This Tory PM’s contempt for people in poverty should kill his party at the ballot box
A metaphor for the UK: in this image, the entire nation could be represented by the beggar with the “Need a miracle” sign.
Look at – and listen to – this:
“A little girl had water on her cornflakes because her mum had no money for milk”
Labour MP Carolyn Harris asks what PM is going to do about child poverty
Rishi Sunak says “there are 1.7m fewer people living in poverty today than in 2010”#PMQs https://t.co/3O7Ua76BBC pic.twitter.com/3JTmnOjjJ5
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May 10, 2023
As ever, Rishi Sunak was talking nonsense at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday (Wednesday, May 10). Here’s Peter Stefanovic with a reality check (its the first part of the clip; he goes on to discuss Sunak’s falsehoods about the NHS and dentists):
The Prime Minister’s boast at #PMQs having been told of a child eating cereal with water because their parents couldn’t afford milk should send the country into outrage. If you share my anger RT this widely pic.twitter.com/MLEXyo8QG4
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) May 10, 2023
Sunak reckons he can get away with it because of a simple fiddle: poverty figures are relative; they are based on the median average income in any particular year – and incomes have been suppressed since the Tories came into office in 2010.
So people are currently considered to be in poverty if their income is 60 per cent of the median average, or less.
A better measure would be the cost of living and whether people are able to meet that cost on the income they receive.
Sadly, I know that a Conservative government would then argue about what should be included in the “cost of living” – for a very obvious reason:
Under that measure, poverty would be shown to have increased exponentially in the last 13 years of Tory rule – to envelop most of us.
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Why then are food banks increasing all the time given liar fascist dictator Sunak claims there are far less individuals experiencing poverty!!!!
Good news is everything is working well for billionaire fascist Sunak and his fascist tory cronies – they are becoming even wealthier and little england is now a little impoverished country!
That’s an excellent point. If fewer people are in poverty, why are food banks still proliferating?
The tories have always had utter contempt for those who have less….They treat us like non entities…to be trodden on and stolen from at every opportunity…Now Starmer and his cronies in the Parliamentary labour party are doing the same!