George Osborne has defended the coalition's controversial cuts in benefit payments and attacked his critics for peddling "shrill, headline-seeking non...

George Osborne is going to fight back over benefit cuts, accusing church leader critics of "depressingly predictable outrage." The Chancellor will...

Being in government is a privilege. You have the power to influence peoples lives for the better. But at present this government is betraying that responsibility. Theory, and ideology is important, but it stands or fails on real world outcomes.

You'd think the last thing the Coalition and local councils would want to be doing at the moment is increasing taxes on low income families. And, no, it's not an April Fool's Day joke - that is exactly what's happening across England with the introduction of localised Council Tax Support from next week on 1 April.

The French far right has praised David Cameron for "smashing the taboo" over immigration, in dubious applause for the prime minister, who has been kee...

Fraud is always a problem. Lying and cheating is wrong and society should certainly discourage it. But benefit fraud - people lying and cheating in order to increase the size of their benefits - is not a big problem. There are many problems which are much bigger, in particular fraud by government.

Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander has again slapped down calls for welfare to bear more of the burden of the coalition's austerity cuts. The...

Welfare Myth Number 1 is that the benefit system is expensive. When politicians want to frighten us they add together the cost of all benefits and pensions and get a staggering figure of £180 billion.

The new Archbishop of Canterbury has backed away from a row with ministers over welfare changes - and admitted he used to claim benefits himself. J...

Workfare is not only bad economics it is morally wrong. Workfare is a modern form of slavery. This may seem an extreme statement, for we tend to associate slavery with racial oppression, when black people were forced to work for white farmers. But slavery is not always racial and it is not always achieved by violence.

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

Since the coalition government was elected, the manifesto promise of the Big Society has morphed into relentless bashing of benefit claimants via the media. Whether stories originate from press officers or from journalists, the results are the same. Strivers vs. Shirkers, benefit scroungers, large families fleecing the public purse, single mums, teen mums, are all headlines that fuel the increasingly hate-filled rhetoric against benefit claimants.

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.

ew people realise that the UK is one of the most centralised welfare systems in the world. Whitehall controls healthcare, education, tax and benefits. Local government controls only social care and a few other minor services. It doesn't need to be this way.

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

For many families in that 15%, Child Benefit represents the last visible, tangible thing they receive from the state. If they do not send their children to state school, if they use private healthcare, if they pay for their lawyers, drive a car, own their property, and have never claimed welfare, then this may be the only state benefit they have ever received. And put in these terms, they may well feel entitled to it. Of course, it can be argued that they are privileged not to have to rely on state infrastructure not to have to sit on NHS waiting lists or suffer a post-code lottery education.

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...