Every once in a while, politicians take the time to remind us of the duties of the poor. The latest to take the pulpit is the Tory peer Lord Freud, a former city banker who has since advised both New Labour and the Tories on "welfare reform".
This time, the poor are told they must take more risks, abandoning the "lifestyle" of welfare for the adventure of enterprise.
Before assessing this claim, it is worth asking who it is that is taking risks with the livelihoods of the poor. Freud began his work on welfare reform knowing, by his own admission, nothing about welfare. In fact, it seems fairly safe to say that he continued in this vein, as he continued to make utterly ignorant claims about the system in order to justify government cuts.
Foolish they may be; Freud's views have not been inconsequential. As an adviser to the New Labour government, Freud played a critical role in arguing for single mothers to be forced into work, and in persuading the government to turn over aspects of welfare provision to the private sector.
This advice helped open doors for Atos, the private sector bureaucracy which has been hired to tur people off disability benefits.
It also provided a rationale for handing money to A4e, which has been the subject of repeated fraud allegations.
The poor, in effect, are now bearing the costs of systemic risk without having enjoyed any of the rewards. And it is no more than predictable that one of those who did reap the rewards in abundance is now charged with ensuring that the costs of crisis are borne by those who were least to blame and last to benefit.
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