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Orr, Deborah
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5 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Amy Winehouse's last drug was alcohol
The British singer Amy Winehouse died as the result of consuming a huge amount of vodka, autopsy report published on Wednesday revealed. This proves once more that alcohol is as dangerous as hard drugs, writes the left-liberal daily The Guardian: "It's a silly idea, that 'drug addiction' is somehow a different thing to 'alcohol addiction'. The problem is addiction, and the idea that an abusive relationship with legal alcohol is of a lesser order than an abusive relationship with illegal drugs, is one of those fake distinctions that would be pitiful if it wasn't so dangerous. Winehouse's parents, in the wake of her death, said how proud they had been that she had beaten drugs. Though worried by her less decisive break with alcohol, they did not seem aware that continued use was every bit as perilous as her use of drugs had been before she accepted the need for intervention. Who can blame them, when the wider culture is so geared to believing that drugs are killers, to be banned, while alcohol is a necessity at any social gathering?"
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More from the press review on the subject » Music, » Health and Medicine, » Society, » United Kingdom, » Global
Deborah Orr wants to redefine poverty
Columnist Deborah Orr argues that the concept of poverty is misunderstood, because it's poorly defined. "As long as we continue to define poverty as relative, then poverty will always be with us. What, though, if we define poverty in a developed economy in a different way? What if we defined poverty as a state of being which objectively necessitates hand-outs from the Government, just to pay for basic living costs, such as rent, even when one is working full-time? Then it becomes clear that tax credits and housing benefit payments lift people out of poverty just as much as Night Nurse cures the common cold, or methadone treats addiction. Tax credits are a way of acknowledging poverty, and treating some of its symptoms. Tax credits don't combat poverty. They supplement it. Maybe, in our imperfect little world, this is the best that can be done. But let's at least have the clarity to see it for what it is."
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More from the press review on the subject » United Kingdom
Growing gap between rich and poor
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation released a report on Tuesday, July 17th, which details the growing gap between rich and poor in Britain. Deborah Orr argues that efforts to improve the situation have failed due to a hostile attitude toward a 'lack of ambition' demonstrated by the poor. "I think it might be time to start asking whether 'lack of aspiration' might be something we can learn to accept and even to value. ... Conservatives and Labour alike despise 'lack of aspiration' and both seek to be punitive towards those who display it. These punitive attitudes ... manifest themselves in the idea that leaving school at 16 is so shameful that it's going to be banned … Yet we are crying out for people who are 'lacking in aspiration' to do simple jobs well, with commitment and pride, and without complaint. But at the same time we are convinced that 'lack of aspiration' is the scourge of our age."
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More from the press review on the subject » United Kingdom
What danger do firearms represent in Europe ?
The journalist Deborah Orr considers that "Britain in particular is every bit as keen to dissociate itself from its own problems with firearms - and with violence - as it is to pass dissociated judgement over America's. Gun crime in Britain, assuredly held down by our own rather less ambivalent views about the dangers of firearms, remains largely concentrated in what we are pleased to call 'the black community'.The level to which we are prepared to maintain the pretence that all this is none of our middle-class business has been sanctified by Tony Blair's pronouncement that this dark cultural phenomenon is not connected with wider British society. It instead resides in the particular impulses and choices of young black men who get involved with gangs. This is not so very different to the US view that it isn't guns that kill people but the lunatics into whose hands they so effortlessly fall."
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More from the press review on the subject » United Kingdom
Immigration reforms promote 'fortress state' mentality
Columnist Deborah Orr is critical of Home Office plans to overhaul the immigration system with a series of enforcement measures that include tighter border controls. She advocates an opposite approach. "The gradual introduction of open borders - not just in Europe but around the world - is the only alternative to the cultivation of repressive fortress states. ... The whole idea of strict immigration laws is concerned with deterrence. Therefore the treatment of those seeking to come and work in Britain can never be fair. Fairness would act as a pull factor and that is to be avoided; cruelty and lack of sympathy to the needs of the individual are inherent in the process, because the treatment of the individual has nothing to do with his or her own inherent qualities and everything to do with the effect their treatment will have on the decisions of those minded to follow in their footsteps."
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More from the press review on the subject » Migration, » United Kingdom
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