Cameron's cuts target Britain's poor

http://www.dw.com/en/camerons-cuts-target-britains-poor/a-18540345

UK leader David Cameron is pushing ahead with drastic welfare cuts that will affect the lowest-paid and jobless. On top of that he wants to redefine the parameters of child poverty, as Mike Power reports from London.

Cameron's cuts target Britain's poor
Mike Power, London
25.06.2015

Poverty, says Prime Minister David Cameron, himself an Eton-educated millionaire whose cabinet contains more millionaires than any other in British history, is not relative. And what's more, long-accepted metrics of child poverty are "absurd," he said in a speech on Monday.

His comments were made ahead of new figures on child poverty released on Thursday, which showed little change with around 2.3 million children living in poverty in 2014.

Cameron's comments followed recent mass protests in London and other major cities against his government's plan to slash welfare payments by an extra £12 billion (17 billion euros) in the coming year. The chancellor of the exchequor, George Osborne, called the cuts to the income of the lowest-paid and unemployed, a "simple matter of fairness."

The London march, which was attended by 250,000 people, was organized by People's Assembly Against Austerity, a new campaign group. Sam Fairbairn, of the People's Assembly, called for a national campaign of "protest, strikes, direct action and civil disobedience" and said the campaign's aim was to build a mass movement that would "kick David Cameron out of office."