This government makes no secret of its plan to deprive long-term claimants of their benefits, under the pretext of getting 80% of working-age adults into jobs. Never mind the fact that there aren't decent jobs to find in the first place! But what do Blair, Brown and their lot care, if long-term claimants are forced into casual jobs on starvation wages? Isn't their only concern to cut social budgets, in order to fund more tax rebates and other perks for big business and the wealthy?

This week, a new threat against long-term claimants was announced, in the form of yet another report on "welfare reform". This contains, among other things, a proposal for coercing single parents into work, under threat of losing their benefits, once their children reach the age of 12.

One might think that the author of this report, David Freud, was commissioned because of his expertise in single-parenting on a low income. But as an investment banker, this Mr Freud seems to think that single parents working long hours can always... hire a nanny to take care of their kids or else, send them to a boarding school for a £15-25,000 annual fee!

But in the real world of working people, who do not live off fat salaries and huge bonuses, this is not how things work. For the rest of us, nannies and boarding schools are not an option. In fact, very often there aren't even after-school clubs to take care of our kids when we work late!

Of course, the problem would be posed differently if wages were not so low and single parents could make a living on a part-time job. But this is a privilege that only a small layer of middle-class professionals can afford in this society.

Ultimately, what this government's plan would really mean is more children being left to their own devices in working class areas, while their parents scrape a miserly living. Yet, by a cynical irony, this is the same government which keeps accusing us, parents, of not taking care of our kids well enough!

If this plan is ever allowed to go ahead, it will pave the way for a future which may well involve far more of these child gangs which have already claimed three teenage victims in South London. And this is why it must be stopped!