It simply can’t go on like this. It is ridiculous for a government one year into its time in office with a majority of 156 to be experiencing this kind of internal collapse. They’re behaving like a minority government at the tail end of its existence.

Yesterday’s spectacle in parliament saw the minister gut his own bill on the floor of the Commons in order to quell a rebellion. The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill was stripped of any changes to personal independence payments, making it semantically empty as well as legislatively absurd.

There will now be a lot of blame thrown around – at the secretary of state, the whipping operation, Downing Street and the rebels themselves. But the basic failure in what happened last night is that this policy made no sense. It had no logic, even on the most superficial assessment.

The origin of the bill lies in the fiscal rules. Chancellor Rachel Reeves established a rule that the Government’s day-to-day spending should be matched by its income. It’s a sensible rule, but the manner in which it was pursued became irrational, with only one tax-and-spend Budget a year but two Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) assessments about whether the rule was being satisfied.

Last spring the OBR found a shortfall, prompting Reeves to scramble around for savings. Benefits were the obvious target. They are usually unpopular with the public and they are easily sliced away. Cutting £5bn from the........

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