Poverty

George Osborne wants to encourage the 'low-paid' to save some of their money, so he's setting up a scheme that will double their cash. Thus, if the low-paid set aside - for example - £50 a month, they'll get that amount back from HM government. I'm sorry if I'm not being clear what about Osborne intended. I didn't get past line two of the news report before I laughed and turned the page.

Is there anything about poverty this government understands? 

My late and much lamented friend R and I used to reminisce together about our childhood. Hers was in the 1940s, while mine was in the 1950s. She was one of 7 children. I was the oldest of three. Her father was a church of Scotland minister in deepest Lanarkshire. Mine worked in a shipyard in Govan. Her mother stayed at home. My mother worked in factories. The one thing we agreed upon was that our families were poor and we stayed poor, no matter how hard our parents worked. Very few holidays, new clothes a couple of times a year (Christmas and the first Sunday in May, in my case), treats like the movies or the pantomime only on high days and holidays.

I was amazed at R's parents who insisted they could only buy what they could afford. That's not how it was where I grew up. We went for hire purchase. If it hadn't been for the miracle of hire purchase, my family wouldn't have had a cooker, a fridge, an electric fire, fitted carpets - and the rest - no matter how hard they worked.

If you're poor, you don't need £100 extra a week to make life comfortable. Just a fiver or a tenner extra might mean the difference between making it from Friday to Friday and managing from Friday but going hungry on Thursday. I read last week that the 'average' wage, touted as £25,000 a year by the UK government, is probably closer to £14,000. Whichever of these incomes you and your family are on, you can 'budget' till you're blue in the face but you'll still be caught out by the unexpectedly high gas or electric bill, the sudden and urgent need to get one of your kids new shoes, the need to replace the washing machine that packs up out of the blue. Then what'll you do?

Even on a higher wage than £25,000, you're probably only 3 months from deep financial trouble if something goes wrong.

Saving? Forget it. For many people - especially young people working hard but paying exorbitant rents - there's no money left at the end of the month to save.

And frankly, it's a bit of a nerve for Osborne to be inviting people to save when just the other month he was encouraging people to raid their pension pots and spend-spend-spend.