The news today is that there are at least 500,000 people living in extreme poverty in Scotland. With this figure comes more evidence of in- work poverty; people working hard to feed their families, but ending the week, poor. "Work is no longer a guarantee of a life free of poverty" says the report
This is not the deal that capitalism is meant to offer. Work hard and pull yourself out of poverty is the paradigm (politicians repeat the mantra often enough).
But in his various changes to the benefits system, by allowing zero- hours contacts and by failing to bring in a Living Wage, Giddy Osborne has created another new tribe of the deprived - the working poor. This tribe, to follow the Conservative logic, is the polar opposite of the City Finance tribe. Because in the former you persuade them to work by cutting the available wages, whilst in the latter you persuade them to work by increasing them.
This Westminster view is of a broken, tribal Britain. Time we took the Conservatives at their word.
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