Out of step with reality

Her observation that David Cameron and George Osborne are "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk" was never better exemplified than by the Autumn Statement.

Osborne went so far as to resurrect the discredited slogan "we're all in it together" to characterise his demand for sacrifices from rich and poor alike.

But while low-paid workers and people on welfare face real-terms reductions in living standards, the "equal sacrifice" endured by the richest 2 per cent of the population is withdrawal of a tax perk for those with a private pension pot of £1.5 million.

As hard as the Chancellor might pluck at our heartstrings to feel these people's pain, it's likely that they will manage quite nicely.

Not least because they will benefit, as of April 2013, from Osborne's previously announced tax giveaway for the super-rich by dint of lowering the top rate of income tax from 50 per cent to 45 per cent.

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In addition, even sharper reductions in corporation tax, down to 21 per cent in April 2013, will boost private profits and shareholder dividends.

The Chancellor refused to offer a scrap to his Liberal Democrat loyal servants by considering their pet mansions tax.

Posh boy Osborne didn't use this term, of course. He referred to a "homes tax" as though mansions are the only homes he has ever known.

He said that it would be too complicated to revalue properties, so he would stick to freezing public-sector pay and eroding welfare out of "fairness" to working people who pay for benefits out of their taxes.

He and Cameron may not be aware of this, but working people have no problem with the principle of taxes funding welfare payments, including the state pension.

It's the basic principle behind national insurance, which underpins the welfare state.

Far from being concerned with fairness, the Chancellor is playing divide and rule by scapegoating the unemployed.

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His emotive reference to workers leaving home in the morning for their jobs while their neighbour is "still asleep living a life on benefits" is a caricature much loved by the Tory media but utterly out of step with reality.

The overwhelming majority of people who are unemployed or underemployed would like nothing better than a decent full-time job to boost their independence and self-esteem.

Many would still be in jobs, especially in construction, but for the conservative coalition's cancellation of Labour's Building Schools for the Future programme.

Osborne claims to be funding a £5 billion infrastructure uplift, investing in new roads, railways, homes and broadband, but this is a pathetic sum in light of the cuts that his government has already imposed.

His grandiose scheme to balance the books by 2015 is now in tatters.

Even he recognises that this is the case, although none of this is his fault. His plans have been knocked sideways by oil price rises and eurozone problems, although these don't appear to have affected other major capitalist countries so acutely.

Osborne's austerity agenda isn't a failure. It's impoverishing working people and smashing the public sector, but it's benefiting the City of London parasites that this government represents.