Jayne Dowle: Rich boys cannot understand life on squeezed incomes

I agree with him that paying for childcare is a huge issue for parents. However, if he thinks that nursery fees are the only thing keeping us awake at night, he is wrong. I’d add to that a list; mortgage payments, car tax, car insurance, petrol, food bills, gas bills, overdraft fees, and in moments of utter 5am delirium, pension provision, or lack thereof.

Childcare is now a huge issue for bleary-eyed new parents struggling to justify the cost of going out to work. For parents of older children, it is a hazily-remembered nightmare of financial juggling and emotional compromise. That dreaded monthly nursery bill has been superseded by myriad other costs associated with bringing up a family, including basic items such as school uniforms, shoes and food.

I’m not going to go on about childcare, even if David Cameron does. I want the Prime Minister and his Chancellor to understand that they are still failing to understand what difficulties ordinary families are going through. And I am beginning to despair that they ever will; there is no empathy, nor any real attempt being made to establish any, expect promises of jam and childcare vouchers tomorrow.

They just don’t get that feeling that there is no room for manoeuvre in our lives.

Neither of these two will have reached the till and had to put groceries back because they didn’t have enough cash. They won’t be filling up their car £20 a time because that’s all they can afford to put in the tank, or buying their children one modest Easter egg and staying at home for the entire Bank Holiday weekend. And neither will they have to listen to politicians lecturing them about how vital it is for us all to tighten our belts for the greater good.

It is really only a couple of years since the Prime Minister and Chancellor told us that we were “all in this together”? Doesn’t this sound so hollow now? It is quite astounding how, instead of making those appealing connections – family values, decent education, belief in law and order – stronger, senior Tory politicians have managed to sever them so bluntly. Margaret Thatcher at her most determined made her enemies, but she never, ever outlawed her instinctive followers in the way that these two and their acolytes have.

At the heart of this trouble is the failure to tackle the things that really matter; the profits of 
energy companies, bankers cashing in while small businesses falter, cuts to public services leaving wage freezes in their wake for millions.

To blithely carry on with devotion to austerity does not, in the end, show strong leadership; it proves that the Government does not understand what motivates and reassures the public.

I have been wondering whether we must shoulder some of the blame by convincing ourselves that we have never had it so bad. Is this really so much worse than the 1980s, when we lurched through unemployment, recession and mortgage rates topping 10 per cent? And then I read that the average family has curbed its spending by more than £3,000 a year since the economic downturn began.

It is here that the disconnect between this government and its electorate hits home. Do you think that George Osborne and David Cameron would even notice if their annual household expenditure dropped by a couple of grand or so? Their wives probably spend that much on nice cosmetics, new clothes and scented candles. And I am not being petty for the sake of it. The unassailable rich do not register the nuances of the cost of living as the rest of us do.

For our part, I believe we do understand what the recession has meant for our household budgets, comprehend why our wages have not gone up and accept that frivolous spending must be brought under control.

We don’t expect life to be easy any more, but the lack of imagination in fiscal policies suggests that those in charge of running the country don’t understand that we can’t be squeezed any further.

George Osborne talks of “tough choices, but what he and the Prime Minister fail to realise is that millions of people simply don’t have any choices left – except where to place their cross on the ballot paper at the next election.