The coalition pins a number on its welfare reforms

The coalition has few better defenders of its cause than Nick Clegg. And if you need proof, then I’d point you in the direction of his article for the FT when the IFS first called the Budget “regressive”; his article on welfare reform for the Times in September; or his summertime speech on social mobility, which, along with his 2009 conference speech, is perhaps the defining statement of his politics.

I mention all this now, because there’s another effective Clegg article in the papers this morning – again on welfare reform, and again dripping with punchy arguments in the coalition’s defence. Rather than buckle to the charges made by the Archbishop of Canterbury and his ilk, the Deputy Prime Minister outlines out a clear truth: that a life trapped on benefits is not a better life. Or as he puts it when discussing Gordon Brown’s policy of directing tax credits towards the poor to make them a little less poor, “Poverty plus a pound is simply not an ambitious enough goal”.