feeling slightly bored this afternoon, I decided to check out some Matthew Parris columns I haven't read. Now Matthews is a Tory, a genuine compassionate conservative if somewhat infected by Thatcherite values. Yet he is easily the most entertaining writer on the foibles of the British political scene, he's like a pair of comfortable slippers you wear by the fire, but just occasionally one of the pins that hold him together come loose and jab you in the foot.

This was one such column

You may think this psycho-philosophical twaddle but it has direct consequences for policy. If individual, family and social conscience are to play a big part in public welfare, a measure of visible distress is required to refresh social concern. If we are to be spurred to provide for ourselves, our families and our communities, we have to believe that nobody else will. Those who govern must be unsqueamish enough to tolerate this; and honest enough to explain.

Here, this eminently civilised and urbane man, cold bloodedly advocates that the welfare system should be shut down to allow private charity to rise up and replace it. Never has the pitilessness of the right been so starkly exposed that even he thinks it a sensible way forward.

If I felt it would touch him , I'd have sent him Jerome's essay on charity. But it would be a futile gesture

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