David Cameron plans to lead Labour rebels into inserting an amendment into the government’s welfare reform plans, basically removing all threat of sanction from lone mothers of children of pre-school age. This, I think, is the upshot of his press conference today. “The state prodding, pushing, cajoling mothers of children so young is simply wrong,” he said. “We need to help families, and that especially is true for single parents. It won’t do any good for our economy, or our society.” He said he suspected James Purnell was engaged in “some macho positioning exercise” which he said was “pretty sick”.
CoffeeHousers will be unsurprised to hear that I disagree with Cameron on this. I’m all up for welfare reform, the more radical the better – and placing demands on lone mothers of pre-school children is hardly a King Herod approach to newborns.
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