The Tory Party have long had an obsession with the notion that working class women are constantly having babies in order to gain some kind of financial advantage.

Under the last Tory Government this manifested in the accusation that teenage girls were becoming pregnant simply to gain access to a council flat.  With social housing in chronically short supply this argument barely holds water anymore.  Very young single parents are likely to be placed in mother and baby units or hostels – usually sharing a tiny room with their child in an environment closer to an open prison than a home.  Those who are older with children tend to be offered private sector accommodation whilst awaiting a council property which may take years to materialise, if it ever does.

So now the Tories have turned their attention to the pittance paid out in benefits to those with kids, even stooping…

The so-called ‘public debate’ over whether Michael Philpott (or if you prefer, Iain Duncan Smith) typifies the sort of people who live on social security in modern Britain has effectively masked something more sinister that was put in motion this week.

The government wants the Low Pay Commission to consider the impact on “employment and the economy” of the minimum wage.

The implication is clear: The Conservatives want to get rid of the statutory lowest level of wages, in order to further depress remuneration for the poorest workers in the UK. Whether or not that is the fact, it’s what people will infer.

The timing is a classic tragedy of modern Conservatism. Having just made a bold (and entirely false) claim that its benefit cuts are “making work pay”, the Tory-led Coalition appears dead-set on making sure that it won’t.

I had an argument, on this very subject, over…