Well Done Mr Cameron!

[Stavros]

I don't have a problem with entrepreneurs creating businesses, but in most cases these are small to medium enterprises that create at best 20-30 new jobs. The days when the industrial barons who took advantage of, and benefited from the industrial revolution and the British Empire are gone, taking mass employment in manufacturing industry with them. Those same barons ploughed a lot of their money back into their communities -look around Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield and Birmingham and you will see civic buildings, parks, and libraries financed out of the profits of 19th and early 20th century capitalism. The same class in the last 50 years has built next to nothing, may have given subsidies to the Royal Opera House or some other local arts festival or charity, but the concept of giving back something lasting to the community is as dead as civic pride.

The precise number of people claiming £500 a week on housing benefit is 100,000 but that also includes Disability Allowances -take away the latter and the figure is 50,000 (see this link:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/reque...%20v1.doc.html)

-While that is clearly a high figure, the real question for me is why rents are so high anyway, particularly in London where the absence of affordable housing is a scandal.

There is a lot about the benefits system that can be criticised, it has always been too lenient on skyvers who sprain their ankle and claim disability allowance, but there will always be people whose skills in negotiating the benefits system require an attention to detail many of the people operating it cannot match.

But the safety net is there for a reason, and the fundamental problem is not the dependence on welfare but the absence of low or non-skilled work for the masses; the days of shipbuilding, steel, coal and iron, vehicle manufacture, machine tools and cotton are gone forever. The welfare budget would be of minimal importance if most people were in work. And if you say cuts in immigration should be made to encourage 'the British' to step and fill those jobs, which at the moment they don't -for example, picking strawberries, working in care homes- what is the remedy? Press gangs on the Manchester estates?

The Guardian yesterday printed a list of the changes to the benefits system with costs added in, it is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...es?INTCMP=SRCH

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs and Jobs, that is the solution.

[broncofan]

You should be Prime Minister

It won't happen. That's the good thing about democracy.

The same debates for reform of entitlements take place in my country as well. When the hardhearted do not need such entitlements they point to the rare example of someone exploiting the system to deny those in genuine need. When they themselves are in need, they think reform of entitlements is based on the behavior of others and not themselves.

We have tort reform in this country and the idea is to put a cap on recoverable damages to prevent frivolous lawsuits. But what happens when someone becomes a paraplegic? Spiting all of the phonies doesn't seem as chic in this case does it? The spiteful ideology underpinning tort reform is the same one that underlies aggressive reform of any social welfare system.

What happens if you lose your job and can't find another? What if you become disabled? What if you develop a terminal illness? These would be tragedies no matter what your political views. But the stance you take is one directed at the unfortunate souls facing such circumstances. Don't fool yourself into thinking that reforms can separate the legitimate claims from the illegitimate. It's uniform punishment; sadism all the way around.

[robertlouis]

Here's the front page of Wednesday's Daily Mail, the most openly right-wing bag carrier for the Tories.

The Philpotts are a pretty shiftless, stupid and hapless clan and without doubt deserve their coming jail terms. But the subtext here couldn't be clearer - this is waht all welfare recipients would be like if the Tories weren't clamping down on the workshy, scrounging, criminal bastards. It's utterly despicable and deliberate propaganda.

[fivekatz]

This sounds an awful lot like outrage over welfare queens in the US in the 80's. At least in the US the end result was to take a few isolated incidents of taking advantage and creating a system where the income gap grew larger and larger.

I am quite sure just like welfare dude with his 17 kids working the system in the UK there are more than a few corporations working the system and gaming the taxpayers. What bankers have been allowed to do in London markets alone has done far more damage to economy of not just the UK but world and has cost far more in dollars or pounds and human suffering than hundreds of guys like one in the Daily Mail's headlines ever could.

That headline sure sounds more like an outlier than a norm to me.

[broncofan]

That explains it. Daily Mail is a fucking rag..many great papers in the UK though. Despicable title to the article. Are they a product of the welfare system? Or are they as fivekatz says an outlier?

This would be the equivalent of posting a picture of a malnourished child with a swollen belly and saying, "Product of Welfare Reform". Propaganda..I'd be surprised if the article even discussed how prevalent this type of behavior is.