"Hard working families"

Exactly, Eloethan. I like the way that all those people who have signed up to the letter saying that the Tories are doing okay by them are earning millions, many of them taxed off-shore.
What's wrong with giving people more money for working for them so they do not have to claim tax credits? What's wrong with ensuring that people get enough pay to enable them to pay their rent? In other words a living wage.
I have never understood that tax credit system. It's a way of ensuring that many people do not claim them because it is so cumbersome. That's why so many pensioners do not claim pension tax credit. It smacks of welfare, a word which this government has brought back in.

How is it that some people in receipt of Working Tax Credit see themselves as somehow different from those who, for instance, receive Housing Benefit? Surely if it is paid by the government and has no contributory element, as pensions do, it is, in effect, a benefit?

Working Tax Credit and Housing Benefit are needed in order for people to be able to house, clothe and feed themselves. I think instead of this constant harping on about the so-called benefit culture, shouldn't we be asking why many very large and highly profitable companies are not paying people enough money to live on and are instead expecting their workers' wages to be subsidised by the state?

I would like a party who would ban zero hours contracts. They seem to be the root of all sorts of problems.
I assume the employers have an advantage re: less or non payment of National insurance contributions.

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"Hard working families" eh? I'm still hard at work at 63! I wish I wasn't, but I don't know when I won't have to work. We don't have any private pensions as we've never been able to afford to pay into them. When DH retires next year we will have the state pension and the Co-op pension to live off. When is the government going to increase the state pension to bring it in line with wages. My state pension is about one quarter of my working salary. How are you supposed to pay mortgage, council tax etc. and manage to live on that. I am dreading old age.

And have you noticed how they never have 'problems' - only 'challenges'?

crun, DH thinks that "difficult" and "decisions" have a hyphen between them in politician-speak, as the combination is used so often

I mean politicians!

Oh, yes, HARD WORKING FAMILIES, grr grr grr. It is so-ooo-oooo bl...y patronising. Surely these politicias must have people to advise them 'Don't use that phrase - it is worn out and just annoys the voters.' IMO it just goes to show how out of touch they really, really, are.

Difficult decisions is another one, along with meritocracy and a rising tide floats all boats.

A rising tide may float all boats, but poor people are not interested that they're better off than their grandparents or a mediaeval peasant farmer, they're comparing themselves against richer peers.

The idea of a meritocracy in which "you too can win the race if you just run a bit harder" sounds rational when it's put like that, but the implication is that if everyone runs harder they will all win the race, which is nonsense. In a meritocratic utopia where everyone runs as fast as they can someone will still come last, and by the lights of the meritocracy, they'll still be "lazy good-for-nothings" who deserve their position in society.

The psychology of self-serving bias is relevant here: my successes are the product of my own hard work, yours are just luck. Your failures are of your own doing, mine are just misfortune.

The number of working people needing to claim Housing Benefit has doubled over the last five years.

If I were in that group, I would definitely feel excluded from, and take exception to, the "hard-working families" mantra.

It is a question of which benefits, no one thinks of child benefit as being on benefits , just a new name for family allowance and only recently has it not been available to the wealthiest as well as the poorest. Housing benefits, council tax benefits , unemployment benefits are looked upon quite differently

I don't think it's a question of which benefits, MamaCaz, it's more that any family unit where one or more is in employment could and should be classed as one of those 'hard-working families'.

The working poor get just as angry about so-called benefit scroungers, i.e. those who choose not to work but to live on benefits because they can. I'm not talking about the unemployed who are desperately trying to find jobs.

Interesting, Ana. Child benefit and working tax credit are definitely part of the welfare budget that is (supposedly) being cut. I agree with you that most people don't see them as "benefits", but when it comes down to it, you have to wonder why not.
I don't think pensions can be looked at in the same way, because (most) people have been directly contributing to those for many years. Of course, other pensioners' benefits, such as pension credit, are another matter.

Still talking about the working poor, I wonder, why are different benefits and their recipients viewed in such different ways?

Just out of interest, Ana, how would your DD (and you, too) feel if she was also in receipt of Housing Benefit?
Would you or she then think that she was part of the benefit culture?

I'm just curious, as it would be interesting to know where the line is crossed, which benefits are seen as morally acceptable for a working person to receive, and which are not.

I don't think they do. Certainly not all of them. My DD is a single mum who works full time in a demanding job. She claims child benefit and working tax credit, but in no way considers herself to be a part of the 'benefits culture'.

All those of us who were in receipt of child benefit were presumably also part of that culture? And those of us who are pensioners?

Oops, I missed out a word there: ... they know that they are part of the "benefits culture" ...!

Ana: they feel insulted because like it or not, know that they are part of the "benefits culture" that our politicians have been constantly been vilifying for the past few years.

But where does that leave the working poor, those who work a full week, many doing several small jobs and very unsociable hours to try to make ends meet, but who still don't scrape together enough to get by without a few pounds of benefit to top it up? To me, it comes across as a big insult to a lot of people.

I think that's a bit cynical, MamaCaz. All those you mention definitely come under the heading of 'hard working families', why would they feel insulted? All families who claim Child Benefit and/or working tax credits are in receipt of 'benefits' but no one would class them as scroungers.

Anniebach: I quite agree!

Thousands on zero contracts want to be hard workers , but difficult if some weeks they just work three hours

When I hear "hard-working families ...", it comes across to me as just another snipe at the poor.
Because of all the other rhetoric that accompanies it each time, it is clearly meant to be interpreted as meaning "all those of you who aren't benefit scroungers".
But where does that leave the working poor, those who work a full week, many doing several small jobs and very unsociable hours to try to make ends meet, but who still don't scrape together enough to get by without a few pounds of benefit to top it up? To me, it comes across as a big insult to a lot of people.

'Let me be clear about...' usually when they want to be as obfuscatory as possible.

I'm already glowering at my radio and we still have weeks to go!

In a word....aaaaarrrgghh!!

I hate: hard working families and lessons will be learned. Both are trite meaningless expressions due to overuse by people who think we, the electorate, are all stupid people who believe in meaningless platitudes. I think the expression hard working families lost any meaning when we saw coal miners protesting against losing their jobs, a long long time ago. I was quite young and naiive then, and never could understand why people were being criticised and pilloried for wanting to work and provide for their families, isnt this what society is all about?

Well we were a hard working family and now I am a hard working retiree in a different, unpaid, way!

IMO it is a way of simply saying "I'm on your side*. EM is hoping it will make most people feel included.