The man who would be Gordon’s guru

On Gordon Brown’s bookshelf stands a new title likely to stand out from the others: In Our Hands: a Plan to Replace the Welfare State. It is a detailed proposal to abolish all benefit payments, from pensions to child support, and instead make a cash payment to every adult in the country. Its author is Charles Murray, the controversial American academic who firmly believes that the Chancellor’s welfare policies are destroying the social fabric of Britain with calamitous results.

Infuriatingly for his army of critics, Murray has become too influential to be ignored. His first book, arguing that benefits were breeding rather than alleviating poverty, set the intellectual framework for America’s acclaimed welfare reform. He has met the Chancellor and was impressed by his intellect. Sitting in a barren office at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, feet on the table and gazing out of the window as he talks, Murray wonders why someone as clever as Brown cannot see the damage wreaked on the poor by his own policies.