This new caring image the Tories are trying to promote for themselves is a distortion of the truth.
I am constantly reading reports that seem to contradict this promotion.
David Cameron, for example, plans to save £400m by taking away tax credits from working families. This would mean that 30 per cent of families on tax credits would lose out to the tune of an average of £70 per week. Approximately 4.7 million families are on credit, meaning 1.4 million families would lose it.
The contradiction is that the independent Institute of Fiscal Studies insists that in order to achieve the £400m target Mr Cameron wants, he would have to lower the household income threshold to below £30k.
There must be substance to these reports as Greg Clark, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy, openly stated that “tax credits were outdated”. So much then, for the caring Tories.
As far as accuracy is concerned, Mr Cameron appears to be unable to read their own propaganda accurately.
He recently claimed in the document Labour’s Two Nations that the rate of girls in the most deprived areas who fell pregnant before their 18th birthday was 54 per cent.
This is an insulting inaccuracy and is a grossly inflated figure particularly when the real figure is in fact 5.4 per cent.
DAVE ROBINSON, Meaden Hill, Headington, Oxford
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