There may be one big thing wrong with the Coalition's plans to slash government spending – that it risks tipping Britain into a new recession – but there are many things right about the policy.
1. It has generated the most hard fought attempt ever undertaken to simplify the welfare system and to target it more precisely at areas of genuine need. Out of the struggle between a driven idealist, Iain Duncan Smith, who is Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and a hard- faced Treasury there may come an imaginative, practical solution. The question whether the better off should receive child benefits and, when they pass the age of 60, winter fuel payments, bus passes, free eye tests and free TV licences is up for debate, as it should be.
Read Full Article »