I'm so glad my fellow progressives in Labour have embraced George Osborne's welfare cuts – what would we do without child poverty?

The poor, young and disabled are about to find out what Tory progress looks like

"And in the boldly progressive move of removing child tax credits to third and subsequent children, the Chancellor has shown conclusively that children are NOT the future" (Eddie Mulholland/REX)

George Osborne called for progressives from all parties to support the £12bn cuts he wants to make to the welfare system yesterday. His call was answered last night when the Welfare Reform bill was passed by 308 votes to 124.

As someone who considers myself a progressive, I would like to call on like-minded individuals to join me in congratulating the Chancellor on getting this bill through parliament, while progressing his own career at the same time.

I’m sure many Labour progressives will join me. With three quarters of Labour MPs either voting in favour of the bill or abstaining, they proved just how progressive their party is. So I’m sure they will join me in commending these cuts, which will see 13m families across the country lose an average £260 a year. Surely this will force many low-income working families to consider just how regressive their lifestyle choices have been, and help them use their own initiative rather than leaning on handouts. And with tax cuts and welfare reforms having the most severe effect on the lowest-paid half of the population, this will surely give the hurry-up to those whose lifestyle choices of joblessness, sickness and disability have slowed down their own progression.

Indeed with changes to the Employment Support Allowance many people with degenerative illnesses, mental health issues and cancer will be forced to transcend their own limitations – and those of the doctors who passed them unfit to work – and get back out there and progressively find jobs. Similarly, with the end to cheaper rents for social housing, the Chancellor is cleverly forcing many families to transcend their situation and progress out of their council houses. Where they will go, I’m not sure. But at least they're progressing somewhere.

Perhaps one of the cleverest progressive measure that Osborne managed to sneak through was the one allowing him to make further changes to the benefits cap without even consulting parliament – a move which will surely see him accelerate the pace of this progression in the future.

And in the boldly progressive move of removing child tax credits to third and subsequent children, the Chancellor has shown conclusively that children are NOT the future. With their non-progressive lifestyle choices of worklessness and living off others, they have proved themselves a drain on a society seeking to progress into full employment. Perhaps by pushing more of them into poverty we can show them just how regressive they are being.

Indeed, it is with child poverty that Osborne has displayed his most progressive thinking. In seeking to redefine the current measures of child poverty, he has shown the courage to tackle the problem at its most fundamental level – language. To those who say this is the equivalent of closing your eyes and pretending child poverty isn’t there, I would say this – remember when you were a child and you thought there was a ghost in the room? Didn’t burying your head under the duvet make it go away? Exactly. Tackling a problem on this kind of existential level is the most progressive thinking of all.

So I’m sure fellow progressives everywhere will join me in offering our congratulations to George Osborne. Thanks to him we are becoming a country that is progressively stacking up the chips for the rich and progressively leaving the poor behind. And after all, isn’t that the very definition of progress?