In this time of mourning for Bob Crow and Tony Benn, perhaps the Labour front bench would stop and think for a moment.

A fundamental principle of socialism is from each according to their means, to each according to their needs. While a welfare state is not socialism in itself, it is a declaration by society that no-one should be destitute, no-one should be homeless and no-one should be hungry.

These weren't easy principles for socialist pioneers to espouse and it was not easy legislation for the post-1945 Labour government to introduce on the back of the Beveridge Report on the idea of real social security.

Ever since the rise of the Tory right in the 1970s we've had a steady drip feed telling us that the state is not an entity to care for the entire community, but a giant corporation that must manage its budget as giant corporations do.

That anything is expendable, whatever the social consequences.

When the Thatcher-Major years were finally ended in 1997, new Labour did increase some areas of public expenditure but nevertheless worked on the same principles as the Tories and adopted the same punitive approach towards social security and welfare enshrined in the 1986 Social Security Act.

George Osborne's first action after 2010 was to rush through his "spending review" - the central feature of which was to "cut welfare spending" as rapidly as possible.

The results are obvious - lower wages, reduced in-work benefits, the bedroom tax and a draconian approach towards people with disabilities by forcing them to try for jobs that they clearly cannot do.

And there are huge housing benefit cuts, socially cleansing central London and many other cities, and a rise in destitution, rough sleeping and children going hungry.

It's no accident that we now have more food banks than ever before.

Last week's Budget was a Tory appeal to greed and selfishness straight out of the Thatcher years handbook, ably supported by media commentators and the likes of the Sunday Express, whose infamous headline War On The Scroungers adequately explains its own approach to the idea of social security.

Andrew Fisher in Left Futures put it better than anyone else in explaining why Labour should oppose the welfare cap.

He says that it means that need is subject to an arbitrary cap and feeds the Tory myth that spending is out of control, does nothing to challenge the reasons for high welfare spending and feeds the demonisation of people on benefits.

Thus it does nothing to help those in real need.

It seems odd that one should even have to argue that Labour should oppose this unless one fits it into a wider political and economic debate.

After every Tory budget since 2010 there has been a slight bounce in opinion poll ratings for the coalition, as their friendly media commentators always manage to contrive the view that the budget is somehow "responsible" and "getting control" of the dragon of welfare spending.

After a short time the whole story begins to unravel, as more people lose relatively secure public sector jobs in favour of zero-hours contracts in the private sector and levels of destitution rise. More and more schools are forced to open breakfast clubs and communities have to contribute to foodbanks.

Perhaps the problem is that Labour is not doing enough to challenge the central economic direction of the government, whose effect is to create greater inequality and poverty in our society and force all public services into the hands of the private sector.

Labour should be explaining that an arbitrary cap will mean that at some point benefits will simply not be available to people who have both a moral and legal right to them.

It also assumes that British spending on social security is higher than elsewhere, which is not so. At least 10 OECD countries spend more per head on social security and have less poverty and a faster economic growth rate as a result.

Yet there is an area of benefits that should be challenged and that is the propensity of in-work benefits to subsidise low wages.

We ought to be promoting the living wage as the minimum wage, strongly control private rents and build more council houses.

This in itself will help to end the housing bubble which is causing such misery to so many people whose needs are not of sufficient priority to qualify them for housing but who are unable to buy or rent in the private sector.

The other obvious reason is that we should be able to say we want to live in a decent society which ensures that there is no destitution or poverty, where we pay taxes to get education, health and social security among many other public services.

The eulogising of Tony Benn and Bob Crow by so much of the media and the way a diverse range of people have been inspired by such messages show just what power there is in a campaign of social solidarity to bring about equality and justice in our society.

If we pander to the nasty divisive message of the racists who support Ukip and the social divisions fostered by papers such as the Express and the Mail, then we're selling short those who have contributed so much to try and achieve social justice in our world.

Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North