The Union Jack flutters on a telegraph pole.

Once a symbol of might and power, it is now anything but in a modern and broken kingdom where poverty is rife and rising further.

Modern Britain is a paradox.

The UK is still one of the richest countries in the world — a diplomatic power with a strong military and currency.

But millions of its residents live on the breadline, struggling to heat their homes and buy food.

The streets are cracked and broken. Many are strewn with rubbish. And at night, the lights are off as councils struggle to pay bills in what has become a fallen empire.

While royal scandals have dominated the headlines, it is poverty at an unforeseen rate that many Britons are battling, particularly outside of London.

When 7.30 visits Hull, in the bitterly cold depths of the Northern English winter, Kirsti Murray and her 16-year-old son sit on the living room couch in their coats and cover themselves with heavy blankets in an attempt to stay warm.

“As a general rule, I don’t turn the heating on,” Kirsti tells 7.30.

The wafer-thin walls of their small council house do little to keep out the icy chill of the East Yorkshire air, but turning on the small radiator in the living room is a luxury they can’t afford.

Dinner time can be stressful. Often the 37-year-old will go hungry so her son, who has a severe disability, can eat.

“There’s been times when I’ve gone without just to make sure that my son is alright, because he’s my priority as long as he’s fed and sorted,” she says.

“You cannot save a penny.

“Even if you save it, something comes up, or you find every week your shopping’s getting dearer, your cleaning’s just getting dear, you live hand to mouth. It’s ridiculous.”

Across Britain, poverty is on the rise, and living standards have been on a steady decline over the past decade.

Kirsti’s hometown of Hull is emblematic of a nationwide economic malaise and a trend in which poorer people are becoming even more destitute.

“A few years ago, it would have been just people on benefits living in poverty, and now it’s a lot more working people as well,” she says.

“At the end of the day, we’re all in the same boat. If you’re on benefits or working, it doesn’t make a difference; you’ve still got all the same bills.”

Kirsti has lived in public housing for about a decade and has never been “well off” but she says that since the COVID-19 pandemic, her savings have dwindled to nothing.

Her quality of life — worse than it’s ever been.

“Britain is broken and it’s not getting any better,” she says.

“I would pack up my bags and leave with my son if I could because it’s like living in a nightmare.”

Kirsti’s gripes with her home country are many: Painfully long waitlists in the country’s crippled public health system, broke public councils and low wages and welfare payments that have not kept up with inflation.

Across the lake from Kirsti, where there are entire suburbs made up of housing estates, Jan Boyd runs a local food pantry.

For a coin donation, residents can buy cooked meals and fresh food, which can be a welcome change from the canned meals on offer at food banks.

Jan has run the facility since 2017 and says she has never been busier.

“It’s a regular occurrence for parents to miss meals to feed their children, and it’s horrific that we are the sixth-richest country in the world and we’ve got parents skipping meals so they can ensure their children get fed,” she says.

“We as an organisation shouldn’t exist. We should not need to be here, and our partners around the city shouldn’t need to be here because people should be able to heat their homes and feed their children.

“It’s as simple as that.

“Everybody should have enough money to live on.”Shame, embarrassment and despair

Travelling across the north of England, 7.30 spent time speaking to residents of these rundown regions.

Most refused to speak with us on the record, citing shame and embarrassment that their lives had reached a point of poverty.

In the working-class Lancashire town of Blackburn, one woman, standing outside her small council terrace, dressed in a bathrobe and smoking a cigarette, said she would move away in a heartbeat, but was too broke to do it.

Asked “What is life like here?”, she turned to us, expressionless, and stated in a thick Lancashire brogue: “F***ing shit.”

Worst times since Thatcher

On these streets, poverty seems ubiquitous.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-06/broken-britain-poverty-crisis-pushing-voters-to-reform-uk/106354940

 

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Talks on the war in Ukraine have taken place in London, with the leaders of the UK, France and Germany reaffirming their support for President Volodymyr Zelensky.

US President Donald Trump has said he is "disappointed" that President Zelensky has not read his latest proposal to end the conflict.

President Trump has, in the past, been critical of the amount of support European countries have given to Ukraine, comparing it unfavourably with his own country's contribution. 

BBC Verify has been taking a closer look at how much Europe and the US have been spending on Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. 

How much has the US spent in total?

The US spent a total of $130.6bn (£98bn) between 24 January 2022 and 31 August 2025, according to the Kiel Institute, a Germany-based think tank that tracks international support for Ukraine. 

The US government has provided its own figure looking at all spending on Operation Atlantic Resolve - a response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It says $187bn has been "appropriated" - a figure that covers US military training in Europe and replenishment of US defence stocks.

How much has the UK given to Ukraine

The UK is one of the biggest individual state donors to Ukraine with $21.2bn in support, according to the Kiel Institute.

 

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GUSNOTE: VOLODYMYR IS AN EXPENSIVE LITTLE SHIT.....

 

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