MAIL COMMENT: Carrots, sticks and the welfare trap

It is a great paradox of our age: the welfare state, founded to help the poor, has become the chief cause of poverty and social breakdown in modern Britain.

In whole communities, government handouts have crushed the incentive to work, condemning millions to idleness and dependency.

At the same time, they have undermined the family, the most effective welfare system known to man, by encouraging feckless parents to believe the state will shoulder their responsibilities.

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell has showed he understands at least half the problem.

In his Green Paper on welfare reform, he accepts that two million incapacity benefit claimants are capable of work and should be encouraged to find it.

He also insists the long-term unemployed must do 'useful work' in return for state support, while drug addicts will be banned from receiving handouts unless they accept treatment.

So far, so good. But is this really, as Mr Purnell maintains (and the BBC seems credulously to accept) 'the biggest shakeup of the modern welfare state since the Beveridge Report of the 1940s'? Hardly.

Mr Purnell claims he is modelling his proposals on the hugely successful U.S. 'workfare' schemes. But there's one enormous difference.

In America, those who fail to pull their weight face near destitution. Here, the whole panoply of state benefits  -  including child and council tax benefits  -  will remain available, come what may.

As for that 'useful work' for the unemployed, this will be only four weeks of light duties after a year on the dole.

Wouldn't Mr Purnell have a much better chance of success if he offered less carrot and more stick?

As Labour rebel Frank Field points out, this Government has already spent £60billion of our money on trying to coax people back to work  -  with deeply disappointing results, even during the boom years. As the economy slows, how much difference will these changes make (apart from yet more bureaucracy?)

Worst of all, Mr Purnell's plans would mean an average of £40 extra per month for single parents.

Our benefits culture has betrayed too many children already, without further subsidising the breakdown of the welfare system that works best  -  the family.

Brown's courage

It takes guts for a visiting Prime Minister to stand up in the Jerusalem parliament and deliver some blunt home truths to Israeli MPs about their failures in the Middle East peace process. Gordon Brown displayed that courage today.

With even-handed statesmanship, he established his credentials as a lifelong friend of Israel, earning a standing ovation when he vowed to lead international sanctions against Iran.

But he didn't shrink from demanding that Israel itself should do far more to promote peace by compromising with the Palestinians.

Here's a conundrum: on the world stage and at financial summits, Mr Brown is perceived as a formidable figure. So what goes wrong when he lands back on English soil?

Passing the buck

Dismayed, we're told, by the lack of voluntary action against binge-drinking, ministers are to ban pubs and clubs from offering happy hours and oversized wine glasses.

Isn't there a far more effective step they could take against this blight on our lives: ending the 24-hour licensing which, in a moment of lunatic social irresponsibility, they themselves introduced?