Will the government ever get around to reforming the welfare system? I ask because Andy Burnham seems to have bottled out. It seems that there will be no proposals in October’s Budget, and nothing before next year. The official excuse is that the government needs time to consider Alan Milburn’s review into youth worklessness and Sir Stephen Timms’s report into Personal Independence Payments (PIP) before it can deliver a considered response. Both have, though, already produced pretty detailed interim reports. Milburn’s final report was to have been published before the Budget but has now been delayed until after it.    

It is not hard to see why Burnham should be so shy of anything to do with welfare, given that it was some very modest proposals to save £5 billion a year from the exploding PIP budget which marked the beginning of the end for Keir Starmer. A threatened backbench rebellion led the former PM to water down his reforms nearly to the point of meaninglessness in........

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