We are living through an era where ‘fake news’ can seem as authentic as ‘real’ news and people do not know what to believe. We are in a time when it can suit governments to actively promulgate myths and misinformation about those most in need, for example the disabled, refugees and asylum seekers, children and families living in poverty. This allows governments to enact damaging policy initiatives that usually seek to reduce income and other resources to those most in need. Even where governments may genuinely have believed in what they were doing at the outset of austerity, after the Great Recession of 2008, they are now wilfully ignoring the impacts of their actions on children, families, communities and societies. Governments are not acting alone, however. They have willing partners. The negative stereotypes and vitriolic attacks on certain groups of people persist because our media are cheerfully complicit in spreading sensationalised stories, irrespective of the truth, if it sells newspapers and maintains friendships with governments and the powerful. This makes it especially difficult for all of us to ascertain the truth.

My intention was to write a book called The Truth About Child Poverty with the aim of setting the record straight; however, in this post-truth era, public trust in ‘experts’ has been eroded and academics can be considered part of an untrustworthy ‘elite’. One of the successes of the ‘fake-news’, post-truth drive has been to define ‘elites’ in the minds of the public as academics and experts and not as billionaires and global corporations. Who has more power? Power, lack of power, empowerment and disempowerment are key factors in a book on poverty and inequality. It is not I, an academic, who is powerful; but I feel the need to justify what gives me the authority to write a book such as this, a book that aims to set the record straight and flip the thinking on child poverty while keeping children at the heart of the argument. I have asked myself the same question because I believe I have an ethical duty to the children and families living in poverty, who most likely do not have the same opportunity as me to write this book, to explore what I think qualifies me to do so. Essentially, what gives me the right to speak on behalf of children and their families living in poverty?