“Benefits… are a roundabout way of boosting the profits of Lidl and Primark.”

Can you imagine the absolute shit storm had a Tory said that? I guess the Left can get away with sneering class snobbery because they ‘care’ right?

In any case its a Keynesian fallacy; yes it may well increase aggregate demand – as you can similarly argue increased public sector employment does – but there is no net benefit because the money came from the sector its being spent on (and the people it employes) in the first place, it is merely a cycle of cash, an illusion which does no one any good at all, and which can only be maintained through increased govt borrowing. Which we defer to our children. Which sucks.

But what if it wasn’t political posturing, Chris? It would be very comforting to think he was making the right noises to attract the misinformed while remaining (secretly?) true to the ideal of care. Contacting one or two Labour tribals, they seem to be sticking to that view as a man clings to the wreckage of his ship. Frankly, though, Labour have form on this. ESA – enough said?

The sick & disabled are frightened, and cannot afford such hope when they see the one person who might have helped them adopt the words of their enemy, and join the assault on them. It’s time for a bit of honesty from Ed Miliband and the Labour party. Make the moral choice and come out for the vulnerable. Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator and help those that need it.

Yesterday, a Tory MP gave voice to an opinion that implied the disabled were worth less to society than the able well. That should have been an open goal for the Labour party, but four days before Ed Miliband had started wearing the other team’s shirt.

The weakest have no-one to turn to. What a sad place this has become.

“According to the last DWP accounts, benefit fraud cost £1bn in 2008-09. That’s less than the cost of the DWP’s own administrative errors, and much less than the amount of benefits that people are entitled to but do not claim.”

That doesn’t mean benefit fraud is OK.

“From a Keynesian perspective, benefits serve a useful counter-cyclical function in stimulating demand. They are a roundabout way of boosting the profits of Lidl and Primark.”

That doesn’t mean benefit fraud is OK.

“Insofar as people don’t want to work, it could be that this what Jon Elster called an adaptive preference. Having tried and failed to get work, people reduce their cognitive dissonance by coming not to want work. People aren’t unemployed because they don’t want to work, but instead don’t want to work because they are unemployed.”

That doesn’t mean benefit fraud is OK.

Attacking benefit fraud is not an attack on people claiming benefits.

@3 Well it is when you come to the conclusion that it’s better for some genuine claimants to go without in order to stop fraud, than to admit that some will be lost to fraud while making sure all who are entitled do receive.

When that Tory MP said that the disabled should be “free” to work for less than the minimum wage, he meant that they should be forced to work for less than the minimum wage under threat of benefit withdrawal. Doubtlessly he spoke the views of a silent majority of Tory MPs and a shamefaced majority of Labour MPs.

People here should keep a bit of perspective, its not like he kicked away a cripples crutches on stage, he merely alluded (in the vaguest possible terms) to the previous governments failure to tackle a perceived culture of benefit dependency.

5. Ridiculous hyperbole.

Could have done without ‘boosting the profits of Lidl and Primark’. Stereotyping even in a relatively innocuous fashion as this is part of the continuum that at one extreme is the hate speech directed at welfare users and the poor in order to facilitate support for these policies.

7. No, not hyperbole, just factual correctness. I can well imagine vulnerable mentally and physically ill 65 year olds dredging trollys out of canals for £1.50 per hour 10 years from now, be it under a Conservative or a Labour government. What’s more, politicians will be congratulating themselves for having had the “courage” to take those tough decisions and for having “liberated” those 65 year olds from the “dependency culture”. Even then the factually incorrect will be scandalmongerring the fact that these 65 year olds are paid too much and worked too little.

@7: “I can well imagine vulnerable mentally and physically ill 65 year olds dredging trollys out of canals for £1.50 per hour 10 years from now, be it under a Conservative or a Labour government.”

Looxury !

The looming question on the horizon is whether they will be making a modest investment in a national network of neighbourhood Harold Shipman Centres – manned by volunteers, naturally – to facilitate the passing of the old and vulnerable.

Simple cost-benefit analysis will show that a pensioner gone is a budget deficit saver from the net fiscal benefits to the government from the savings in state pension payments and the increasing cost of NHS healthcare.

Try:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo&feature=fvwrel