This Budget has made one huge mistake – perhaps not in financial terms, for the wealthiest can easily afford this cut, and definitely not politically for a country that is undergoing such a severe recession will welcome the rich losing a bit of money, but certainly morally.

All children born in this country are future citizens, and should thus be treated in the same way, irrespective of the wealth of their parents they are born into.

Child Benefit signalled – if only symbolically – that this country had a stake in every child born, a principle which is no longer there.

(Child Benefit will be reduced incrementally when someone in a household earns more £50, 000 – and at £60, 000 it will be removed completely, source The Financial Times, 22-3-12)