IT WAS recently revealed that 14.3 million people are in poverty in the UK, with seven million people in persistent poverty — meaning that they have been in poverty for two of the previous three years.

More than four million people are trapped in deep poverty, meaning their income is at least 50 per cent below the official breadline (currently around £195 a week for a lone parent with two children).

Going into more depth, the report from the Social Metrics Commission, chaired by Conservative peer Philippa Stroud, tracks evidence showing poverty is markedly worse now than five years ago.

The commission’s membership is drawn from experts across the political spectrum and includes representatives from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.

Specifically, it finds that poverty rates among pension-age adults is up to 11 per cent now compared with 9 per cent in 2014/15, and poverty rates among children is up to 34 per cent compared with 31 per cent in 2014/15.

Additionally, 46 per cent of people in families with a black head of household and 37 per cent of families with an Asian head of household are in poverty.

The report also confirms again that disability is one of the strongest predictors of being in poverty.

Could there be a more damning indictment of the failure of the Tories ideologically driven austerity and indication of why we need real change?

Early signs, though, are absolutely clear that people suffering in poverty can expect very little from Boris Johnson’s government, which every day signals how it is a government that will put the interests of the 1 per cent and the bankers first.

After Johnson boasted during the Tory leadership campaign that no-one was a better friend of the bankers who crashed the economy than him, in recent weeks we have seen him and Chancellor Sajid Javid again talk about tax cuts and so-called “free port” storage spaces for the super-rich.

As I’ve commented in the Morning Star before, this support for “free ports” is all about turning Britain into a haven for tax evaders and money launderers, as part of the hard-right’s reactionary vision for a “bargain basement” post-Brexit Britain.

Specifically, Johnson is reported to be considering proposals that would mean Teesside, Aberdeen and Peterhead could become free ports, namely economic zones that are considered independent for customs purposes and charge no taxes or tariffs on imports.

These are typically used to store high-value items such as artworks, precious stones or antiques and exist in places such as Geneva, Luxembourg, Singapore, Beijing, Monaco and Delaware.

They were heavily criticised by a European Parliament report for facilitating “illegal activity” such as tax evasion and money-laundering and being “conducive to secrecy.”

To put it simply, as Labour MP Peter Dowd said this week: “We should call ‘free ports’ what they really are: storage spaces for the super-rich to dodge taxes and launder money.”

It is absolutely clear then that the Tory leadership is failing to put forward solutions to the growing social and economic problems we face, including deepening poverty and inequality, and instead concentrating on tax cuts and other neoliberal policies in the interests of the 1 per cent.

The development of these extreme Thatcherite policies follows Johnson becoming Prime Minister with the support of fewer than 100,000 Tory Party members and threatening a reckless, right-wing no-deal Brexit and staking all our futures on a sweetheart trade deal with Donald Trump that would risk the takeover of the NHS by US corporations.

We are now therefore seeing Johnson and his divisive hard-right Cabinet gambling with people’s jobs and living standards.

As John McDonnell has said: “This government of the bankers and for the bankers is too cut off to notice the millions of people in poverty — and doesn’t care that Tory governments have created this nightmare of modern Britain.”

It is also simply unacceptable and undemocratic that a handful of unrepresentative Conservative members have chosen the prime minister — it is the people who should decide through a general election.

And after a decade of austerity under the Tories, we need a general election and a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.

Real change is both possible and necessary. Let’s make it happen.

Diane Abbott is shadow home secretary and member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. This column appears fortnightly.