Welfare didn't make Philpott a monster. But it does allow bad people to go on...
If there was ever a case for bringing back the noose, Mick Philpott makes it. This wretched man set fire to his family home in a bid to frame his former lover and indirectly killed six of his children....
View ArticleNo one knows whether welfare made the Philpott horror more likely. So stop...
Regarding the horrible Philpott story, there's been a lot of "it's welfare's fault" and "it's not welfare's fault" going around. But I haven't actually seen anyone addressing exactly what they mean by...
View ArticleLabour has completely lost the plot on Philpott
Is there anyone left in the upper reaches of the Labour party with Tony Blair's feel for the instincts of millions of Labour voters and potential Labour voters? Say what you like about Blair (in the...
View ArticleThe Philpott case shows that, under Labour, we outsourced our moral judgement...
Here is your examination question for the day. Please describe the algorithm for welfare, which takes as its input human need, and as its output delivers happiness, goodness, and social justice. You...
View ArticleLabour is panicking over welfare: it's flying by the seat of Ed Miliband's...
This morning the Observer splashes on reports that Labour is getting tough on welfare. “Labour plans radical shift over welfare state payouts”, is the headline above a story from Toby Helm and Daniel...
View ArticleLabour is walking right into the Tory trap on welfare
Does any other major country put an argument over the details of healthcare provision at the centre of its politics for month after month, year after year? It is a genuine question and I am interested...
View ArticleLeft-wing activists’ treatment of disabled people as objects of pity is far...
If we are to believe Left-wing observers, the worst thing the government can say to a disabled person is: “You are fit for work.” Over the past two years of government trimming of welfare benefits,...
View ArticleIt's time to tackle Britain's welfare ghettoes
Any policy which will simplify our complex benefit system and ensure that employment pays more than welfare dependency is a good one. Signed On, Written Off, a new report published by The Centre for...
View ArticleBrussels orders us to pay benefits to foreigners with no long-term connection...
UKIP's breakthrough came when the party began to focus on immigration – specifically, on the fact that the United Kingdom, as an EU member, was obliged to open its borders to nationals from the other...
View ArticleTell the country the truth, Mr Miliband
From Tuesday's Daily Telegraph It was when Ed Balls was halfway through his Reuters speech yesterday that I first heard it. A tiny, metallic sound, so faint that at first I thought I might have...
View ArticleHow Ed Miliband became the austerity king
Be very afraid. Ed Miliband has delivered his vision of how Britain would look under a Labour government, and a pretty cheerless place it sounds. That is not to say that he is wrong or that his...
View ArticleEd Miliband's big speech on welfare will make almost no difference to anything
There is much excitement (OK a little bit of excitement at Westminster, and none beyond there) about Ed Miliband's "groundbreaking" speech on welfare. He has acknowledged that the UK spends a lot of...
View ArticleIf we can now talk about spending on the elderly, George Osborne will have...
Labour may now be trying to qualify what Ed Balls said about pensions to Andrew Neil earlier, but the Shadow Chancellor's pronouncements about welfare remain hugely significant. They may in fact have...
View ArticleGet out what you put in: is this how to save welfare?
You get out what you put in. Sounds pretty fair, doesn't it? Those suffering unemployment get a little extra if they have a strong history of working. This not-so-radical idea – a return to the...
View ArticleOsborne's welfare announcement was a trap, a blatant, neon-signposted trap....
When will the Labour Party learn? I suppose when its leader and his shadow cabinet wake up on some unseasonably wet Friday morning in 2015, turn to their better halves and say, “Oh well, at least I...
View ArticleSpending Review: Voters back Osborne's welfare push, but there are risks for...
From The Sunday Telegraph Are the Tories winning on welfare? The benefits system is turning into one of the major battlegrounds before the next general election. There has been an unprecedented squeeze...
View ArticleSeriously, my Leftie friends, you're never going to win the benefits cap...
I was following Twitter this morning while Iain Duncan Smith, interviewed on the Today Programme, defended his decision to restrict benefits claims to the average (not the minimum, the average)...
View ArticleWhen it comes to finger-wagging at teenage mums and other moral miscreants,...
Those evil, eye-swivelling Tories – now they're suggesting teen mums should be forced to live in hostels rather than in homes provided by the welfare system. How did they come up with such a despicable...
View ArticleLabour is losing its licence to govern
There is an old political adage which says “oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them”. I’ve never bought into it. Long after the voters had fallen out of love with Margaret Thatcher and...
View ArticleMoral certainty is not always enough in welfare reform
The "Easterhouse" conversion of Iain Duncan Smith to social reform is one of the most remarkable and laudable conversions in public life for many a decade. IDS travelled to Glasgow's toughest area (I'm...
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