Empathy is an absolutely crucial part of the political picture. Take the Coalition's spending cuts. It's easy to see a policy in terms of numbers and strategies. It isn't until you seem the damage they have wrought up close that the human element begins to loom into focus.

Too many people on benefits see it as a "lifestyle choice" rather than a safety net, welfare minister Lord Freud has said. The comments led to disa...

Universal Credit will create a benefits system that will secure the safety net we are all proud of - with £2 billion a year more in benefits paid out and around 900,000 children and adults being lifted out of poverty - and ensure people are actively helped by the Welfare State into independence. Currently the system actively holds people back from getting into work and we have a duty to stop this.

Usually one has to tune into the Jeremy Kyle Show to hear as plentiful a flow of populist, self-righteous, ill-thought diarrhoea as that which emanated from the government yesterday. Indignation was the mot-de-jour for assorted ministers, wheeled out to express their incredulity at the latest defeat in the Lords.

The government has suffered three defeats in the Lords over welfare reform. Planned restrictions on employment and support allowance (ESA) affectin...

Expert have urged peers to halt the government's proposed "bedroom tax" amid claims it will have "disastrous" consequences. In a blog for the Huffi...

Stripping GPs of the power to sign patients off on long-term sick leave could lead to "fewer wasted lives", a Tory minister has insisted. Lord Freu...