THE bedroom tax, or, as Mr Cameron would have it, benefit adjustment, or some such euphemism, is a prime example of Tory proposals that are ill-conceived, badly considered and poorly defended.

For example, what right has a government to order families to accommodate two same-sex children in one room rather than have a bedroom each?

Most second bedrooms, I would suggest, were designed and built as one person rooms. It is obvious that the proposers have no experience of trying to squeeze two children of any sex or age into one small room.

Most people will have moved home at least once in their lifetime and will know the hassle and aggravation experienced during the process.

But, although the move from one house to the next is bad enough, especially when downsizing, there is much more to be considered. Namely, the expense.

The cost of having your belongings packed up, transported to the new location is only the beginning.

New carpets, for instance, new curtains and, unless they are extremely fortunate, decoration will be necessary.

Who is to finance this expense? Does the government expect the tenants borrow a hand cart?

Does Mr Cameron expect the tenants to walk on bare floorboards? Does Ian Duncan Smith (whose bright idea this is) expect the tenants to live without curtains or, at best, with ill-fitting curtains? Have theses problems even occurred to the politicians? Maybe they think that everybody else is given thousands of pounds in re-location grants, as MPs are.

The first prize for the most desperate response to criticism of the bedroom tax goes to the Tory politician who appeared on BBC2’s Daily Politics show on Monday lunchtime.

To try to justify this abhorrent idea, he suggested that anyone with a spare bedroom who didn’t want to move house should take in a lodger to fill the spare room!

Are these people real?

Mr G Firth Tonge Moor