Dani Garavelli: Bullingdon Club rules on winners and losers LONG after this UK government has passed into history - when the economic crisis it has presided over is nothing more than a bad memory - the slogan "We're All In This Together" will be used to teach fledgling politicians how a few hollow words, and the failure to live up to them, can alienate an entire electorate. It's not just the lack of insight that's damaging (as if we were ever likely to see ourselves as one of the Bullingdon Club boys); nor even the way the phrase invokes the Blitz spirit in the face of adversity (when the officer/soldier split of the First World War would be far more apposite). It's the way that every single week, the very leaders who are punting national unity as a solution to economic Armageddon go out of their way to deepen existing social divisions. Or "Yo pleb, we is all in dis ting together, yeah?" as one satirist, who mocked-up a poster of David Cameron dressed as a hoodie, put it. Ten days ago, it was Stephen Hester's bonus and the way George Osborne - hobnobbing with other leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos - justified it, that brought home how far from socially equitable the austerity measures are. Last week, the coalition's hypocrisy was laid bare by its decision to overturn all the amendments to its Welfare Reform Bill made in the Lords, ignoring warnings that it would impact on society's most vulnerable, just as it emerged ministers had allowed the £182,000-a-year chief executive of the Student Loans Company, Ed Lester, to indulge in a legal, but morally dubious, tax dodge. Though hard-up students were expected to pay interest rates 3 per cent above inflation on their loans, Lester's salary was directed into a private firm set up by him so he could pay 21 per cent in corporation tax as opposed to up to 50 per cent in income tax. So while, as a result of welfare reforms designed to cut costs in the benefits systems, cancer patients were facing up to the prospect of losing Employment Support Allowance and lone parents to the prospect of paying the Child Support Agency to chase their maintenance, a man earning around seven times the national average was, quite legitimately, snaffling up to £40,000 from the public purse. Of course, now the scandal has become public there's a whole lot of hand-wringing, if not to say buck-passing, going on. Coming weeks after Cameron announced a crackdown on tax avoidance, the revelation is a huge embarrassment, particularly since it seems other public sector bosses may have been given the same treatment. Lester has quickly been added to the payroll - so tax and national insurance payments will be made at source - and an inquiry has been launched to root out any other chief executives benefiting from the loophole. But the fact remains Lester's deal was signed off by someone - most likely Universities Minister David Willetts - even as the government railed against the scourge of benefits cheats. Could the coalition's double standards be more perfectly illustrated? Two sets of people screwing the system, one on the fringes of society, the other at the heart of the establishment; the first treated as pariahs, the second encouraged to feather their own nests. We're all in this together, as they say. The irony is that, while putting a stop to Lester's tax dodge will affect no-one but him, attempts to ensure no-one wrings a single penny they're not entitled to out of the welfare state will cause a huge amount of collateral damage to the very worst-off. The government believes its welfare reforms are vital to cut the deficit. But a raft of anti-poverty campaigners insist the measures, including plans to means-test the Employment Support Allowance after a year, replace the Disability Living Allowance with Personal Independence Payments and cap all benefits (including child benefits) at £26,000, regardless of where recipients live or the numbers of mouths they have to feed, will push some into homelessness and destitution. While the Lords - so often regarded as out of touch and elitist - did its best to protect the interests of the poor, the government dismisses all advice, claiming it is more in tune with the zeitgeist. You see, the coalition may trumpet solidarity when it's expedient, but just as it pitted public sector workers against private sector workers in the name of pension reform, it is relying on old-fashioned class war to push these measures through. It needs the squeezed middle to feel its taxes are being squandered on the feckless and dishonest, so it nurtures the notion of benefits cheats living it large in houses funded by hard-working taxpayers. Now, I don't doubt such people exist, just as I don't dispute the welfare state can sometimes foster dependency, but, for me, subsidising the lifestyles of a handful of chancers is a price worth paying for a society in which no-one falls through the net. Certainly, I'd rather subside the undeserving poor than the undeserving rich, the benefit scroungers over the tax avoiders, not least because they've had fewer advantages and are playing for lower stakes. As for Cameron, spouting platitudes about a commonality of purpose, while playing divide and rule, has become the hallmark of his premiership. But no-one is fooled. As the coalition continues to tighten the screws on those who are already suffering, it's becoming increasingly obvious: "We're all in this together" is neither a rallying call nor a cynical piece of propaganda, it's a cruel in-joke the country's most privileged are enjoying at the expense of the rest of us.