It’s the good this government does that can make you hold your head in your hands and sigh. Ask people what they think of Labour policy on benefits and they will probably talk of seizing the winter fuel allowance from freezing pensioners. Or that £5bn snatched from disabled people, until Labour’s own MPs prevented it. These were the signifiers that set the wrong tone early on. Late, far too late, abolishing the two-child limit has not made the same impression on public perceptions, despite the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) this week reporting it as being behind what could be the greatest ever fall in child poverty in a parliament.

The government fails to herald its progress in reversing the worst the Tories did to benefits. Why? I’m not sure if it is ineptitude or a political decision not to trumpet its many progressive policies.

At the Fabian thinktank conference last week, I had an “in conversation” session with Stephen Timms, the minister who probably knows more and cares more about social security than any other MP. As financial secretary to the Treasury, he took the Child Poverty Act through parliament in 2010. In opposition, he chaired the work and pensions committee scrutinising the Tory years. Now as minister for social security and disability, he chairs two crucial reviews, one on personal independence payments (Pip) for disability and one on universal credit.

The basic benefit for adults has never risen in real terms since the........

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