London Standard with double standards

"Money pours into our £1m fund". So shouts the headline on the London Evening Standard, with a photo of a cleaner at the Treasury who works 40 hours a week and gets up at 4am to live off lentil soup with her three children.

There's no doubt there is criminal unfairness in London - where the rich spend thousands on champagne at parties and the poor serve them but can't even keep their tips as their employer "counts" them towards the minimum wage they are legally entitled to.

Even the Mayor is weighing in, commenting that he's really grateful to the Evening Standard for "again highlighting the poverty and deprivation that shame this city".

The Standard doesn't stop however, at highlighting that people earn peanuts and live in overcrowded and dismal accommodation, struggle to afford the basics and can do little to pull themselves out of the poverty trap. The Standard also helpfully points out the gap between rich and poor by covering, in a fabulous pull-out supplement, convenient second homes for Londoners - or at least those rich enough to afford them. The newspaper gleefully points out how "The priority for a growing band of busy Londoners searching for a second home is to stay within two hours of the city."

How nice to see that the Treasury cleaner, whose journey according to London Transport, will take less that half of that - 49 minutes from Houndslow Bus Station to Westminster, leaving at 4.04am.

While I believe that people should be free to spend their money as they choose, the ability to earn that money is far from universal. Education, language skills and nationality all play a part. It is laudable and cheering that so many ordinary people (as well as the celebs) - interviewed by the Standard - think it's a great idea and want to help, even though many of them are probably not exactly swimming in riches themselves.

But I wonder.....Is it an ironic comment that the Standard should contrast the lifestyle of those who work at the underbelly of society, cleaning its toilets, serving its food and wine, sweeping its streets with those who don't just have, but have a lot?

Or is it simply a bandwagon? After all, we’re between Comic Relief and the BBC’s Children in Need and with all the cuts, the Government could do with the Evening Standard’s support in making everyone feel as though they’re doing something to offset the cuts in spending. A million pounds to match the paper’s fundraising sounds very nice, but is a far, far cry from the £13bn that comes to charities from state sources nationally.

So while any help is laudable, it could look – and indeed, it does to me – that this is adding insult to injury not only to the charities closing down in their dozens, but also to the people that this “Dispossessed” fund is supposed to help. Or are they dispossessed of their right to dignity too?