Think of it as snakes and ladders crossed with arithmetic.

Navigating the benefits system is not for the faint hearted. Neither does it ever qualify as generous.

The current cost of living crisis has meant a whole lot of people who might have thought themselves reasonably comfortably off are feeling the chill winds of financial uncertainty.

People who lose their jobs as companies “rationalise”, suddenly find that whatever combination of new Jobseekers’ Allowance and Universal Credit they’re entitled to hasn’t a hope in hell of matching their normal outgoings.

Never mind having to pay for a raised mortgage (thanks Liz Truss) or coping with sky-high energy bills. Keeping an actual roof over your head becomes a challenge, most especially when 'affordable' rented accommodation is straying into hen’s teeth territory.

There was hollow laughter all round when the UK Chancellor solemnly declared that there would be stricter sanctions deployed for those on what was once called social security.

Not much security around these days. Not when you can lose benefits for your bus/train dropping you late for your appointment, or having to miss one altogether because of a sick child.

The people who imagine that those in receipt of this mean-spirited support are living the life of Riley can only do so because they literally have no idea how the other three-quarters-plus live.

Last week Citizens Advice reported a humungous rise in the number of clients with family poverty and debt. Food banks up and down the land are getting visits from people who never expected to have to use them in their wildest nightmares.

When another lot of public servants took industrial action this week and protested outside the Glasgow passport office, their union rep said that many of them had to resort to food banks to put nourishment on the family table.

We hear the same tale from those fighting for decent pay and conditions for NHS staff – you know, the ones we banged tins for when it looked like we might get sick.

The people sitting round the prime minister’s cabinet table are very rich and very privileged. They can splurge a week’s benefit allowance on a rather nice lunch without thinking about it.

Some of them come from families who arrived here as migrants, not because they were fleeing war or famine, but because they wanted a better life. Just like some of the migrants who now arrive here in small boats and are about to be decanted into barges, or empty barracks, or to Rwanda!

I think they call it selective amnesia. Or maybe pulling up the ladder behind you. Either way it’s mean. It’s nasty. It’s not who we were - or ever should be.