You Don't Belong Here

There is a long, long convention that Ministers say, "it would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases." The principle reason being that any detail of a simple issue case, when put up against a multi-faceted policy, can come back to bite them in the butt.

But you get the feeling that the Conservatives are feeling a little desperate about the election of 2015 already and are seizing recklessly on any case of immigration or welfare payments which can perpetuate the idea that foreigners and the poor are scroungers and if not borderline criminal then actually criminal.

The murders of six children in Derby by their feckless, reprobate father, Mick Philpott had so many sickening aspects it was often hard to follow the case. After so many biased news stories against welfare recipients it was hardly surprising the Mail felt able to make the twisted and foul judgement that their murderer was not intrinsically self-obsessed and evil but simply a "product of welfare UK".

DWP Minister, Esther McVey, refused to endorse such socially divisive views on Channel 4 News on Wednesday. But next day, Chancellor George Osborne, coincidentally in Derby, started hinting heavily that the deaths were caused by a certain "lifestyle" as if it were a predictable consequence of giving the undeserving poor any money. It was perhaps intellectual laziness but more likely some talking points prompted by back room Svengali, Lynton Crosby, as was, one suspects, Cameron's recent speech castigating the non-existent threat of scrounger immigrants.

Osborne's vitriolic speech this week on benefit changes means the Mail has now been gifted the lead on the debate, always an invidious place to be. But Crosby, IDS and Cameron are firmly of the view this flagellation of the poor  is popular with the non-poor partly because reading these papers for so many years has given the impression that any claimant is a chancer and an enemy within.

The Mail yesterday included a story of a woman who claimed she could live on £1 a day, "anyone can do it," she blithely wittered. There are vast amounts of human interest stories of, for example, dying people being declared fit for work which these papers refuse to print. These editors are more content giving voice to the confused drivel of a single woman pinching soft fruits from hedgerows as a sustainable "lifestyle" for hundreds of thousands of disabled people.

We can expect many more bitter attacks between now and the elections, the Tories look like getting a drubbing in the locals next month particularly in marginal areas like Derbyshire. However this demonisation can only be a diminishing return as more people reflect on the harsh, unyielding judgmental language on poor families from privileged and insincere men.