Tories Fail To Agree On New Criteria For Child Poverty.

Tory plans to redefine poor children as fabulously wealthy have been put on hold as Iain Duncan Smith and the Treasury have failed to agree on how nasty and evil they can afford to be. Essentially the new measures are to be based on the nasty little prejudices of the Tory party with child poverty being judged on how many of the parents work, whether the parents "do" drugs and something the Tories call "wordlessness", while income will become merely an incidental consideration. Since the number of children who live is households where no one works, have drug addicts for parents and suffer from "wordlessness" is vanishingly small we can all look forward to child poverty vanishing virtually overnight. Children who live on the breadline, along with their poverty-stricken parents, will be reclassified as comfortably well-off and child tax credits, as sure as day follows night, will be reduced. The argument between the DWP and the Treasury seems to be centred on the vexed question of how much child tax credits can be reduced to provide the Tories and their rich pals with yet another tax cut. "We have to take a multidimensional approach to child poverty," a Tory spokesman told our reporter, "otherwise I won't be able to afford a new polo pony next year and my yacht will remain un-calked. On the other hand if we get too greedy then children might start keeling over in the streets and the United Nations may accuse us of uncivilised behaviour. It's a very difficult balancing act but we are confident that we'll be able to hammer out a deal that will transfer enough money from the poor to satisfy most Tory MP's."

Energy Companies Defend Exploitation Of The Poor.

A survey published by the Children's Society has found that there over 3 million children growing up in poverty in this country and of those more than half are living in homes that are too cold and too damp. These figures, it is generally conceded, are set to rise as the government's policy of impoverishing more people year on year gathers pace. It is deliberate, it is intended and it is based not on any real need for austerity but on sheer spite. Since the Tories, with help from a supine and opportunistic Lib Dem party, instituted their policy of unlimited rewards for themselves and austerity for everyone else they have managed to more than double the national debt. But they are not alone in this vicious and entirely needless campaign. The energy companies are just as eager, it would seem, to pauperise the already poor though, in their case, the motive is not ideological but sheer greed. The figures speak for themselves since, over the last year, wholesale energy prices have risen by a mere 1.7% while the "Big Six" energy companies have more than doubled the profit they take out of each household from £45 to £95. Stephen Fitzpatrick, managing director of Ovo Energy one of the smaller energy companies, told MP's that he couldn't explain why the "Big Six" energy companies had put their prices up year after year since his own company was paying less for gas now than it was in 2009. He then added; “We're all trying to track down where this money is going. But you will never find it - these guys are the best filibusters in the business.” In other words he was accusing them of being crooks and, as as the evidence shows quite plainly, he is absolutely right.

The Mansion House Speech And Other Fairy Tales.

Benjamin Disraeli once boasted that, when he became Prime Minister, he had "reached the top of the greasy pole." Today George Osborne, in his Mansion House Speech, has boasted that under his stewardship Britain has manged to scramble to the top of a financial house of cards. Essentially he is claiming victory in his campaign to patch up the world financial system while Britain retains its preeminent position. How he has achieved this can be seen in the new child poverty figures. These show that child poverty has fallen by 2%. Wow, you might say. Unfortunately this doesn't mean that poverty has actually been reduced in Britain. Poverty is measured against the standard of median earnings and is merely a comparative figure not an absolute measurement. The Tories, in fact, have achieved this triumph by the simple expedient of reducing average earnings - by making all ordinary people poorer. Meanwhile the wealthiest 1% have continued to get richer while executive pay, despite ever-louder protests from shareholders and public alike, has continued to accelerate ever upwards. Greed in the financial lifeblood of the country is still rampant and has been encouraged by George Osborne with a massive tax cut to the wealthy in his budget and promises of more to come even while the rest of us still face deeper and deeper cuts to our services, rights and income. Many believed that, with the collapse of the world financial system, a revolution was under way. They were right. Unfortunately that revolution did not herald change but more of the same. The Tories answer to greed is more greed, their answer to growing inequality is to accelerate the process and their answer to the crisis in democracy is to weaken it even further.