GEORGE OSBORNE is not the first politician to exploit a human tragedy for electoral gain.

He won't be the last.

The Chancellor used the lifestyle of convicted child-killer Mick Philpott to justify the Tories' welfare reforms.

Philpott got life for the manslaughter of six of his children, killed in a house fire he himself set last May.

His plan was to blame his former lover. He wanted custody of her five kids - or more precisely, their £1000-a-month child benefit.

Philpott fathered 17 children by five different women and was living on benefits of up to £50,000-a-year. And he'll continue to live at HM's expense for the rest of his days.

Osborne, with the backing of PM David Cameron, doesn't believe the state should "subsidise lifestyles like that".

Low-lifes like the Philpotts are regulars on daytime TV; moronic, incoherent, happy to display their dysfunctional lives for the dodgy delectation of the nation.

The underclass – even some from Scottish sink estates – are now feted as celebrities.

It's disgusting.

There will be thousands of Philpotts out there, in as much as they're milking the system, but you can't use a violent misogynist scumbag to demonise everyone who gets benefit.

It's a smokescreen behind which Cameron's ministers and the right-wing English press continue their scaremongering.

The Tories' "skivers versus strivers" rhetoric is reviving memories of the late Baroness Thatcher's "nasty party" of the 80s, and has roused even the normally compliant LibDems to denounce their Cabinet bedfellows.

Yes, responsible couples are financially discouraged from having children while such as the Philpotts breed with impunity.

No, it's not right that the unemployed can get double the average household income of families in work.

But they're not the whole story, merely a Tory stick being used to beat society's poorest with a bedroom tax, the scrapping of Disability Living Allowance, the introduction of Universal Credit, and for the first time welfare benefits and tax credits that will not rise in line with inflation.

Oh, yes, and the 50p tax rate is scrapped for high earners.

Benefit fraud is said to cost the UK taxpayer £1.6 billion a year- but that's still a pittance compared with fat cat tax avoidance the Government refuses to tackle.

Successive governments since the 70s raised benefits as a carrot for votes and new, lifetime disability rules attracted more citizens too sick to work than any other nation in Europe.

Disability benefits had soared to £17bn last year, and when it was announced that all claimants would be re-assessed, almost 890,000 suddenly fit folk slunk off the register.

We need welfare reform, the majority of the UK population now demand it and back proposed caps on welfare and housing benefits.

But any changes must go hand-in-hand with creating jobs, cutting the cost of childcare, and supplying affordable, social housing.

That would be something to shout about, Mr Osborne.

WEIGHT to fuel ratio is the main cash equation in flying.

It's the reason one bikini bottom too many in my wife's miserly 20kg luggage allowance sees me either paying an extra £30 or unpacking at the Glasgow Airport check-in. Nancy weighs a little over six stone.

So how come the 20st passenger who will soon be invading someone's privacy waltzes through unchallenged with a 20kg bag?

Samoan Air say it costs more to post heavier objects, so why should people be different?

They're now charging fares by weight. Don't tell Ryanair.