Undoubtedly. Being poor doesn't make you unintelligent or without reasoning facilities. Each person, whatever their financial situation, knows what they need to live and what they would like to make their lives more comfortable, and they know the difference between the two. Poor people don't protest changes in policy such as welfare cuts, taxes on second bedrooms or unfair tests on disability benefits claimants because they are lazy - it's because they are in need. It is often discovered that the people in government who vote to make these cuts are themselves millionaires, own several homes, or claim vast expenses from the government to cover chauffeured cars, wine and champagne in the Commons bar, or decorating their second London home. It's not fair that people like this should decide what other people deserve or need.

The answer to this question must be a categorical yes. Of course, the obstruction to the poor being in the best position to represent their interests is the fact that poverty imposes its own barriers. When people's day-to-lives are a grinding struggle to make ends meet, simply finding the means to keep a roof overhead and provide food, clothing, warmth and medicinal care for families, is all-consuming. The practicalities of participating in any policymaking process may seem worthy enough but will never loom high on priorities. This is the very reason why the poor are exactly who should be featured most centrally if any political process will ever successfully champion their interests.

In western Europe, neoliberal political ideologies emanate from a solipsistic viewpoint. The UK Conservative politician, Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990) was so focussed on people being free from state interference and encouraged to stand on their own feet that she famously stated "there's no such thing as society." Her sweeping ideology only proved to be incredibly divisive, as for every person who managed to escape inner city poverty, as many found impediments everywhere they turned, whether prospective employers disliked their regional accents, or people were obliged to take whatever menial jobs they could to make ends meet rather than embarking on ambitious business enterprises.

In short, only those with direct experience of poverty can possibly be best qualified to explain their predicament and future aspirations to any gathering involving more comfortably-off but wellmeaning individuals who might be seeking to explore remedies.

Ask yourself this: who is going to have the most credibility when discussing poverty - a politican or academic who flies from one country to another stopping at decent hotels and associating with their peers, or people who live with the reality of poverty every day? One classic example of where this goes wrong is in the aftermath of WW2, when the British hoped to develop the economy of what was then called Tanganyika and we now know as Tanazania. A Briton who worked for a Unilever subsidiary reckoned groundnuts could be grown in the country, and £25 million was spent preparing the land for the growth of the groundnuts, based on the assumption that modern western farming methods would be more effective than what local people had been doing for centuries. The project was a disaster, and when it became apparent that was the case the British solution was to make the work run on military lines. At no point in any of this expensive fiasco was the generations-long knowledge of local people about the land they lived on taken into account. In the end, the use of inappropriate heavy machinery in the area helped to make it into a dust bowl where nothing would grow - all thanks to the input of wealthy foreign experts.