Excuse me, but where does the Mahdi get this number from?

Some of you old class warriors will be saying poor diddums to the
middle-class whingers who are still doing substantially better than the
hefty, and increasing, chunk of the population living in absolute
poverty – now running at 7.4 million.

Which definition of absolute poverty is she using?

Absolute poverty for the whole population has been cut by 7.1m people
  after housing costs (AHC), from a peak figure of 10.2m people in 1996/7

The Government’s one?

Absolute poverty refers to individuals in households that fall below 60%
  of the 1996/7 median income.

(Actually, I thought that was 50% but there you go.)

Or are we seeing a mutation in the meaning of words again? First there was "poverty", then this changed to "relative poverty".  Absolute poverty retaining the meaning that "poverty" had before. Are we now to redefine "absolute poverty" as being also "relative poverty"?