The Sun and the Spectator have come out against George Osborne’s proposed tax credit cuts. Both publications, which supported the Conservatives ahead of the election, are highlighting the negative impact these proposals would have.
Spectator editor Fraser Nelson revealed in a column today that most workers claiming tax credits “will be worse off in 2020 than they are today”, even with the minimum wage rising to £9 per hour. In the most extensive analysis undertaken on the cuts so far, Policy in Practice (the group that conducted this research) also showed that “[f]amilies who respond to the cuts by trying to earn more will be worst-hit by the current reforms”. These conclusions, Nelson writes, “ought to stop these reforms in their tracks”.
His column follows the Spectator’s leader last week:
“Now, Osborne is coming after the very people whom his party pushed towards work. Those on the breadline, trying to work their way up, are finding themselves treated like benefit cheats as a result of the Chancellor’s tax credits crackdown. A mother of two children who is paid £20,000 stands to lose £2,000 a year due to his reforms. Some seven million working families stand to lose an average £1,200 a year. Some workers may claw back almost £150 a year by the proposed minimum wage increase. But they also face a bitter headwind blown by a Tory Treasury.”
Meanwhile the Sun, which argued earlier this year that “cuts were essential“, has published data showing how the “blue collar workers championed by the Tories will suffer the biggest hit” if the reforms go ahead as planned.
From a cleaner, who will be £1,805 worse off, to a bricklayer who stands to lose £2,399, the Sun reports that the cuts – which could cost some low-income working families £26 per week – are “ten times as damaging” as Gordon Brown’s 10p tax rate abolition.
The Sun has previously published research showing how 100,000 families could face poverty when the reforms come into place next April, and have launched a campaign to help low-paid workers threatened by the “bonkers” cuts.
As far as this mole’s concerned, when even the right wing press are calling your cuts “blistering” and “a weapon aimed straight at the strivers”, it might be time for a quick rethink.
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