Sharpe's Opinion
Friday, 8th May, 2009
Fraser Nelson explains the ‘poverty Brownie’ – the way statistics have been manipulated by the Government to suggest people have been ‘lifted out of poverty’ when their actual income has changed very little.
On today’s figures 200,000 more children have been ‘plunged into poverty’ since 2004-05 (before housing costs) and 100,000 more children ‘plunged into poverty’ over 2007/08 after housing costs. Except they haven’t really been plunged into poverty, just as they weren’t really lifted out of it in the first place.
This practice is coming back to bite Brown in a big way right now.