The days of strivers and skivers are over. Remember those days? Remember when, in the early months of the Coalition, George Osborne hit upon this wheeze? That we’re all in it together. That the debt inherited from the Labour administration was so big we all had to dig in to fix it. Austerity was the only way – and you either worked to beat it, or you sucked the marrow, you confounded benefit scrounger you.
It was an idea that flowered – hard politics, clever positioning. And it paved the way for the casual demonising of a huge volume of people. Unquestionably it stopped some folk who didn’t need benefits from claiming for them. But it hurt many more who did.
We’re in a new reality now.
One of Theresa May’s first pronouncements, while putting clear water between her and the financial decisions of the last Chancellor, was reinforcing this new reality. She insisted she wanted to speak for struggling, working families. “You have a job but you don’t always have job security,” she said. “I know you are working around the clock, I know you’re doing your best and I know that sometimes life can be a struggle. The government I lead will be driven, not by the interests of the privileged few but by yours.”
The volume of children living in poverty whose parents are IN work has rocketed. It’s now at 63 per cent
Which is easy to say, of course, but it is interesting. It is interesting because new figures last week on child poverty reveal a startling truth. The volume of children living in poverty whose parents are IN work has rocketed. It’s now at 63 per cent. That means more children in poverty are in working families than in workless families.
The detail can be argued over, not least the definition of poverty, but the topline is glaring. If foodbanks were the canary in the mine of social ills several years ago, in-work poverty serves that role now. Those in work, the strivers, are in need of a hand up themselves.
