The Conservatives need to abandon their "out of date" ideas about poverty and the welfare state, according to one of the party's policy advisers.
Greg Clark, the shadow minister for charities, voluntary bodies and social enterprise, is urging the party to look to social commentator Polly Toynbee rather than the ideas of wartime Tory leader Winston Churchill.
Clark has been working on the party's comprehensive policy review, and was due to publish a paper on the subject on Wednesday.
Details of the paper were published in Wednesday's Guardian, which suggests party leader David Cameron will endorse Clark's views in the Scarman lecture on poverty on Friday.
The paper says: "The traditional Conservative vision of welfare as a safety net encompasses another outdated Tory nostrum - that poverty is absolute, not relative.
"Churchill's safety net is at the bottom: Holding people at subsistence level, just above the abyss of hunger and homelessness.
"It is the social commentator Polly Toynbee who supplies imagery that is more appropriate for Conservative social policy in the 21st century."
Churchill believed government should provide a welfare safety net beneath a ladder of opportunity, while Toynbee has written of the social exclusion faced by people on low incomes.
The paper goes on: "Poverty in Britain hasn't gone away. Despite nine years of New Labour promises, the underlying problems are still unresolved.
"In fact, many are worse than ever. If the poorest people in this country fall too far behind those further up the income scale, our society will pull apart."
marieann
I don't think the Conservatives can understand poverty as in the struggle ordinary working class people have. Someone was saying the other day about Margaret Thatcher declaring that anyone without a car by the time thay were 26 was a failure. That attitude isn't going to change no matter who is the head of the party.
Do they forget that some people have got to do the lowest paid jobs or don't they care?
Sandie Seward
Well, in that case, as I owned my first car at seventeen, I can't really be a failure then, can I?
Mind you, my father used to think I was, especcially when my marriage went pear-shaped by the time I was 23. (I was married at eighteen).
He continued thinking I was a failure until I started believing it myself!
marieann
You've done too much to be a failure, you're still doing so much, e-bay, forums, train collections and all the other things I don't know about.
Ken R
I think that failure is a yardstick used to measure others, by people who have never succeeded themselves and want everyone to be brought down to a level playing field of their choosing !
I think that success and failure should not be measured in financial or material terms, but rather by what we get out of life, put back into life and how we live our lives and enjoy ourselves.
That concludes todays rant
dorramae
I so much agree with you Ken.
Financial success is one thing, but it can never measure up to faith in oneself,happiness, loving and being loved.
Sylvia
POVERTY IN BRITAIN
POVERTY IN BRITAIN
UK Pensions Crisis
How bad is the UK's pension crisis?
Investment returns have been a cause of concern
Every day seems to bring fresh warnings that Britons will not have enough money to live on when they retire.
BBC News examines the issues, and explores whether we are all doomed to spend our old age in poverty.
What exactly is the problem?
In a nutshell, there is not enough money salted away in pension funds to guarantee a comfortable retirement for today's working population.
And it looks as though the total shortfall may be even wider than previously thought.
In the past the government has been forced to admit that official estimates of the level of pension contributions had been inflated by a statistical error.
The upshot is that many employees putting money aside for their old age may well find that their retirement income falls far short of what they had hoped.
How did the pensions industry get into this mess?
The underlying reason is that medical advances over the last few decades have greatly prolonged our life span, forcing the pensions industry to support a greater number of pensioners for longer periods.
Government figures show that average life expectancy in the UK rose by five years for men and four years for women between 1980 and 2000.
But the problem has been exacerbated in recent years by dwindling stock market returns.
Pension funds depend on steady stock market returns to pay policyholders.
And when share prices fall - as they have been doing for the last two years - it becomes harder for funds to meet their obligations.
Lower returns have forced most of the big company-run pension funds to suspend generous schemes which guarantee employees a fixed proportion of their final salaries on retirement.
A large proportion of firms have now set up defined contribution or money purchase schemes, which do not guarantee the final pension sum and are therefore less risky for companies.
An additional gripe, as far as employers are concerned, is the 10% tax on dividends earned by pension schemes, which was imposed by the chancellor shortly after the present government was elected in 1997.
Dividends play an important part in the long-term health of pension schemes.
Any tax on them increases the possibility that the scheme will not have sufficient assets to meet liabilities.
What does this mean for the average employee?
It means that the amount of money they need to put aside in order to ensure a given level of retirement income is rising steadily.
Experts say that a 30-year-old man aiming to retire at 65 on an annual income of £20,000 a year in today's terms would currently need to save about £260 a month.
The low level of the state pension partly reflects a concerted move by successive governments, worried over Britain's rapidly ageing population, to encourage more people to save for their own retirement
The basic state pension explained
This rises to about £450 for men aged 40.
For women, deemed more likely to take career breaks, the minimum saving requirement is likely to be higher still.
What about the state pension?
There is still a basic state pension, but at a maximum of £86.05 per week for a single person or £131.20 for a couple, it is unlikely to fund a comfortable retirement.
The low level of the state pension partly reflects a concerted move by successive governments, worried over Britain's rapidly ageing population, to encourage more people to save for their own retirement.
However, that plan received a setback in the early 1990s when it emerged that many consumers were mis-sold new pensions which left them worse off at retirement than they would have been if they had stuck with their original scheme.
Some say the episode has made consumers more reluctant to put their money into pensions.
Should I worry if my scheme is in deficit?
A deficit alone does not necessarily mean there are intrinsic problems with the company pension scheme.
It is important to remember that pensions are long-term investments, and it is likely that when market conditions improve the fund will bounce back.
However, you might be asked to make more contributions into the fund.
People are living longer and there will be increasing demands on the fund in the future.
Problems have arisen in the past when a company scheme, already in deficit, has been wound up.
This has left many workers with much reduced pensions, even though they have saved all their working lives.
Sylvia
POVERTY IN BRITAIN
POVERTY IN BRITAIN
EU rules on bust pension schemes
The issue of lost pensions has sparked protests
Thousands of people in the UK who lost their pensions when their employers went bust may have moved a step closer to securing compensation.
The European Court of Justice said that under the European Union Insolvency directive, the UK government pension protection regime is "inadequate".
But the ruling fell well short of saying people should be compensated.
The case will now go back to the High Court, which may rule that people who have lost out should be compensated.
Paying compensation could cost hundreds of millions of pounds. The Court appears to have given a steer that damages may not be payable, but this is now a matter for the High Court to decide
Department for Work and Pensions spokesman
Schemes shut
The case has been brought by unions representing former employees at Allied Steel and Wire (ASW) and United Engineering Forgings (UEF).
Both shut in 2002 with staff losing their pensions as a result.
The case rests on whether the government should have done more to protect these workers' pensions under the terms of the EU Insolvency Directive, which was introduced in 1983.
Under the directive member states are required to take measures to protect the pensions of employees in the event of their employer's insolvency.
The case has wide implications for an estimated 125,000 workers who have lost their pensions, when their companies went bust, going back as far as 1983.
While saying that the pensions protection regime was inadequate, the European Court added that it did not mean that the government had to compensate those who had lost their pensions.
Sandie Seward
My only income is the State Pension Credit Scheme, and, believe it or not, I am STILL expected to pay Income Tax on this paltry sum!
Well, in that case, as I owned my first car at seventeen, I can't really be a failure then, can I?
