David Cameron: 'Don’t Complain about Welfare Cuts, Go and Find Work'
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: People living in benefit-dependent households have been urged by the Prime Minister to “go out and work” rather than complain about the loss of welfare payments.

David Cameron said that living on welfare had become an “acceptable alternative” to working and suggested that benefit payments were too easy to receive.

He spoke as the Government faced serious opposition to the plan to cap the maximum benefit payments that can be received by any household at £26,000. The House of Lords is seeking to block the policy.

The cap has been set at the same level as the average family’s earnings and ministers insist that it is unfair that taxpayers must subsidise those receiving more from the state than typical employees earn.

The Government was defeated in the House of Lords after bishops tabled an amendment to the Welfare Bill proposing that child benefit is excluded from the cap.

The amendment, which was backed by dozens of Liberal Democrat peers, threatens to wreck the entire concept of the cap.

Senior Conservatives have said they are determined to force through the legislation by overturning the Lords amendment, a move which is said to have widespread public backing.

Speaking before the Lords debate, the Prime Minister sought to echo Norman Tebbit, the former Conservative minister, who told unemployed people to “get on your bike” in 1981. » | Robert Winnett, and James Kirkup | Monday, January 23, 2012

My comment:

The welfare state was conceived as a safety net for those in need when times were tough. As such, the idea was fine. Unfortunately, the original concept of welfare has been abandoned. Welfare is now all-embracing, not just for the people who are out of work or disabled, but for all who seek to scrounge off the State. It should never have been allowed to grow into this monster in the first place. The politicians can only blame themselves for this.

Something will have to be done about the monster they have created. Taxpayers cannot be expected to foot the ever-increasing bill for those who prefer to scrounge than pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

Whether now is the right time to tell people to look for work rather than receive benefits is, however, questionable. Where are all these people going to find employment? Doesn't Cameron realize that his own government’s austerity drive is leading to a shortage of work opportunities?

Mr. Cameron seems to be living in an ivory tower, a gilded cage if you will. Is he so cut off from the reality of life that he is blissfully unaware of the plight of the many?

The welfare state needs to be cutback to the bare bones. But to achieve this, there has to be a long-term strategy. Tinkering at the margins will achieve little in the long-run. Some serious thought needs to be given to the starting point of cut-backs. It cannot be right to punish those in real need. The scroungers need to be targetted first. As do all those benefit-tourists coming from abroad to milk the system. They have contributed nothing towards the system, so really should not be entitled to anything. That how it works for a Brit; so why should it be any different for someone from abroad?

It should also be said that cutting back on the welfare state must be a two-pronged strategy: It has to be accompanied by some form of job creation? For without jo bs being offered in the system, Cameron's talk is tantamount to whistling Dixie. – © Mark

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Eric Pickles Warns David Cameron of Rise in Homeless Families Risk

THE GUARDIAN: A leaked letter, from the office of Eric Pickles has warned that welfare reform will make 40,000 more families homeless

David Cameron has been warned by one of his most trusted cabinet ministers that his welfare policies risk making 40,000 families homeless.

The extraordinary claim, in a letter to the prime minister from the office of Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, exposes deep splits at the heart of government over plans to cap benefit at £500 a week per family.

The letter, leaked to the Observer, reveals Pickles's belief that the cap – announced with great fanfare at last year's Tory conference – will increase the burden on taxpayers, because thousands of families will be unable to pay their rent and will have to seek local government help. It blows apart the government's public insistence that a limit on benefit payments will have little impact on homelessness and child poverty. » | Daniel Boffey and Toby Helm | Saturday, July 02, 2011

Welfare Reform Should Tackle the Cheats at the Top As Well As the Bottom
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Greedy MPs and rapacious bankers are just as dishonest as welfare fraudsters and freeloaders, says Jenny McCartney.

David Cameron, at the launch of the Welfare Reform Bill last week, made a rousing plea for the restoration of our ethics. In his speech, he bemoaned the end of “a collective culture of responsibility”, of an age when people’s self-image was measured by “whether they did the decent thing”. In such an era, he said, “fiddling the system would have brought not just public outcry but private shame”.

Mr Cameron was speaking with specific regard to our welfare system, and much of what he said is true. We are all familiar with those lurid tales of enterprising gentlemen who have claimed disability allowance while giving disco-dancing lessons on the side, or ladies whose complicated housing scams trawl in the annual GDP of a small Baltic country.

As well as such criminal fraudsters, however, there are the opportunistic freeloaders who trigger public ire without actually breaking the law. The latter are open in their intention to have large families that will be wholly supported by a groaning state. It was reported last week that the anti-social antics of the family of Tom O’Leary and Tanya Walsh (two adults, 12 children) had caused distress to the neighbours of their £1.2 million council-funded abode in Muswell Hill. Miss Walsh wrote on her Bebo site recently that her hobbies were “eating chocolate and having children”: the only people cheering her on were the makers of confectionery and Pampers. Read on and comment >>> Jenny McCartney | Saturday, February 19, 2011

My comment:

At last, a refreshing bit of common sense! Thank you for this extremely sensible article, Jenny McCartney. It is very tiresome to listen to the fraudsters at the top always going on about the people at the bottom milking the system. Who milks the system more than the greedy bankers and fraudulent MPs? And I write as a disinterested observer. Cameron had better start looking sideways before he looks down. He should get his chums to lead by example. – © Mark

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Benefit Claimants to Have Payments Cut
THE TELEGRAPH: Benefits claimants will have their payments cut as ministers seek a further £4 billion in welfare cuts.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, said that the Government will go further than previously announced in trying to bring down the cost of Britain’s social security system.

The promise of new welfare cuts has caused strain in the Coalition, with some Liberal Democrat MPs protesting against the move.

Mr Osborne said the welfare system had grown out of control and allowed some people to make the “lifestyle choice” of claiming benefits for their entire life instead of working.

Reforms being drawn up by the Coalition will give welfare claimants “a strong incentive” to get a job.

Welfare now costs £192 billion a year, almost a third of all government spending. An estimated 5 million people of working age are now economically inactive and receiving benefits.

In the Budget in June, Mr Osborne announced that benefits cuts will save £11 billion a year by the end of the Parliament.

In a BBC interview, he signalled that ministers will now seek deeper cuts, reducing welfare spending by another £4 billion. >>> James Kirkup and Andrew Porter | Thursday, September 09, 2010