UK chancellor George Osborne is using divide-and-rule tactics to try to push through further cuts of around £25 billion over two years by 2017-18. This includes £12 billion in social security reductions. The poorest will be worst affected but, if he gets his way, many others currently struggling to cope with sharply rising prices and rents will be hit.

After the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement on 5 December 2013, the BBC’s Business Editor, Robert Peston, made an extraordinarily political statement which went unchallenged.