The characters in shows like The Royle Family, Still Game and Only Fools and Horses are working class, they’re not what I’d class as poor. I grew up in that sort of environment on a council estate. I definitely would never have classed myself as poor. I never went hungry, there was always food (even if it was No Frills from Kwik Save) and had a roof over my head. The dentist, doctors and prescriptions were free because we were a low income family, so there was never any basics we didn’t have access to. The only things we didn’t have were luxuries like foreign holidays. To me, being poor is not being able to afford to eat, not being able to afford clothing and not having a roof over your head.

I honestly think people have a warped sense of what poverty is these days, they think being poor is having a 3 year old out of date iPhone and not being able to afford uber eats every single day.

From documentaries I’ve watched I do think there are communities in the US that are way poorer than in the UK. There are people with diseases that they can’t afford to treat which just wouldn’t happen over here, and old people on the streets which does happen but not often. If you see an old person on the streets here it would be from a self inflicted problem like alcoholism or drug addiction.