Conservative coalition leaders are developing an Orwellian relationship to the English language where Tory and Liberal Democrat statements translate into their direct opposite.

Mayor Boris Johnson pledges improved services for passengers, with "more staff visible and available at our stations."

By this he means 1,000 fewer safety-critical staff and the likelihood of passengers steering clear of the Underground system in fear for personal welfare.

Employment Relations Minister Jenny Willott - a Liberal Democrat but singing from the same Tory hymnbook - welcomed changes to Transfer of Undertakings and Protection of Employment (Tupe) regulations as part of the government's role in "protecting fairness for all."

Fairness for all if you're an employer empowered to tear up collective agreements with impunity after just 12 months.

But not fair at all for low-paid workers in contracted-out services such as cleaning, catering, building maintenance and social care who are sure to see pay cuts and worse conditions.

Fairness for all, my arse, as Ricky Tomlinson could be expected to say.

Tory Business Minister Matt Hancock was at it a week ago, misusing Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) figures to "reveal" that 90 per cent of people in Britain enjoyed an increase in their 2012-13 earnings.

To substantiate this codswallop, he left out 4.4 million workers classified as self-employed, defined earnings as "take-home pay," which includes income tax reductions but excludes slashed in-work benefits, and omitted those earning too little to pay National Insurance.

This final category applies to workers on the minimum wage, which has, like average pay, fallen in real terms for the past five years.

So Hancock's assertion that 90 per cent of us are better off relies on a conjuring trick worthy of Tommy Cooper.

The reality, as Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows, is that there has been an inexorable decline in post-inflation pay for 30 years, but the annual percentage change was generally positive until the first quarter of 2010, when the bankers' austerity agenda adopted by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling sealed the Labour government's electoral fate that year.

Since then the conservative coalition has entrenched this institutionalised impoverishment of the working class, presiding over an average annual reduction in real pay of 2.2 per cent.

Government ministers happy to quote ONS figures when they appear favourable to the pro-austerity case should admit that Hancock's statistical sleight of hand was a dishonest ploy, but of course they won't.

Polling figures issued in the wake of his sunshine story suggested that the Tories were whittling away Labour's lead in public sentiment and were within a percentage point of the opposition.

Despite this, the Tories have defended five local council seats in by-elections this month and have lost four of them, which hardly suggests a pro-government bandwagon.

As with Johnson's Transport for London dodgy survey that purports to show 82 per cent popular support for his assault on ticket office jobs, poll results depend on questions asked.

Surveys that deliver results at variance with personal and collective experience will not be taken seriously.

This applies to safety on the London Underground, the pay and conditions of transferred staff and, above all, to the squeezed living standards of the working class.

Tories and Liberal Democrats can issue their Ministry of Truth declarations, but people understand the reality and know that not only a new government but a different political strategy is needed.