Tory welfare cuts will impoverish 200,000 children next year and more than 600,00 in 2020

Very true, you haven't actually been able to scribble on a fag packet since
Around 1964, but it doesn't stop all the talking about doing it.

And has anyone every actually tried writing on the back of a fag packet? Most of them seem to be dark blue and have a shiny-ish coating, as well as the horrendous images of damaged lungs etc....

RoseQuartz
yes, that old chestnut, the back of the fag packet.

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/19/foreign-office-cleaners-interserve-living-wage

Hope there's a petition about this.

Frank Field reckons that Osborne will try to mitigate the problem next month, he is beginning to cave in to the Tory MPs whose constituents are largely being affected. But where else will the cuts be made? Let's hope Cameron doesn't lie this time.

Perhaps the high earners will be asked to make a contribution? Or maybe employers will be made to pay more, which logically should happen before or alongside the cuts in tax credits.

Politicians of all parties must be smoking a lot of fags as they all seem to have plenty of fag packets to scribble down their policies

Very true, Jess. They expected to be sharing government like last time and therefore have a convenient get-out clause / scapegoat for whatever wild promises / back-of-the-fag--packet policies they dreamt up pre-election.

I fear we are in part suffering from the surprise election result. The Tories did not expect to win. They were making all kinds of promises without feeling the need to think them through. Hence the long string of broken promises since the election and the need to push through huge cuts to public expenditure.
They seem to be set on a course which will do huge damage to this country and its people.

However they spin it, they simply can't hide the fact that they are introducing a work penalty for the poorest workers in the UK. Osborne is economically illiterate.

Frank Field in a R4 interview just said: When David Cameron says "8 out of 10 of us will be better off" he's including all of us. The 3 million on tax credits will be worse off.

There is still London weighting, according to Unison.

I can remember when the rates for apprentices in London was higher than the rest of the country, not so now

Well, salaries used to be given London weighting, not sure what happens nowadays; perhaps the same should happen with the level at which tax credits kick in.

So are you saying that families in London will suffer even more than families in the rest of the country?

Exactly. That's why the 60% median is such an imprecise way of assessing 'poverty'.

I did say that one person's poverty in somewhere like London could be quite adequate to live on in another area.
Or words to that effect.

Although if you think about it, it is a bit of a sterile exercise as, when considering the OP. We are where we are and so are those families who will suffer the result of Osborne's scramble towards a small state.

I accepted the 60% definition, but when I attempted to suggest that people I know who fall into that category would in no way consider themselves or their families to be 'in poverty' I was cut off short - 'there you go again...' I think it was.

ana I thought you agreed with a definition some time ago?

Although when I tried to obtain a definition of poverty in monetary terms I was roundly castigated and more or less told to get back in my box! You can't have it all ways...

How can poverty be mentioned but not money . Frightening that Osbourne is a fav to take over the leadership of his party. Who has the sharpest knife , Osbourne or Johnson?

Osborne will do everything he can not to back track so I suspect he may if pushed come up with something next month. He tries to show how clever he is politically, but he isnt a very likable character and one day will undoubtedly do something too clever by half. Pride etc.

www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/22173

A good few tweaks in this article, Jess.
They are tweaking the definition of poverty so it excludes any mention of money, so I wouldn't put it past them to tweak the definition of hardworking family.
Any family with a foreigner should be reclassified as illegal immigrants? That'll get rid of a few residents, particularly if any of them have been involved in demonstrations.

Tweaking his definition of a "hard working family" so that the stats look different?

Good heavens, Andrew Mitchell is saying that the chancellor is keeping an open mind, and looking at ways to tweak tax credits.