Three Words That David Cameron has Redefined

1. Living Wage. The living wage is the money needed for a worker to cover basic needs. Cameron has decided that in London the living wage is £9.15 per hour. Now a person working full time on this wage would take home approximately £1,334 per month. The average rent in London, according to statistics from HomeLet, is £1,500 a month. Yes, that’s more than the take home pay of our worker. it’s true that our worker could probably find a below average flat, but he or she would still have to find the money for council tax, utility bills and travel to and from work every day even before thinking about food. I doubt very much whether this wage would cover the basic needs of a decent place to live and decent food. Perhaps David Cameron should try living for a month on £1,334 and see if it really is a living wage. And we are assuming that our worker is lucky enough to have a full time job. If he or she is on a zero hours contract, as hundreds of thousands of workers are, then their take home pay will be much less.
2. Poverty According to the Child Poverty Act 2010, poverty is a household income less than 60% of the median income. When David Cameron saw that his policies were plunging more and more children into poverty, he decided that something needed to be done. So, what did he decide to do? Did he decide to reduce rents, or increase benefits? No. He decided to get rid of the Child Poverty Act and change the definition of poverty so that it isn’t about income, but about other factors as well, such as addictions, education and unemployment. So a child whose parents have to spend all their wages on a home that they can’t afford to heat, and rely on food banks to eat, isn’t living in poverty. How can that child be living in poverty if her father is working, has a degree, and isn’t a drug addict? Hooray! All those children miraculously lifted out of poverty simply by redefining the word.
3. Affordable. David Cameron announced recently that he would build 200,000 new affordable homes. The Conservatives pride themselves on being the party of hard-working people so they want to help these hard-working people by building homes that they can afford to buy. How thoughtful of him! However, according to the charity Shelter, a family would have to be earning £77,000 a year in order to be able to afford one in London. Our living wage worker would have to work 24 hours a day 7 days a week to earn that much. So who does earn that kind of salary? Why, MPs do of course! So these homes are affordable for MPs. The homes can all be bought up by David Cameron’s friends who will then rent them out to workers for their entire salary.

Well done David Cameron. Your party truly is the party for hard-working people – the party that wants to suck every last penny from hard-working people and give it all to your rich friends.