So UK ministers want to fob off disabled people with vouchers? It’s like government by Groupon

‘Behind every toxic policy are real human beings who are already suffering in poverty and pain.’ Photograph: Benjamin John/Alamy

There is a scene in The Simpsons in which the villainous Mr Burns enlists a team of monkeys to reproduce a Charles Dickens novel on the cheap. Hunched over a row of typewriters, the simians cannot get the job done without a range of bumbling typos.

I thought of this as I watched Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, on Monday set out so-called cost-saving changes to the flagship disability benefit, personal independence payment (Pip), in what he described as “probably the most fundamental reforms in a generation”.