Single people’s invisibility is part of a larger, longer shift in politics towards proving that government is only there for people who deserve support. Families are more deserving than singles, and “working people” are more deserving than people who aren’t in work, cannot work due to disability or illness, or do care work that is unrecognised and unpaid. It was back in 2005 that the BBC noted the ubiquity of the phrase “hard-working families” in New Labour rhetoric, and so it is no surprise that it has been revived in the current party’s tribute act to that era. “It has always been a Tory message,” the Times columnist and former Conservative MP Matthew Parris told the BBC at the time. “It is nothing new from the Tories, but both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair want to rid the Labour party of this association with handouts to people. It chimes in very well with New Labour, this idea of no free rides and no feather-bedding.”
“Hard-working family” also only includes people with a “real” family, ie one with two parents (preferably of opposite gender) and one or more children. Couples aren’t real families, and so are basically counted as two singles who happen to live together. “Hard-working family” has always been a code for a typical dad, mum, 1-3 children, all following the standard society approved life script. Nobody else matters.