This government has demonised benefit claimants and now reduces benefits on the back of a political mantra which portrays all benefits claimants as scroungers and feckless wasters. Much of the electorate have clearly swallowed this lie (even the previous Labour Party administration under Harriet Harman) and support government moves to cap benefits for all including working people by reducing working tax benefits whilst allowing employers to continue to exploit “hard working aspirational” people (the governments words) to work on zero hours contracts at a minimum wage, which it is recognised has fallen far below the level of a living wage, thus further increasing working and non- working poverty.

In any civilised society where a huge amount of wealth is created such as ours, (The 4th largest economy in the world) there is a recognition that not everybody can be financially successful as everybody else. This is due to the intrinsic difficulties in creating a fair society where the rich get richer through their elite networks and establishment power and the less advantaged have less access and opportunity. Therefore the government through taxation wishes to equalise this difference by creating a welfare system which prevents people going hungry, homeless, and without the opportunity to progress through education and training. It is not based on subjective factors but objectively assesses individual need and distributes on that basis. (There maybe a good case to means test therefore and eliminate universal benefits).

Cameron recently, in political terms, espoused a political philosophy called the “Big Society”, this was actually a wish to return to the Victorian era of philanthropy where business guilds and crafts would set up financial trusts which subjectively gave monies and help to people who applied for it and who they believed “deserved” their help. This was a value driven basis for giving and inevitably some applicants did not reach the required level of “acceptance” by the Boards dishing out the money. A great example is JB Priestley’s play – An Inspector Calls.

The Labour government in 1945 recognised that this was fundamentally wrong and that the state had a role to play in ensuring that citizens in need should be looked after by government and not the subjective wishes and values of well meaning but unenlightened interventionists. This fundamentally and still does oppose the Tory political philosophy of self determination and the fact that it is not the role of state to help individual citizens. Unfortunately with a Tory majority and a certain five years in government we can expect much more of the same. The rich will inevitably get richer and the poor will inevitably get poorer under this austere regime.

That does not detract from the fact that we have created a society where people do have entitlements and that includes the entitlement to benefits when needed and those should not be subject to the whims and vagaries of people imposing their values and beliefs on the recipients, which is ostensibly how this government is transforming the benefits system and encouraging people to believe that it is their money that they are giving away, to people who do not deserve it.

In the recent book The Great Tax Robbery by Richard Brooks, he demonstrates the lie perpetrated by this government by emphasising the facts. For every £1Bn of tax/benefit fraud there are 9000 prosecutions for benefit fraud and only 5 for tax evasion by the big companies and rich individuals, but only £1Bn represents benefit fraud whereas over £30Bn is represented by tax avoidance/evasion. Therefore, this incumbent government bring the full force of the law to bear on the poorest in society whilst ignoring the richest and their criminality.

To summarise, when a person says I am entitled to the benefits provided, then, they are and we should not be hankering for a return to where people stood in line to beg from rich benefactors who often would say No! based on prejudice and discrimination.