A damning picture of communities stricken by poverty, crime and unrest, tenants savagely competing "Lord of the Flies" style for housing, has been dra...

The feeling out there right now appears to be one of near panic, with a hideous sense of insecurity over what plans are being drawn up to dump the chronically sick and disabled on the scrapheap of dependence upon others, in the name, ostensibly, of prudent public spending.

A survey from The Children's Society recently revealed that nearly half of teachers often see children coming into school hungry, with no lunch and no means to pay for one. Six million households are struggling just to afford to heat their homes.

A Romanian or Bulgarian family of four would be eight or nine times better off if they were to move to Britain when access restrictions are lifted at ...

The Welfare Cash Card is a direct attack on equality, dignity and human freedom.

The five things you need to know on Friday 8 February 2013... 1) 'MISERY AND HARDSHIP' So the real villain of the row over disability and incapa...

It is not often that I am left speechless, but I when the producers of a BBC Panorama programme invited me in to view some of the footage they had shot of people's experience of the government's Work Programme I was left stunned and shocked.

Iain Duncan Smith has been criticised for saying some poor parents will spend money on alcohol and drugs rather than their children. In a keynote s...

Since the recession, spending has shot up. But this just makes clearer that it's economic failure that leads to rising overall benefit bills - and not Labour's decision to tackle child and pensioner poverty.

The cynical attempt to stigmatise, demonise, and dehumanise millions of people up and down the country, regardless of their personal or individual circumstances, surely ranks as one of the most vicious and brutal acts of any British government in living memory.

Most people in the UK, quite rightly, want to help the destitute, the poor, the struggling. It is the mark of a decent, as well as comparatively rich, democracy. But it was never seen as possible or desirable for the taxpayer to take the place of the breadwinner for long-term jobless households

The ten things you need to know on Wednesday 9th January 2013... 1) THE POOR GET POORER. NEXT UP, PENSIONERS Surprise, surprise - from the Huffi...

The Government’s controversial plans for a real-terms cut in working-age benefits have cleared their first Commons hurdle by 324 votes to 268, major...

David Miliband made a not-so-subtle attack on Gordon Brown in the Commons on Tuesday, as he railed against the coalition's plan to cut benefit payment...

As MPs gather to vote on plans to cap benefits and slash a further £5 billion from the welfare bill, a single mother affected by the cuts told the Hu...

Former Lib Dem minister Sarah Teather has warned the rhetoric surrounding the debate over welfare payments will set "neighbour against neighbour", as ...

Welfare and welfare reform is one of those areas of political debate that is bedeviled by mass, mainly media-driven, ignorance. It is hard to have a rational debate about the issue because its infused from the start with a high dosage of irrational prejudice fueled by entirely rational hidden agendas.

Liberal Democrat MPs are likely to march through the voting lobbies with their Tory colleagues to support the real-terms cut in welfare benefits on Tu...

Now would be a really good time to take a step back and ask why the welfare bill has kept rising. That's been because more people are making benefit claims due to the recession and as a result of rising rents and living costs, not because of overly generous uprating.