I grew up in poverty - but lifting the 2 child benefit cap for all families is not fair on taxpayers

AS KING Canute found over a thousand years ago, it is quite difficult to stand on a beach and order the tide to recede.

Today, it is equally difficult to make the argument that giving families cash is not always the best way of lifting them out of poverty.

This is especially true when one particular measure becomes the symbol of whether or not you’re on the right side of the debate about child poverty.

But as someone who now can afford the comforts of life, I constantly remind myself of my childhood.

The grinding poverty that I experienced when my father was killed

in a work accident when I was 12 – leaving my mother, who had serious health problems, to fight a long battle for minimal compensation.

Having only bread and dripping in the house was, by anyone’s standards, a hallmark of