Labour's 'working people' spin shows just how out of touch they are with ordinary Brits

The government's definition of working people needs a lot of work. It's not just gauche but grossly out of touch with modern economic reality and the cost of living. If someone who earns £45k or less is classed as a worker, and someone who earns, say, £48k, is considered a fat cat, then reason has left the building altogether. If anyone in this government thinks earning more than £45,000 buys comfort, they have not been to a supermarket lately.

In fact, they are not living in the same dimension as the rest of us. A salary of £46,000 might sound immense to those wandering the corridors of Westminster, but in the real world it barely covers rent, childcare, food and bills. Families are cutting back, savings are gone, and even small luxuries now feel out of reach. The idea that anyone earning slightly more than £45k is suddenly "comfortable" is laughable.

People earning £46,000 are not rich. They are nurses, teachers, electricians and small business owners trying to stay afloat, people whose stomachs are knotted as they try to make ends meet.

Calling them anything other than working people is beyond insulting. It shows a government that looks at data, not lives - a government that is completely out of touch. This is not fairness, it is spin.

Ministers want credit for protecting working people while quietly shifting the burden onto the exact same working people who keep the country running. The middle risks being squeezed until it breaks - and if it does break, then the country breaks with it.

£45,000 is not wealth. It is survival. And when the Treasury treats survival as privilege, it proves how far removed it is from everyday Britain.

The government talks about growth and productivity, but you cannot grow an economy built on exhaustion. People are working harder than ever and getting less in return.

If the government really cared about working people, it would stop defining them by a number and start helping them make it to the end of the month.

Working people are not statistics; they are the reason the country still functions. It is time policy started reflecting that hard fact and politicians started appreciating it.

Kate Underwood is the Managing Director at Kate Underwood HR & Training