My sources could be dodgy on this one
(partly because I can't remember what they were) but I *think*, if you look at it nationwide, the vast majority of people claiming benefits are in employment or looking for it, and it's just a few cases (or indeed, a few communities) which are cited in the press where people or families don't work at all. Obviously it's less interesting to write an article on a person who makes fair use of the benefit system, so people's perception of the balance is skewed.

Having said that, I agree with your point - it's there to help, not to be a way of life.
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 11:45, 1 reply, 15 years ago)

This is the critical point isn't it
the papers will always through up an example of some worthless twat milking the system, but you don't make policy based on tiny exceptions to the general rule, unless you are in fact making policy based entirely on political dogma and not based on any form of evidence.
(Bazongaloid, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 11:47, Reply)

This is why I have a gut scepticism
Aspects like this do have a ring of pandering to scandal to win public support, and it seems to smell of a typical Tory approach of cutting back on benefits and public service, just this time it's hidden behind the supposedly benevolent mask of "fixing the country's deficit."
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 11:50, Reply)