Leningrad - it's as Minthumbug says: If employers pay above the minimum wage (in some cases) they are forced to pass on the costs of that to the pricing of the goods they produce, which, in some cases, prices them beyond what the market will stand. So Tax Credits is a business subsidy.
(Can't believe I'm arguing this, as a leftie!)
Now, my take on Labour is that they felt they inherited a situation in which Britain was effectively positioned as a global, not national market, and a lot of their economic stuff was determined by this interpretation. The rights and wrongs of this are a bit beyond my skills. And it's possibly too early to give a judgment on that.
So I also see tax credits as a sneaky national subsidy, subsidising goods for a global market ... .
So, wrt increase gap between rich and poor, decreased social mobility, I see that as a global phenomenon, partly brought about by a super-rich class. And studies have shown Britain has not done badly relative to other first world countries. It looks as though Labour had to do a lot of work just to slow that disparity down. Persoanlly, I'd have liked them to do more, but when you consider our major industry now appears to be the finance sector ... they're a bit hamstrung. And goodness knows what it'll be like under a non-progressive government.
MintHumbug - I guess I just disagree re. benefit dependency =Labour dependency. Agree it's all going to look a bit ... peanuts in the next few stormy years. But I know I'd rather have a progressive government, committed to making things as painless as possible for the most vulnerable, rather than a government that doesn't have that basic commitment at its heart.
And I think that a lot of what Labour proposes makes sense as regards positioning Britain globally. They won't do anything insane to the financial market (however much as a leftie I cringe at that), they will support the national market. But as you say, that is pig in a poke time.