THERE is a massive disconnect between Tory rhetoric and Tory action, and I’m still surprised that more people didn’t notice it. By far the lion’s share of the welfare budget goes to ‘hard-working families who do the right thing’. When will their virtue pay off ? When will they ever be able to make progress?

Many of them not only have to claim Working Family Tax Credit, they depend on food banks to hold body and soul together as well.

Some families and individuals will already have been hit by the bedroom tax – a tax imposed to encourage them to move to smaller properties, even though the government knew there were no smaller properties to which to move. Now Cameron wants to slash a further £12bn from the welfare budget, but still refuses to say how. Housing benefit for young people has already been cut altogether; so young people wanting to work away from home after university, or young people trying to escape an abusive home situation, have nowhere to go – and nor does the government, in that direction; it’ll have to damage another group instead.

We’re all used to politicians saying one thing and doing another – it’s what they do, it’s in their blood. But this particular disconnect, and the public’s inability to spot it, has landed us with a wholly Tory government which certainly doesn’t have ‘hard-working families who do the right thing’ at the heart of its philosophy.

Val Gaize

Studley