The five richest families in Britain own more than the bottom 20% of society. The top one per cent owns more than the bottom 55 per cent.That is what austerity and the cutting of £12 billion off the welfare budget means.

From New Labour’s ‘benefit thieves’ to the Conservative’s ‘benefit scroungers’, there has been a consistent scapegoating of the poorest in society. Britain has been turned into a low-paid economy and attacking benefits are part of that. Only if benefits are so low that you cannot live on them will people accept any job, no matter how badly paid and insecure.

It is not, however, enough to attack those out of work. If profitability is to be increased, then it is essential to lower the pay of those in work and that means cutting tax credits. If £12 billion welfare cuts are to be found, child tax credits will have to be cut to the bone and that means increasing child poverty. That is equivalent to a straight cut in the wages of the lowest paid.

The public debt increased to 80 % of GDP because of the bankers’ crisis when over £300 billion was used to save the banks from the consequences of their own gambling. Instead of making the richest in society pay the price of their own profligacy, Osborne intends to sell the banks back to the City for a thumping great loss.

In addition to cutting Child Tax Credits, we can expect further attacks on disability benefits and housing benefit. It is therefore doubly ironic that the candidates for the Labour leadership, Jeremy Corbyn excepted, believe that they should be borrowing the Tory hymn book.

Tony Greenstein is a political activist