Danny Alexander’s revelation should be a wake-up call for everyone | Polly Toynbee

Such is the UK's skewed perspective of welfare, millions are unaware that 12bn of Tory cuts would hit them, not just 'scroungers'

Is there a secret plan to cut tax credits, child benefit and disability pay for middle- to low-earners? Absolutely not, says David Cameron, hot denials flying through the air today. And indeed there isn't, there really, really isn't. George Osborne has deliberately refused to write one, so it doesn't exist. So 12bn will be cut from the welfare bill, but there is no plan in any drawer.

Danny Alexander has helpfully "lifted the lid" on Iain Duncan Smith's plan, which was presented to senior ministers back in 2012, showing what 8bn cuts would look like. Even cutting a third less than the 12bn in cuts now planned, a working family with three children would have lost 3,500. To cut 12bn from working-age benefits is to inflict huge amounts of pain on very large numbers of people, says Jonathan Portes of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, once chief economist at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The Tories reckon people don't much care - but they'd care if they knew these 'welfare' cuts would hit them

Related: Poverty - and child poverty in particular - is rising