since 1980 when I first moved here.    Within 3 years I had started with others the Bognor Fun Bus, based on work over years by a playscheme summer programme, and all sessions in what we saw even then as areas with marked deprivation amongst families and children.

No evidence then, except what we saw.   Cyclical poverty, poor educational outcomes, low health - parts of Bognor, Bersted, Barnham, Yapton and Littlehampton.    We saw first-hand that people were struggling where the general area seemed less affected than most by Thatcher's ravages.     It showed in odd and surprising ways - noting our boys in rugby teams were smaller for age, less well-fed than from ....  Chichester, Haywards Heath etc.   "You noticed that too" as Mr Francis, one-time games master at Felpham CC, and he could find nothing in County stats etc.

As the information age kicked in, we began to see other, statistical confirmation - poor school, GCSE results, BR school taken into Special Measures, poorer health stats and, perhaps most defining of all for me as a then-Arun Councillor for Pevensey, the discovery that between an Aldwick  ward the other side of West Meads drive and my Ward there was a 15 year difference in average life expectancy.   Truly shocking, as I termed it, 'Third World Bognor' and got a lot of flack.

What WAS West Sussex Council doing that the educational malaise had to await a Labour Government acting to begin CHANGE and to invest £35 million in the Regis school, let alone Sure Start and all the other local examples of that investment in a better society?   Venal, smug, and sowing the seeds of the current crisis.  Don't put it all down to cuts, the sickness was there well before.

Nothing this Government has done has gone anywhere near recognising the issue, our MP, a Minister, silent, and supporting cuts which make life harder for those already in poverty and hardship or near the line.

An-almost criminal neglect of affordable housing, a regeneration which so far has got nowhere, no recognition that The Regis School is a decent outcome of previous investment by a Labour government.

Young people are disengaged from society and the political system, and the recent Referendum saw them not voting and not helped at all by the voting registration changes - surely, as they are at school and college until 18, the institutions should and could mount efforts within student attendance hours to get them registered at 17?   Plus elementary education that we vote for MPs to make decisions in Parliament, not by referendum, like that or not, that's  the system.

That is as important in their lives as being VACCINATED, the power to be engaged and have a voice.    Especially those on the bottom of the pile.  

Bognor will see no meaningful Revival (those words 'regeneration' and 'redevelopment' are now devalued in this town) until we recognise the need to raise those in poverty, and especially their children, onto a basis of equality.   Economics demand this - low earners and low spenders are unhelpful in the economy; social cohesion, public health, education for the technical age - all those depend on it also.

Until we raise Bognor from the third-world status some experience, and until we look to our young people's futures, this Town will languish.   Those who have the vote have a duty to act beyond the selfish and the personal, beyond fear of the stranger and of change, to drive this town's future forwards.   There's been too much 'what about me?' and we need to see more 'what can we do to make things for the better?'

Austerity NEVER was "we are all in this together" whilst the few benefitted and the majority did not, especially in this Town those who have been made invisible by negligence in housing, education, employment and health.   One is reminded of the Arun Councillor, "there are empty homes in Wigan" so let them eat (Eccles) cakes ....

It's a Parliamentary Democracy, Stupid

One of the reasons I decided, on the morning of the Brexit referendum, to vote to Remain, was that, looking at the Leave case, it was clear they HADN'T THE FOGGIEST OF WHAT TO DO IF THEY WON.  (There were other reasons, one being that though leftwards sympathetic to leaving a capitalist club, I wasn't going to be in the company of those who, be frank, voted to get the wogs out and the Poles and anyone strangely brown etc.   Oh, wait for the howls of denial.)

Events, sadly, have borne that out manyfold times.   Boris the Bold (or is it Two-faced, as in looking both ways) slunk out of view and into the post of Foreign Secretary where he is stymied by May and the real Brexiteers.   

Farage simply buggered off.  No kinder way to put it, off to serenade a Trump and also see UKIP descend into unedifying panto farce.

Not much better on the Remain side, they all scurry around saying they will observe the "will of the people" forgetting that it is Parliamentary Election, secured and extended through struggle and oppression over several hundred  years, which determines that Will and that the whole EU issue was, as claimed by Brexit, the Sovereignty of Parliament.   "Get decision-making back to Westminster" was the ostensible call.    

Now, if it wasn't really that at all,what WAS it? Well, Farage made it clear from the outset of the campaign, it was immigration that would do the trick and if anyone dares to claim that xenophobic fear was not a major driving force of the Leave campaign, they are deluded or lying or both.   I don't care how many times we hear "Oh that's not fair" now when we look at all the racist abuse and worse heaped upon Poles and others since.

There seems to be also amongst many Leavers an expectation that Brexit just 'happens' or even that it has happened.   "Well, we voted out so we're out."  Well, actually, er ....  No.   That's what all the fuss is about and we should be really grateful to the lady who used our law courts to haul us and Mrs May back into the cold daylight of constitutional reality.

The judges made it clear.   It is simple. We have an unwritten constitution based on interpretation of statute and common law over centuries.   That in turn is based on another reality,   We had a struggle including a bloody civil war (or 2), a period of dictatorship under Cromwell, before, ignoring James II, we finally arrived at the Supremacy of Parliament.    Not of Referendum, note.    They always will be advisory.   WE ELECT OUR MP's TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR THE NATION, whatever we say via referendum is not a decision, it's a view, is all. 

The irony is that Brexiteers, who pushed their legitimate case re that sovereignty ('decisions at Westminster not in Brussells'  blah blah spout&sprout), they now are squealing like piglets in case those awful MPs we all elected go and do something else other than Brexit.

Probably, no worries on that score, the elite all seem to be queuing up to say the vote must stand, 17.5 million etc.   So, may be I so bold as to ask what about the 16.5 million who voted against (nearly half)?   What about those who did not or could not vote, such as those Brits in Europe whom we appear to have told you can go and stuff yourselves.   Nice if it all goes tits-up and they are forced back?   Hey, got a spare area in Calais?    "I have a right to return and Bognor looks just the place for old folk like me".  "Sorry, mate, the Syrian refugees have finally moved out of the Reception Centres, off you go now."    (Luckily they won't  have to measure age from their teeth, however.  "Er I got these on the NHS around 20 years ago.")

There are SERIOUS issues and if they are not resolved in a way that will not seriously harm the people of this country and the unity of the UK, are Brexiteers really insistent we leave come what may?

So:

• no access to the Single Market - all serious folk say this HAS to happen, it WILL happen, and never mind johnny EU foreigner saying we also have to have freedom of movement of people
  
• the UK breaks up, Scotland leaves, because its people want to stay in the EU and that will help the SNP when, not if, there is another independence referendum
  
• we don't go back to the people either via a General Election  or a 2nd Referendum if the negotiations produce a result which looks bad for the UK
  
• the situation in NI with the common border issues 'develops' so as to make community and cross-border relations problemmatical
  
• the country's economic situation takes a downturn for the very worst based on global reaction to the ongoing situation.

I would say that in the above circumstances, we ought to be glad there are 600+ MPs charged with ensuring the good and safe government of the country.   All of them should be very clear about the outcome of the Referendum:   for every 35 to leave, 33 to stay and 60 not heard.   There is also the age divide - I am not the only one who is worried not only about low turn-out amongst the young but also the significant changes to voter registration which guaranteed an outcome that many would be left voteless.   It is THEIR future.  This was a vote by the old about the future for the young.

I am also asking, what is it that is NOT BEING DONE in our education system to teach about the importance of voting?   Also, we have them in one place in their final years in secondary education - so, use that to REGISTER them for goodness sake.   It is as important as being VACCINATED....

No MPs will read this, BUT, if any should, or anyone reading this happens to pop across one anytime soon, DO REMIND THEM THAT IT'S THEIR JOB TO MAKE DECISIONS, NOT A BLOODY REFERENDUM OF THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND HELPED BY SOME MADMEN.

tHE bACK pAGE - gasp horror shock burk-ini revelations

tHE bACK pAGE

Now, dear readers, this august* column wishes not to alarm you  ....  but, as our Garlic ... er sorry Gallic cousins across the other side of La Manche have now decided to act decisively re 'foreign and exotic' ladies insisting on disporting (possibly then deporting) themselves on elysian French beaches in head-to-toe bathing apparel, aka burkinis, we have a public duty (yes we do) to alert you to worrying signs of similar gear seen, well, all over the bally place.  Welcome to tHE bACK pAGE Illustrated Guide (yes, it is) to Notifiable Beachwear ....

* yes we know it's September ....

This business started early, as we can see, from Victorian times, and maybe even in our own town, possibly exported to colonial possessions of the epoch (i.e. most of the world) and adopted by hapless locals.   Think about it .... (do, do think)

It clearly is affecting the world of Fashion.   The armed French gendarmes policing the beach where the lady was 'instructed' to remove her offending swimwear to permitted requirement obviously said more like "Er, madame, 30% erff is nert enurffe, we need 80".   It must be about the first time on a beach moral custodians insisted a woman take off clothing to appease the law ....

Mind you, we gather local pub landlords here have had some problems .....

Religion is not immune, of course, as we can see, and it's not only moslems but christian ladies also ....  when can we expect a statement from The Vatican, we ask? (yes we do).

And next, even worse .... (increase from gasp to horror).

tbp asks (oh we do, we do) if there is not a thoroughly sexist agenda at work - that man is even more covered than the lady on the French beach, for goodness sake!

 What's worse, the evidence is there of a pretty pernicious plot to influence our young from an early age.  Now the boys toy is bad enough but the girls is thoroughly kinky to start with, and if your 13 year old son wants one for Xmas, get him to a shrink as soon as possible.  Or he may grow up to be a tory MP.  You have been warned!

So there readers, you have it in a nutshell, or a wet-suit even.

We suggest that if you see clear evidence of such subterfuge, you take careful note, or something or other.

This shows the awesome power of the uber-burkini, do we want people choking to death on Bognor Beach, we ask?   

"I find your lack of teeth disturbing."

Breaking News (or wind)

My god, too camp to be believed.   Look, lads, you're asking for a gendarme's truncheon ....   Pardon, you'd like that?   Hmmmmmm  ........

Till we meet again, Vera

Jove's Garcon

Remain Tweedledum, Brexit Tweedledee

The Parliamentary petition for a 2nd EU Referendum has now over 4.1 million, in itself a remarkable event, unprecedented in terms of usual totals achieved by this device, and in an incredibly short period.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215

The Government has given its responses, that there is not to be a 2nd Referendum, but this was framed in the time of Cameron's premiership.   The Petitions Committee has now decided there will be a debate by MPs on 5th September, and there are details about this at the above link, including where to watch on Parliament TV.

Are there logical grounds for such a rerun (as opposed to the two sides making their obvious stated positions)?   It's perhaps worth recalling that the petition was not called by a Remain support after the poll, but by a Brexit supporter one month before ....   One assumes he felt it would be close, but against Leave, and wanted a second bite.  

Interestingly, Farage called for such an eventuality just before the petition was posted:

Nigel Farage: Narrow Remain win may lead to second referendum (BBC 17 May 2016)   One doesn't hear much from him on this score now, though I have read local Brexit supporters decry the idea with "We won, it's democracy!"

This hardly passes muster, and ....  sauce for Brexit goose=sauce for Remain gander etc.   In 1975, the decisive' EU Stay/Leave Referendum (called by Labour as the Tories took us in without a vote) came out 2:1 to stay, I voted Leave for good socialist reasons (of which more).

So 40 years passes and public opinion splits almost 50/50  (52% to 48%) with huge regional/national and age variations.   By no means as decisive, in any sense, as 1975.   Also, the aftermath seems to be as bad in the early stages as many feared - my own decision to vote remain as late as the morning of the poll less to do with the conflicting arguments and much more with one does not walk through a door without knowing what's on the other side if there's a risk of a sheer cliff (unless one is a lemming).

So, if we Leave, it's forward to a glorious future - for sure?   It will be so different, and all them pesky immigrants will stop coming here and, as wished it seems clear by many brexiteers, a lot of them will have to go back etc.   I have despised this aspect of Brexit, blandly denied by dishonest asses like Farrago but, hey, he highlighted it and helped engineer 'immigration' as THE real issue (and said as much).   I hear so many Brexiteers repeat this lie and self-delusion.  

I'd like to give a very personal view on this.

Half one thing, half another ... which part gets sent back?

I am half-Polish, war-time romance .... happened all the time.   Not told, brought up by Mum and (English) Dad, birth certificate (father not admitted) but later one records Ernie as Dad.  I find out at 10-11 years old by accident (no crisis, I told Mum Ernie was my Dad but it told me a lot about who I was and why perhaps he did not understand who I was).   I never told him I knew, why would I, he was Dad.  The thought of finding my biological Dad (not, not 'real') only got practical expression when both Mum and Ernie had died.  I found something about Bruno Nadolczak, that he had served with the Polish special forces from the Polish Institute in London, but no idea of his whereabouts - maybe back to Poland or gone to USA.

That is, until Google and this is what I found:
http://www.videofact.com/polska/gotowe/n/nadolcz/nadolcz.html

and this
http://www.videofact.com/polska/gotowe/n/nadolcz/enc_nadolczak.html

Clearly, a remarkable gent, I see him physically in my sons and my Polish-American sisters, niece and nephew  (who came with that package) say I get more and more like him.  

So at 60+, he 90+, I get to meet him in the USA, in Cape May, NJ (Bognor in America, of which oddity more another time).   We gel, he's laconic (I didn't inherit that part) and says out of the blue, in his study "Janek, do you know the story of Abraham and Isaac?"  "Yes Daddy, that was when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac - " (characteristic wave of hand by him).  "Quite so, quite so.  Yes, Abraham and Isaac".  It was a while I realised, God had restored his son from sacrifice.

His wife, Aldona, became my Polish Mum.  "You will be called Janek".  "Like Johnny?"  "Yes."  "So what do I call you?"  Now, she was never called Mum, Mom etc but "Bobby" (for babcha, granny) and her name, Aldona.  "So how about Mum?"  "That's fine."   "Would she have minded?"  "She doesn't mind".   "So, do you want for to go to the movies?"  "What's on?"   "King Kong"   "Yeah".

I was her son, she made that plain, total acceptance, I sent her some posh chocs for Xmas the next year, and to friends "My son In England sent me these special chocolates, I will share them with you."   Sitting with her in her car (she's then 86) in a parking lot outside the shopping mall, she describes her role in the Warsaw Uprising, aged 17, running guns and messages, defending a house about to be blown apart by a panzer tank, just ordered to pull out in time.   After surrender, as they marched to POW camps not death camps, saluted by the Germans even the SS.

Came to England after liberation, met Bruno, and fell in love.  Why did they move to the USA, I asked her.  Purely, the awful attitude of so many English people towards them.   I was stunned.  And then I remembered my recognition in the small Essex village where I spent 5 years of childhood that I was seen by adults as different, and the equally uncomfortable feeling of being suspect amongst the Polish kids when Mum agreed with a family friend who was Polish (Uncle Jan Grezak) that I spend a week in a Polish resettlement village (camp) at around 7/8 years old.   

Why didn't I go with Bruno and Aldona when they emigrated.  Well, she told me, he asked my Mum but she wouldn't agree and that was that.   No chance of contact in those days.   Bruno wanted it.  But he said one day "You know Janek, if I had to do it over again I would do the same" (out of the blue as ever).   "Of course, Daddy".

His attitude: when I said I had been Mayor of Bognor Regis "So you have made something of yourself", from a man who probably spied in Germany between 1938-39 which explains perhaps his statement to me one day "You know, I came close enough to Hitler to kill him 3 times."  Fluent German speaker, attending a Nazi Rally?)  

I attended the Polish Legation in Madison Avenue a while back to receive with my sister a posthumous medal awarded by the Polish President for his services to Poland to add to his tally of Polish, British and French medals, including the Virtuti Militari their VC.   The Polish equivalent of the SAS, GROMM - tasty peeps - has the insignia of his outfit the cicochiemni ('silent and dark') as its own.   His burial came with full military honours at the centre of the Polish Military Cemetary in Philadelphia, as an eagle obligingly soared into the sun as the rifles were raised and shot, he even arranged that ....

(I also got the epigthet "WoW" from my sister.  "Walks on Water" (qv Joves Garcon ....) as she wryly noted when, in the nursing home and he was not being at all cooperative, he exclaimed "My son would not allow this!"   Funny, isn't it, in the first week we met I spent a lot of time with a lot of silences with him in his study, but when family discussed things with me, they said there was 'something' clearly going between us without words and "he's spoken with you more in 3 days than the rest of us in a year!")

So, why all this in this article?   Because I am angry with my fellow Brits, those who have said to me "You don't hear English spoken down Longford Road any more".   Such a nasty throw-back, people scared of their own shadows, blaming anyone and everyone else, and taking the Referendum campaign material on board from both sides, not realising the real reason for "where we are now".

I lost my Dad for 50 years because of the same racist attitudes now in Bognor Regis 2016 as there were in England in the late 1940s.   That is something to despise, I assure the reader.   One can make all sorts of allowances but in the end, the real tragedy of the Brexit vote is that, despite mealy-mouthed protestations (but so far not "some of my best friends are Polish"), it is xenophobia, a symptom of a tired people blind to what is the real cause.

I have 2 sons and a grandson and grand-daughter, they deserve better from their fellow citizens ...

Freedom of Movement v Immigration

In the UK we have one of the bastions of true freedom, freedom of movement of people.   We talk of migration in terms of people moving round the UK to lead their lives as best they can, but we don't talk about immigration into, e.g. Arun District with its 150k population from other parts of the UK, we talk about inward and outward and NET migration.    

Recently, I asked about migration to Arun Council, and it seems that net migration from the rest of the UK was a gain of around 6.5k people.   Or Freedom of Movement indeed.   We do not call them "immigrants".  (Mind you, around 30 years ago, I recall hearing some local folk speak about scousers working at Butlins in the summer much as one hears eastern europeans discussed now by some here.)

So, what did we agree in 1975, by 2 to 1, that we would stay in the EEC under the terms of The Treaty of Rome.  Very clear, and one of those terms was  .....  Freedom of Movement .....    So, when Poland and other Eastern EU countries acceded to that Treaty, that was a major condition, and, hey presto, when we now ask the EU for trade benefits, they remind us of that.    In that 150k population of Arun, there are some 8.5k non-UK citizens, mostly arriving since 2002-4, 14 years.   6,500 extra people arrive from other parts of the UK in 4 years.

It seems both Remain and Leave want the benefits but Brexit wants to mess with Freedom of Movement of people.  How convenient.   I am reminded of Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks' brilliant wild west 'take' : "OK we'll take the chinks and the niggers but not the irish"   "No deal"   "Oh prairy shit. OK then, everyone!"

So, is it the immigration (peoples coming from outside a defined an agreed border area) the Brexit campaign so dishonestly and damagingly pressed, oblivious or damn-well not caring about the consequences for ordinary people who moved about the EU under a Treaty our government signed-up to and we agreed 2 to 1, or was/is it Freedom of Movement?   

We created a collective border area.   Try to undo that for ordinary people who trusted that situation, and you betray them, be they Poles here or ex-pat Brits in Spain.    That we are now unsure of this, shown by new PM Theresa May being unwilling/unable to give any assurance, shows how lemming-like our walk through that Poll-door may just become.

But Freedom of Movement of People misses the real point

The Treaty of Rome has many aspects to it, many wholly worthy batman.   But let's not miss the real issue, the mainstay, the lynchpin, one which makes Freedom of Movement of People truly subsidiary.   In a very real sense.   Freedom of  Movement of Capital.   Was it Tory Chancellor Reginald Maudling who removed exchange controls, 1962?   I recall the decision and felt then, "bad move for ordinary folk". 

In a capitalist economy, with the essential need to maintain not profit but the rate of profit,  and the unending tensions this creates for costs, growth and investment, there is the permanent feature of looking to manage costs, about the biggest and most persistent being labour costs.   Freedom of movement of capital is the cornerstone not only of the EU economic area but also of the UK economy.   One can relate employment trends, wage costs, labour contractual status etc wholly with that basic tenet.  

Why did Poles come here?   To earn, more than they did there, less than many do here, because capital presented them with work opportunities.   Their fault/blame?   Of course not!   Ours?  Of course not!    Er - JOBS FOLLOW CAPITAL, repeat after me ....

Ah, the siren cry "Stop freedom of movement of labour" (aka immigration) "All will be well!"    Really?  So, Brexit =  Freedom of movement of capital will also come back under UK control?   Is that in UKIP's manifesto, or the Leave Tories?   Why, no, didn't you know they want to sign us up to trade deals, like TTIP (Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership) which will loosen the already weak controls national governments have over global mega-corporations.  "Ah, those EU blighters have been discussing that in secret with the yanks!  There, told you so!"      So does UKIP say we shouldn't join these trade deals, do the Leave Tories?   Er, no, they want us to sign up to them and other deals, all around that movement of capital.

Or globalisation, as it's known.   Or, falling living standards.   Or, death to national health services!   More zero-hours contracts.   The one thing maybe the EU did was to develop also welfare capitalism (tasty crumbs), now that is waning and to be eradicated.

After this perambulation around the issue, the (male) Clinton provides me with the summary:

"It's not immigration, it's freedom of movement of capital, stupid!" (meaning no offence).

Tweedledum Remain and Tweedledee Brexit.

STATEMENT BY COUNCILLOR JAN COSGROVE

The amount of negative stuff I get causes me to make this statement.

1. I care deeply for this Town. I believe it needs a new start in how its local government works. I believe the best way for this to happen is to see the abolition of Arun as a District and as a Council, and to see its work transferred to West Sussex along with all other districts. I see a single Town Council for our Urban area as the best way of promoting our interests and of delivering services, in concert with West Sussex.

2. The Polls have been called, not just by me, so people here can have a say.

3. I regard the current Regeneration process as flawed and as unlikely to deliver what the Town needs, and at this point I believe the SRH bid is the best option, but am open to realistic, costed alternatives should they develop.

4. I stand by a long record of public service, at no personal gain, to the Town:

- 28 years Fun Bus, which was the best and main activity for children seen in this area, which I started and which one day might even restart - 96k attendances, 3500+sessions, £1.3 million spent; 3x that value in volunteer effort by local folk

- started Number 18 with others over 20 years back, now its Chair, and it will reopen soon

- Councillor on Arun and for Town over 14 years, Mayor 2002/03, rated by not a few as one of its best, so I've been told more than once - I walked to Council meetings wearing the chain of office so people could stop me and chat

- saved Regis Centre from Arun axe in 1996 in cooperation with other Arun opposition councillors, and again, one-man effort, in 2005 after attempt to wind up Arun Arts - found donor with £350k to put into its future, more than Arun has in all the years since 1996

- was Chairman of the BRTC P&R Committee when we started Town Force, finding the money and at the same time reducing the precept by 1.5%, no one has achieved that since - 3.5 additional staff taken on - lessons learned running charities based on value-for-money

- ensured investigation into corruption at Town Council over Regis Centre operation in 1994

- one of founders of the Out of Arun campaign and polls in the early 90s where 9/10 said they wanted Bognor out of Arun, but we didn't progress it, alas

I have been a Samaritan here, I am national secretary of a children's rights campaign which I have been for 25 years.

This is not meant as a boast but as a clarification.

ANGLO-DUTCH TRANSLATION GUIDE or This is Double Dutch ....

The British are sometimes regarded as not so easy to suss when they say what appear to be straightforward comments.   Like "if I were you" ....    To the foreigner this means, you do as you think best, the Brit means "you must be raving bonkers".

Here are some more HELPFUL translations of true intent.

Bognor - Invisible Poverty surrounded by Affluence and Indifference?

The Guardian has posted an article 

From eastern Europe to Bognor Regis: 'I didn't even know I could get benefits'

GUARDIAN STORY HERE

This in response to David Cameron's demand to the EU that the UK, unlike any other EU member, should have the right to curb migrant benefits.

I felt it right to contribute to this debate, so I have written this response.

I live here in Bognor, sit on the Town Council, run an online local paper and ... I welcome this article, given some of the moaning, all-too-often UKIP-spouting crap we get on facebook pages here.

There's an unspoken, unwritten and unfaced truth about this lovely Town, and that is characterised, oddly enough, in a recent national report which says that those who are disadvantaged in city settings are better off than similarly-disadvantaged (er, poor) people in coastal resorts (e.g.).

I spotted this years back - if you're poor in an area surrounded by affluence, you are invisible. You are not recognised, your need for affordable housing is neglected, you get low wages, your kids education lacks.

Affordable homes. In 2003 as a District Councillor I attended a seminar on a Council-commissioned report from a reputable consultant who concluded that, based on a forecast of 'forming households up to 2011, we would need just under 6000 affordable homes. Tory Councillors were dumbfounded, and the man who now holds the cabinet position on this issue at Arun said the consultant worked for Labour Councils so was suspect, and "there are empty homes in Wigan" but declined my polite suggestion he might vacate his 5 bedroom house and move there. Did they build the 6000, or anywhere near that? Did they heckers.

Education. Labour brought in the Special Education Measures under Blair, Bognor's main secondary school went into such. Years of neglect from Tory LEA at West Sussex. I chaired the Bognor Fun Bus project for 28 years (now alas gone though needed) and saw face-to-face the issues in local estates and villages - low self-esteem, even lower expectation. Labour invested £35 million in new school, but Nick Gibb MP, now (again) Education Minister, won't be drawn on whether this was Labour overspending.

Both local secondary schools lag badly in the GCSE 5 A-C passes at 42% and 46% respectively (the latter is the new school, and it's a few points better than the old school, no doubt it'll take some years, damage like that is not quickly undone). They are at the very bottom end of West Sussex results, which on average are worse than national - and there are schools in Tower Hamlets etc that do far better ....

As a Ward Councillor in one area, I came across data, not widely shared, that compared to the affluent ward separated by West Meads Drive from mine, there was a 15 year gap in life expectancy. At a Labour Party Conference I termed this "third world Bognor", and got awful stick for it from some quarters, so who cares.

I suppose I was sort of first alerted to the whole concept of 'invisible poverty' when I noticed my eldest son fielding at 13 for his school rugby team (one of the 2 above), and he and his mates seemed puny compared to kids from visiting teams up-county. I asked the games master were they the same age? "Oh you've noticed too. No, it's a fact, our kids are small-for-age and underweight by comparison. I've tried to find data at County Hall but there's nothing." Poverty. Any other explanation. And that was 30 years ago. Perhaps now masked by fast-food obesity - more prevalent amongst the poor.

The Poles here are respected for working hard, and you also get the usual flow of drivel - council houses taken (when I last asked, 2 asylum Russian families in whole district), jobs taken (at what wage rates, brother) and benefits (see your article above). They start businesses! Shock horror probe. The real issue is that this community has so many people whose lives and hopes have been pushed face-down in a mire of invisibility and inequality.

The worthies try to dismiss George V's "bugger Bognor". I have an explanation. It was a Royal Command and, boy oh boy, have those who hold privilege, land and power, taken him seriously since!

BTW, this is the area where Colin Wallace was accused of a) murder b) manslaughter and c) said he had worked for Military Intel and about Kincora and Clockwork Orange and plots to overthrow the Wilson Government. Maybe Bognor and its environs in Beautiful Sunny Sussex is a paradigm for arrogant power and social indifference, the old Dispensation. It's not so long that the Tory Chair and Vice-Chair used to visit Arundel castle to hear what the then Duke of Norfolk expected of the County Council which would be duly reported and observed. Source: former Tory Council Leader Graham Foreshore.

Joves Garcon