[UK] Cameron: poverty is a 'moral disgrace'

from The Guardian

Hélène Mulholland and agencies

David Cameron will today denounce the continued existence of poverty as a "moral disgrace" and commit a future Conservative government to action on the issue.

In a speech to mark the 25th anniversary of the Scarman report into the Brixton riots, the Tory leader will argue that poverty should be seen in relative terms to the rest of society.

Mr Cameron is likely to cause fury within the government by claiming that Labour policies have failed to root out endemic poverty at the sharp end.

"I believe that poverty is an economic waste, a moral disgrace," he is expected to say.
"In the past we used to think of poverty in absolute terms, meaning straightforward material deprivation.

"That's not enough. We need to think of poverty in relative terms, the fact that some people lack those things which others in society take for granted.

"So I want this message to go out loud and clear: the Conservative party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty."

His comments mark another break with the tradition of Margaret Thatcher, the former Conservative prime minister, and represent a fresh attempt to take on Labour on what has long been regarded as its own territory.

It follows a call by one of Mr Cameron's key policy advisers, Greg Clark, the MP for Tunbridge Wells, for the party to look for inspiration on social policy in Polly Toynbee, the Guardian commentator, rather than Winston Churchill.

Toynbee has written widely on the social exclusion faced by people living on benefits or in minimum-wage jobs.

Churchill, prime minister during the second world war and again in the early 1950s, saw social policy as defined by a ladder of opportunity with a safety net at the bottom for the very worst off.

Mr Clark, a member of the Tories' social justice commission chaired by Iain Duncan Smith, the party's former leader, warned that British society was in danger of being pulled apart if the poorest were allowed to fall ever-further behind the rich.

He said that earlier Conservative governments had made a "terrible mistake" by ignoring an "alarming" increase in relative poverty, contributing to an "atmosphere of anger and mistrust".

Asked to define relative poverty, Mr Cameron told BBC Breakfast: "Relative poverty is if some people don't have what others take for granted.

"It is important not just to say that poverty is destitution and there is a safety net but as society grows richer we want everyone to grow richer."

He said that Labour had managed to help people just under the poverty line but had failed to give assistance to those in "deep" poverty.

"People who are in that deep poverty are there for just as long as they were 10 years ago.

"The problem with Labour is they just tend look at redistributing money and they treat it all as a money issue rather than looking at the causes of poverty."

The Conservative leader said he wanted a bigger role for volunteers and social enterprise groups to tackle causes of poverty such as debt, homelessness and drug abuse.

However, the party came under attack today by the Liberal Democrats after a video produced by the Conservatives implied that people in debt were allowing the "tosser within" to make financial choices for them.

The Lib Dems' Treasury spokesman, Vincent Cable, said that the video was "an insult to hard working people" who, he said, had "no alternative" to borrowing because of pressures on family budgets.

He added: "This is the kind of insensitive crass nonsense one might expect from a party led by rich young men, who have never had to balance a budget in their lives."