Can ministers or newspapers get their facts straight on benefit fraud, unemployment and the "workshy"?
In my column in the magazine last week, I wrote:
Is this a cabinet guided by the national interest, or vested interests? Not since the days of Harold Macmillan in the late 1950s has Britain been governed by politicians representing such a narrow social base. And Supermac and his millionaire colleagues at least believed in the universal welfare state. Cameron and his rich chums, in contrast, are engaged in a war on welfare.
In June, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith (net worth: £1m), used an interview with the Sunday Telegraph to urge jobless people to move in order to find work ("Coalition to tell unemployed to 'get on your bike' ", was the headline). In September, Osborne (£4.6m) castigated benefit claimants for making a "lifestyle choice". Earlier this month, the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt (£4.5m), told poor families to have fewer children.
Since then, we've had Iain Duncan Smith with his "get on the bus to get a job" jibe. Yes, in the current economic climate, IDS seems to think that jobs can be found for the most if not all the unemployed. But how do you squeeze 2.4 million people into 459,000 vacancies? Maths doesn't seem to be the coalition's strong point.
Interesting figures there. Especially the net worth ones. How are people who have never had to suffer from being poor or unemployed fit to judge a system they have never had to use?
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This lot differ from the Macmillan tory party, in that the latter had shared years of hardship with the rest of the populace i.e.World War 1 trenchlife. Cameron & co weren't even caned at school, I bet!
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