The more I read about this welfare cap, the crosser I get.
Not because it will take money away from anyone - far from it, frankly; more because it will still give people who don't work over three times the minimum wage. £26,000 in benefits is over £35,000 a year once tax and National Insurance is included - and is, according to the IFS, more than 94% of people in the UK earn.
I do think we as a society have an obligation to help those who can't help themselves. But I do not see why people should have to pay for those who won't help themselves to live in nicer houses, have holidays and other things that those who work can't afford, and - crucially - not have the worry that most working people do about the security of their jobs, and what they can give their children.
The changes proposed by the government will not affect the disabled, war widows/widowers or households with a worker. I don't think that is unreasonable and in fact I question whether they go far enough.
As, incidentally, do most people. A YouGov poll this weekend shows that 36% of people think that the cap should be under £20,000 a year.
If we're agreed that the aim of this cap should be to make work more attractive than not working, has it really been thought through in full? Is there a better way to ensure that those who work and do the right thing gain, and those who won't... don't?
As Mary-Ann Sieghart wrote in the Independent this morning, it's that fabled squeezed middle who feel most strongly about this. It is they whose wages have fallen 4%, and who face rising inflation. In one of his many attempts to be coherent last year, Ed Miliband said that Labour couldn't be seen as the "party of those ripping off society any more". Given that he has decided that his Lords will vote against the government tonight, this is unlikely. But the thing that might really cut through is something that I don't think the Coalition has the guts to do...
He should propose a cap at the level of the minimum wage. Which would be raised to make sure it is actually liveable on, as I have argued previously (building on Ed Miliband's own very Conservative idea of tax breaks for companies that pay living wages) and paid for by reducing the level of tax that companies pay - because it is pointless simply recycling money.
I don't have all the answers, and I don't know if any of the above is practical. But the aim must - surely - be to radically reduce complexity, increase the disposable income and incentives for people in work, and properly encourage people into work.