David Cameron gave his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester last week and there was a definite change in the political wind with an attempt to move towards the centre ground. He said that central to tackling big social problems is an all-out assault on poverty. Perhaps, Cameron could see the Conservatives being seen as the ‘nasty’ party again, some have said that this is the true man.

Amongst others things he mentioned that if the Conservatives understood the problem there was a need to tackle the root causes of poverty and that the best route out of poverty is work — “It’s simple, get the adults a job”. “So let the message go out: if you work hard, want to get on, want more money at the end of the month…the party for you is right here in this hall”.

Yvette Cooper made poverty central to her leadership campaign.

The truth about poverty in Britain is much more wide ranging and deeply ingrained and David Cameron, no matter what his motivations has little or no chance of making meaningful reductions whilst the status quo remains in place.

The UK economy has just about doubled in size since the early 1980s — yet the number of those suffering below-minimum living standards has increased by more than double, a study claims. In addition, the study determines the number of British households falling below minimum living standards has more than doubled in that same period of about 30 years. It’s the same in the US.

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