I think you’re right to narrow down the focus and make clear WHO will experience the cuts – i.e. low paid women, many of them single parents, and their children. It’s clear that governments (and of course those who want to be the government) feel it’s easiest to make cuts that will affect the people with whom the general public are least sympathetic. The vicious cuts to asylum seekers’ benefits have made that horribly clear.

By political football I mean an issue not discussed because of it’s own merits but as a way of making cheep political points. This is particularly a problem in pre election periods.

Obviously it’s difficult to make any judgement on the outcome of the election before it has happened, however were the Conservatives to win the election as seems likely then Oxfam – as a non partisan NGO – would work with them as we do the current Labour government.

There are elements of Conservative policy that Oxfam would welcome for examples look at Moussa Haddad’s recent article on the Centre for Social Justice’s report on welfare reform http://www.oxfamblogs.org/ukpovertypost/2009/09/at-last-some-new-thinking-on-welfare-reform/ As with the current government however the prospect of Conservative introducing ill-considered public spending cuts however concerns us.

Whilst I’m interested in the themes of this article (and, working with an Authority that has recently swerved to the Right, I am quite!), I wonder specifically, what you mean by a “political football”? To what end would people like me and my colleagues be used as a football of any form, and particularly how so a political one? I’m not being difficult, I’m genuinely intrigued.

On a wider, and perhaps more relevant, theme: with the Conservative takeover seemingly inevitable, what’s the Oxfam perspective on the repercussions?

Sorry if I’m off the beaten track a bit here; you’ve prompted some contemplation!