Bill Carmichael: Hysteria over benefit plan

London Major Boris Johnson added petrol to the flames, saying the limit on claims was akin to a "Kosovo-style ethnic cleansing", although he later claimed his remarks had been taken out of context.

Even more unhinged was the left-wing columnist Polly Toynbee who initially likened the plans to the Nazi Holocaust, saying they were the coalition Government's "final solution for the poor".

Time perhaps to take a deep breath and see if we can bring a little bit of calm perspective to the debate.

In the last decade, the housing benefits bill has rocketed by 50 per cent and now stands at 21bn per year – more than we spend on the police and higher education combined.

The effect of pumping so much money into the private rented sector has been to artificially inflate rents because landlords know that the taxpayer will always pick up the tab.

It has also nurtured a culture of entitlement among claimants, some of whom believe they have the right to live in luxurious properties courtesy of the taxpayer, which they could never afford if they were in work.

Take, for example, the case of Abdi Nur, an unemployed Somalian bus conductor, who decided his 900 a week taxpayer-funded home in Kensal Rise, north London, was not good enough for his family because it was in "a very poor area".

So he found a 2.1m townhouse in trendy Kensington that was more to his liking, and handed the 2,000-a-week rent bill to his local council.

Some families are receiving in excess of 100,000 a year in housing benefit alone.

There is a basic issue of fairness here. Housing Minister Grant Shapps explained: "If you choose not to work, it can't be right that you are better off than people who are working." Quite right, too.

I know few working people who spend more than 21,000 a year – or more than 400 a week – on housing, even in the South-East.

Most of my friends and former colleagues who work in London do not live in Chelsea or Kensington, but in less fashionable areas south of the river or east of the city, sometimes a long commute from work, where family homes are more reasonably priced.

Left-wing commentators are outraged that benefit claimants will be subject to exactly the same pressures.

Yes, indeed, and may I offer them a very warm welcome to the real world.

Lack of backbone

David Cameron says the thought of giving convicted prisoners the right to vote makes him "physically ill".

But he wrings his hands and says that painful though it is, there's nothing he can do about it.

Really? I was under the clearly mistaken impression he was our Prime Minister, and not a spineless jellyfish.

With just a bit of backbone he could repeal the hated Human Rights Act, as he promised to do during the last election, and derogate from the European Court of Human Rights.

Powers that have been ceded to unaccountable, unelected foreign judges could then be repatriated to where they belong – to a parliament answerable to the will of the people.

And if Cameron hasn't the guts to lead, perhaps he should stand aside for someone who has.