I'm not fooled by Purnell's new welfare conjuring trick

Sterner still is a rationalisation of benefits that will see claimants offered an "employment support allowance" if they're sick. The stage is thus set to eliminate the so-called "hidden unemployed", those sturdy beggars who've been claiming sickness benefit. In the longer term, the Government intends to force those who claim Jobseeker's Allowance to work for their dole. Sternest of all are Purnell's proposals that drug addicts won't receive benefits at all if they don't seek treatment.

Rousing stuff, isn't it? Until you realise that even once these plans are implemented, only about 5,000 of these long-term claimants will actually be required to graft. As for the junkies, the sad fact is that the treatment simply isn't available - without enormous spending - to make this an effective way of addressing their illness. Besides, while addicts may be a drain on the social security budget, their biggest social cost lies in the petty crime they commit to fuel their habits and the NHS resources they consume.

But beyond that, what a colossal irony it is that these measures - which would have been workable if the economy were still expanding - are in fact being rolled out on the brink of a serious recession. A senior economist on the Bank of England's interest-rate committee warned yesterday that we should brace ourselves for seven per cent unemployment in the next year, so all the rationalisation in the world will do little to mitigate the benefits bill.

More grotesque than ironic is the way that New Labour was so comfortable, for so long, to hide the true level of long-term unemployment by continuing to fund those on delusory "incapacity benefit". Now that it looks as these ministers won't be around for much longer, they gird themselves to come clean about the real social cost of their enthusiasm for a free market economy.

Don't get me wrong: I have no great liking for a dependency culture but any society that believes disparities in income are only justified insofar as they contribute to improving the lot of the least well-off must accept that a stern hand applied to the poor must be accompanied by an equivalent restraint applied to the rich. Blair was always "seriously comfortable" with the seriously rich: it's his legacy of a laissez- faire approach to taxing them that makes Purnell's proposals seem punitive rather than effective.