As I write, a high wind is buffeting our ancient city of York. Certainly winds of change are blowing hard and fast in austerity Britain. So much change, in fact, it is hard to make sense of it all. Like the wind, it often feels our society is whirling into uncharted territory.

Take, for example, the post-war assumption that nobody should be allowed to go under due to poverty, ill health, or just plain bad luck. Over the last ten years the welfare state has been gradually whittled away until evidence is all around us that the safety net generations since 1945 have trusted in is being torn apart.

Let us be clear, this is a deliberate act by the government. They know exactly what they are doing and who it will affect.

A case in point is Universal Credit and the planned roll out of the new combined benefits system next year. Many are fortunate enough to never need to rely on benefits to survive or keep their family housed and fed. Many millions are not so lucky.

It comes to something when former Prime Minister, Sir John Major, is slating his own party’s plans. Last week he warned that Universal Credit could prove to be the new Poll Tax, saying: ‘if people think you have to remove yourself from fairness, then you are in deep political trouble.’

Of course, he was referring to the Conservative government being ‘in trouble’. Of far greater concern is that, according to research by the Resolution Foundation think-tank, about 3.2 million households will be worse off by an average of about £50 a week when Universal Credit is fully implemented.

Although Prime Minister Theresa May has promised financial help for those affected, no compensation system is actually in place. As the saying goes, fine words ‘butter no parsnips’. Nor will they pay for food, rent or heating bills. Worse still, the Resolution Foundation point out that the government’s proposed compensation scheme will only help less than 20 per cent of affected families.

For people whose circumstances change, or who make a brand new claim, or who come off benefits and then go back on them, there will be no safety net.

For many years the government and their supporters in the media have waged a relentless propaganda campaign to present people who rely on benefits as feckless scroungers.

They have also tried to pretend that vast numbers of immigrants only come here for ‘benefit holidays’ – a particularly divisive and nasty fiction not backed up by statistics. Personally, I suspect they hope appealing to the less caring side of human nature will not affect their core vote. In addition, such a strategy provides yet another group of ‘others’ they can blame for their inept handling of the British economy, irrational austerity policies, and the shocking inequality that has resulted.

But we should be in no doubt of the kind of folk affected by the Universal Credit fiasco. It is our neighbours, friends, people met at the school gates, and potentially ourselves. Millions of those affected are in low paid employment, sometimes with two jobs.

These are not the ‘scroungers’ we are all supposed to dismiss as unworthy. These are people the harsh gales of austerity have left a single pay check or benefit payment away from destitution and a trip to the food bank.

More than a third of people affected by the rollout claim employment and support allowance, meaning they are too ill or disabled to seek work.

And that is after inhumanly stringent DWP tests. Disability charities are urging the government to put their plans on hold, deeply worried that the requirement to make a new Universal Credit claim puts vulnerable people with a learning disability, low literacy levels or poor IT skills at risk.

As the winds of change rattle our society we must not allow our fellow citizens to be blown into a human rights catastrophe. Labour and many concerned organisations like Citizens Advice and the Child Poverty Action Group are urging a halt to the government’s current plans.

For once the government must stop putting the interests of the very wealthy first.

They must listen.