Downing Street has just announced a “Ministerial Taskforce” on child poverty after days of open clamouring from backbenchers for the government to scrap the two-child benefit limit. Liz Kendall and Bridget Phillipson will lead it. There are “heavy hints” it will address the two-child cap and probably get rid of it…
Labour left-wingers planned to table an amendment to the King’s Speech which would remove the cap. Is backbench clamouring and a few tense media interviews with Cabinet members all it takes to ditch “fiscal responsibility”?
In Henry Mance’s piece today for the FT, lunching with Nigel Farage:
“Splendido!” Farage says, when the drinks arrive; I suppose it’s a step to European reconciliation. We clink glasses, and he lights the first of two back-to-back Benson & Hedges. A few minutes later, we’re back downstairs. “Are you drinking? Good.” He orders a glass of Sauvignon blanc for each of us — not a bottle, “because it’s Lent” — followed by a bottle of claret, to have with our meal. They say Farage drinks less than he used to. They say a lot of things.”