Away from conference, the view from a council flat
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Your support makes all the difference.George Osborne followed conventional wisdom yesterday, littering his speech with political wisecracks made at the expense of the Labour Party. It worked in the conference hall, raising laughter among the gathered delegates, but in a tiny one-bed council flat on a run-down estate just 10 minutes down the road, an uneasy silence fell.
Emily Young is a teenage mother who gets by on benefits on the Welsh House Farm Estate in Quinton, a suburb of west Birmingham. She doesn't laugh, or even care about Mr Osborne's jokes. "That's the problem," she says. "I just can't engage with someone like him who has no idea what it's like to struggle to get by.
"I want him to tell me what his cuts are going to mean to me; I want to go to university so I can get the education and job that will give my son a better life. I'm not interested in his snide jokes about the Labour Party."
Sitting in her living room on salvaged furniture, Ms Young, 18, watches the Old Etonian's speech on a tiny, 15-inch screen. A baby monitor sits on the mantlepiece, reassuring the new mother that her "wonderful" two-month-old son, Brooklyn, is asleep.
As Mr Osborne continues, she talks about her upstairs flat and the area. "I suppose the people are friendly enough but I just keep myself to myself," she says. "I moved here to be close to college, the council assigned me the house, I had no choice in the matter. Me and my boyfriend want a larger flat together so that our son can live with his father, but we're on a waiting list."
She didn't appreciate the jokes, but Ms Young is exactly the sort of person the Tories are trying to reach out to. Her circumstances are difficult but she aspires for something better and wants to work. "I'm not sure I will ever be able to get on to a law degree," she says, "but I refuse to complain. I have my own life and it is my responsibility."
Although she has been placed in a flat in Birmingham, Ms Young – originally from Weymouth – still has to get up at around 5.30am to get her son ready and get to college. "When I get home, I have to get the pram upstairs by myself, that's tough," she says.
"It would be nice to have a park I felt safe in and even a leisure centre, I love swimming but there is nothing around here," she says, adding that none of the politicians seem interested in those issues. "That's why I feel disenfranchised," she says.
Ms Young admits she did not even know the Conservative Party was holding a conference down the road but as the Chancellor sets out his plans to "incentivise" work, it catches her attention. "A year ago, I was offered a temporary job but I would have been worse off if I had taken it because I would have lost so much in benefits. If they make it possible for someone like me, I would love to go out and work."
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