He says that he will watch the banks “like a hawk” but allows bankers to walk away with taxpayer-funded, multimillion-pound bonuses. He says he cares about the poor but cracks down on welfare claimants. Such is our Prime Minister, David Cameron, the “compassionate Conservative”.
In Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Cameron said:
Far too much in our system is lost from fraud and error and I do not think that taxpayers go to work and work hard in order to fund benefits to which people are not entitled.
Yet, as I noted on Twitter at the time, tax evasion costs the UK exchequer more than 15 times as much as benefit fraud. Why do we not hear the PM condemning tax evasion with the same vigour and regularity with which he raises the subject of benefit fraud? Instead, Cameron kicked off PMQs by condemning and defaming the anti-tax-evasion group, UK Uncut.
The coalition’s “war on welfare scroungers“, however, continues unabated. Here is a shocking story from today’s Guardian:
Rising numbers of vulnerable jobseekers are being tricked into losing benefits amid growing pressure to meet welfare targets, a Jobcentre Plus adviser has told the Guardian.
A whistleblower said staff at his jobcentre were given targets of three people a week to refer for sanctions, where benefits are removed for up to six months. He said it was part of a “culture change” since last summer that had led to competition between advisers, teams and regional offices.
“Suddenly you’re not helping somebody into sustainable employment, which is what you’re employed to do,” he said. “You’re looking for ways to trick your customers into ‘not looking for work’. You come up with many ways. I’ve seen dyslexic customers given written job searches and when they don’t produce them — what a surprise — they’re sanctioned. The only target that anyone seems to care about is stopping people’s money.
“‘Saving the public purse’ is the catchphrase that is used in our office . . . It is drummed home all the time — you’re saving the public purse. Feel good about stopping someone’s money, you’ve just saved your own pocket. Its a joke.”
The claims came as the big businesses handed contracts to get the long-term jobless into work today said the government should privatise jobcentres so that their firms could work with people who have been jobless for less than a year.
Statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show the total number of cases where people have lost their benefits has soared since the beginning of 2010 to 75,000 in October, the latest month available. The figures also reveal the number of claimants with registered disabilities being cut off has more than doubled to almost 20,000 over the same period.
This follows a change in the rules in April last year where sanctions were extended to claimants who were late for jobcentre interviews and other less serious offences.
So much for the “morality” and “Christian ethics” of the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith. This is a callous and cruel coalition government, engaged in a war on not just welfare “scroungers” but on the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society.
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