Caitlin Moran in today's Times magazine (£):
What's it like, being on benefits? Being on disability benefits - "I've had a hard day's limping, to put that tea on the table!" my dad would say, as we sat down to eat something based around a lot of potatoes and ketchup. Well, mainly, you're scared. You're scared that the benefits will be frozen, or cut, or done away with completely. I don't remember an age where I wasn't scared our benefits would be taken away. It was an anxiety that felt like a physical presence in my chest - a small, black, eyeless insect that hung off my ribs. Every Tory budget that announced a freezing of benefits - new means-testing, new grading - made the insect drill its face into the bone. They froze benefits for four years in a row, as I recall: "freezing" being the news's way of telling you that you - already poor - will be at the checkout, apologising as you take jam and squash out of your bag, put them back on the shelves and ask them to add it up again. Every week you fear that this is the week the pennies won't stretch any further and something will disappear: gas, food. Your home.
It's a shame more people can't get through the Times's paywall to read it all. Moran also says: 'the invention of the welfare state is one of the most glorious events in history'.
