Work in progress | 21 January 2012

It is often claimed that the Lords, unencumbered by the rivalries and ambitions of the Commons, have a greater affinity with ordinary people than MPs. Certainly, this is the spin which opponents of the Welfare Reform Bill would like to put on its rocky passage through the upper house, where the government narrowly avoided a fourth defeat this week. But there is an alternative interpretation: that their lordships are suffering from a form of noblesse oblige which prevents them from seeing that the welfare system has become a racket, incubating the poverty it was set up to eradicate.

This week’s near-defeat, on the subject of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) — which is paid to 3.2 million disabled people to help them cope with everyday living costs — needs to be seen in the context of the soaring bill for that benefit. Over the last ten years it has doubled.