British state plans to force unemployed people to look for work online and monitor them while they do so have been widely condemned. Privacy will be invaded, crime boosted and poor and disabled people victimised.

Ruth Lister, who is a peer, emeritus professor of social policy at Loughborough University and chair of the Compass management committee, has written a fine, short piece for the Guardian on benefits and uprating.

The poorest will have to shoulder the biggest burden as a result of today’s Spending Review by George Osborne.

It has long been apparent that demeaning and demonising benefit recipients to provide a rationale for deep welfare cuts is part of the government's strategy. Given the distribution curve of human behaviours, it is inevitable that some who receive benefits will be feckless, lazy and scrounging, just as these defects will also be found in the more prosperous strata of society. Now, Lord Freud – the Welfare Reform Minister – has found a new slur to cast on poor people.