A Daily Telegraph leader on Saturday puts the case for tough welfare reform. Of course it is a case with which I agree and it is satisfying, well over 15 years since I conceived the idea of writing The Welfare State We're In to see one of the main contentions of the book supported in a major national newspaper. But, as I have said before, our best chance of a major advance will be when the Guardian and even presenters of the Today progamme or Newsnight take the same view.

The conclusion of the Telegraph leader:

Ten years ago, Labour identified a moral case for welfare reform, but, like so much with this Government, it was mere rhetoric.

Another attempt is to be made in the current parliament, but it offers no greater prospect of success than the last.

Unless a far tougher approach is adopted, another generation of children will be born into this cycle of state-sponsored hopelessness.

Sadly, Polly Toynbee in the Guardian appears unwilling to accept that things are getting worse or that welfare and housing benefits are the root cause. She wrote on Saturday:

But this is not a story of broken Britain going to hell in a hand cart; it is a picture of small but deep and persistent dysfunction passed from generation to generation. Social historians looking at Charles Booth's maps of poverty in Victorian Britain find the same areas still in deep poverty, often the descendants of those he studied. The seven Matthews children or Baby P's siblings have a slender chance of growing up to be good parents, as abuse, neglect and lack of love are passed on indelibly.

I would urge her to read the Duncan Smith article below which offers at least some evidence that this constant level of people in great difficulties that she suggests does not actually exist. The levels of dependency, worklessness and crime have all risen dramatically. Moreover the evidence from Charles Booth is not all as most people suppose as this earlier post reveals.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Housing • Parenting • Reform • Welfare benefits

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