NEXT Monday is All Fools’ Day – which is appropriate, because the week has all the ingredients to make a monkey out of David Cameron.

The dawn of April will usher in a cocktail of controversial tax and benefit changes that may haunt the Prime Minister all the way to polling day.

Oh, and just for good measure, April will also trigger the health service overhaul that has already so badly damaged Conservative claims to be the party of the NHS.

The welfare cuts – to council tax benefit, the so-called “bedroom tax” and below-inflation benefit rises – are important enough, by themselves.

Up to 100,000 of this region’s poorest people will receive their first council tax demand when 100 per cent discounts are scrapped.

They will be told to pay more than £300 a year in some cases, sparking warnings that the poor will be pushed beyond breaking point and of clashes over non-payment.

The former Tory Cabinet minister who designed the Poll Tax warned of “Poll Tax Mark 2” – before that kiss-of-death description was applied to an even harsher cut.

The term is now usually used to sum up the devastating impact of the “bedroom tax”, penalising social housing tenants deemed to have spare rooms.

Hundreds of thousands of families will see their housing benefit slashed by 14 per cent for one extra bedroom – and 25 per cent where there are two spare.

There is a critical shortage of one-bedroomed properties, which suggests many will have no choice but to stay put and somehow cope with benefit cuts that could top £1,000 a year. Even if they can move, they face huge disruption and waits of many, many months before it is arranged – during which time poverty will beckon.

The countless heartbreaking stories that will result will hurt the coalition, but they are not the worst part for Mr Cameron and his prospects.

The deepest damage will flow from the coincidence – the breathtakingly incompetent coincidence – with what Labour gleefully calls “tax cuts for millionaires”.

Yes, somehow the brightest Tory (and Liberal Democrat) brains of their generation have conspired to whack the poor at the same time as they lavish rewards on the rich.

The new tax year will see the 50p tax rate introduced in Labour’s dying days cut to 45p – handing £40,000 to those lucky enough to earn a million pounds a year.

Now, arguments will rage on about the wisdom of the 50p rate. Did it raise much revenue?

Did it drive away entrepreneurs and discourage investment?

Let’s leave that to the pointy-heads. The political impact of all these changes is crystal clear – it is a disaster for the Prime Minister, a millionaire himself, by the way.

At Westminster, Labour insiders line up to confess their worries that their party has no economic strategy and the public is beginning to notice.

But, any squirming shadow minister, asked what he or she would do, can relax and reply: “Well, I wouldn’t be cutting income for millionaires, I can tell you!”

Across the country, poorer people will be losing sleep as they wonder how they will survive the latest chunks being carved out of the welfare state, from next week.

It may be no consolation, but Mr Cameron is probably lying awake at night as well – wondering why he handed his opponents such a gift?