We are naive and moralistic women. We are human beings who find politics a blight upon the human condition. And do not know how one copes with it except through politics.

For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.

Children themselves know they are being cheated. Ultimately we owe it to our children. They are in school for 190 days a year. Every moment they spend learning is precious. If a year goes by and they are not being stretched and excited that blights their life.

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire it is hardly a passion but a blight bred in the cloudy damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

For families across the UK who are income-poor but more than that whose lives are blighted by worklessness educational failure family breakdown problem debt and poor health as well as other problems giving them an extra pound - say through increased benefits - will not address the reason they find themselves in difficulty in the first place.