Cameron’s cleaner plan leaves out the 99%

Poor Dave. Everything’s going wrong and he just doesn’t have a clue what to do, does he?

He’s sitting on an economic mess that is getting worse by the day. None of the plans seem to be quite working as they’d hoped. Incredibly, Gideon’s made-up economic model “Expansionary Fiscal Contraction” (We’ll call it “Cutting for Growth” shall we?) isn’t working out so well.

Unemployment is rising! Inflation is still high! Growth is shrinking faster than Michael Gove’s grip on reality!

Clear that something must be done, Dave floats the idea of…. tax breaks for those who “take on staff.” Gardeners, cleaners, childminders – and incredibly this is dressed up as a way to help women back into work!

The argument goes that by giving a tax break to people who employ others, women can be “free” to march back into the job market.

I wonder, could it apply to butlers and valets and equerries too? Could it apply to chauffeurs and piano tutors? Moat cleaners? Duck-house maintenance firms? It couldn’t be a way of making sure that all Dave’s rich pals galloping about Chipping Norton don’t feel the pinch quite as much….could it?

If not that, then there does seem to be one clear flaw in the plan. In a recent briefing note to MPs, Dave clearly missed the section on “everyone being quite skint”. Paragraph 2, subsection A, points out the possibility of food being a slightly higher priority than manicured lawns.

In coalition reality, Alpha women who want to “get back into the boardroom” will clearly need support to do so and a tax break to help them take on nannies or home-helps might be just the ticket. In itself, this is not a totally laughable idea, but when seen in the wider context of a society in the grip of austerity measures, it’s jaw-dropping – insulting even.

In a policy allegedly designed to appeal to women, it leaves about 99% of all women harrumphing “Huh, the chance of someone to clean my loo’d be a fine thing”

Taken with tax breaks for big businesses and banks, a preoccupation with lowering the 50p tax rate, a great boost for private healthcare, public schools rushing to gain from the “Free School” classification and wriggling away from cutting child benefit for higher rate taxpayers, it does seem to rather confirm a trend.

At best, I suppose we could argue a kind of absent-minded philanthropy – “Throw a few job crumbs to the lower orders chaps and we’ll make it worth your while.” At worst, it seems to me entirely symptomatic of how out-of-touch, ignorant and incompetent this government of millionaires really are.