The Tories seem to forget that they were the last government - at some point they will have to take responsibility for their handling of the nation
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As Jeremy Corbyn stood for his second PMQs today, the mocking Tory laughs told us everything we need to know about their enduring Bullingdon Club-style politics. Old habits die hard, it seems. But Corbyn opened strongly, with an issue that unites the Labour party: the cuts to working tax credits which penalise the lowest earners, known colloquially as the Tory work penalty.
Again, the Tories laughed at the name ‘Kelly’, so apparently unbelievable do they find the first names of Corbyn’s constituents; they soon fell silent, however, as they heard of her struggle as the mother of a disabled child earning minimum wage in a 40.5-hour-per-week job. Corbyn tackled the bullyboys by pausing at their laughter this time. ‘Some may find this funny,’ he said, as he continued to talk about mass inequality and the housing problem in London. It was a subtle highlight of something glaringly obvious: for millionaires protected by Tory policies, inequality bolstered by unfair taxes and buy-to-let properties really is hilarious.
Cameron’s reply to the work penalty issue was the same old line: apparently a £20-a-week increase in wages will magically solve the problem. This is not true, of course, as Corbyn promptly replied: working families are set to be £1,300 a year worse off as the Conservative government hammers the working and middle classes so as to give to the super rich.
Cameron claimed that Corbyn’s figures on poverty were wrong, but perhaps that is something to do with the fact that the Work and Pensions Secretary fixed the definition of ‘poverty’ recently. You don’t feed and clothe homeless children by changing a definition, and the government should be ashamed. The fact that 50 per cent of wealth is in 1 per cent of hands globally is shambolic, and reports today that inequality is growing in the UK even as our country now has the third most ‘ultra-high net worth individuals’ in the world put paid to Cameron’s claims to have driven opportunity. There could be no bigger proof that his policies continue to squeeze the middle and punish the poor.
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www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-confronted-the-tories-with-the-poverty-theyre-creating-at-pmqs-and-all-they-could-do-a6693756.html