A new survey of social attitudes towards government spending has shown that in 1991 58% of people believed we should spend more on benefits, whilst by 2011 it had fallen to 28%.
Since 1998 support for more spending on benefits has consistently fallen.
Conclusion….in the greedy, selfish Thatcher years people were more caring and thoughtful about their fellow citizens.
It was only in the Blair years when Labour didn’t mind if people were ‘filthy rich’ that people stopped caring so much.
Mark Easton on ‘Today’ believes otherwise of course….his take is that it is government, that is the Coalition government’s, propaganda and right wing newspapers who are turning the Public against welfare recipients by labelling them scroungers, cheats and frauds….apparently we all think anyone who receives unemployment benefit if fiddling the dole…..because that’s what government policies tell us.
Never mind that our every day experience readily shows many people do ‘fiddle’ the dole or benefits system….or that the system is vastly more generous than Easton cares to admit….heard about the unemployed family which keeps 5 horses?
Easton of course takes up the ‘disabled’ lobby’s mantra that they are all looked upon as faking their disability and suffer a rising tide of hate crimes as a result…and it’s all the government’s fault….regardless of the fact that there very definitely are a number of fakers out there who need to be removed from the system is it really the government’s fault that people take the views that they do?
A close look at the survey reveals that in 1999 74% of people wanted more spending on disabled benefits. In 2006 that figure had fallen to 64%.
Now I know the BBC have forgotten we had a Labour government in charge for 13 years but wouldn’t those figures suggest that a little bit of management of people’s perceptions is going on in Easton’s report….as he forgets to mention them?
It isn’t only Easton who takes up the cudgel on behalf of the disabled lobby…it has been a regular refrain on the BBC that government has labelled all disabled people ‘scroungers’ and the BBC reports all seem slanted towards sympathy for the disabled lobby’s viewpoint.
Stories like this which are packed full of emotive phrasing and ideas but lack any real analysis only serve to further a certain view of this government as ‘nasty’ or ‘uncaring’, something the BBC seems keen to foster.
I’ve always worked on the assumption that of the 2.6 million on incapacity benefit probably around 75% have no disability of any kind whatsoever. The geographic distribution of claimants closely matching the geographic distribution of the decline in manufacturing / heavy industry. And of course a suspicious number of teenagers ‘going on the sick’ every week.
But sure, can the BBC find a handy quadraplegic when it needs one? Of course.
And the centre left/ centre right* solution to this problem? That’s right, they don’t have one. Can only ever be ‘a nasty party’ that attempts to come up with a solution.
Actually, I take that back, the pretendy left *do* have a solution. They blame Fatcha.
“But sure, can the BBC find a handy quadraplegic when it needs one? ”
Harsh but fair: I know one person that has had incapacity benefits for years because of being deaf in one ear!
I remember one neighbour of the in-laws being on incapacity benefit for a bad back for yonks – he cycled off to do a window cleaning round most days balancing one of those ancient, 3-ton wooden ladders on his shoulders.
One needs to keep on reading to overcome possible misleading statements at the head of the BBC report
But for the first time in nearly a decade, there was a rise in the number of those who think spending and taxes should be increased, the report says.
only much further down the page some context is added
Meanwhile, the proportion of people who want to see further public spending – even if this requires higher taxes – jumped from 31% to 36% between 2010 and 2011
so not a majority then
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19621020
But still over a third of the population (theoretically) who are absolute morons – sorry, should that be Labour voters?
Chance of a new board?
These do gooders like Easton don’t live amongst the scrounging bastards like I do.How annoying is it when you see people who have never worked riding around the town in brand new four by four vehicles whilst I trundle around in a second hand hatchback. I then see these people in the pub and they are drinking the same drink and the same amount as me. They then go home to their three bedroomed house where they sleep soundly. Then on Monday morning they get up when they want to, if at all while Muggins here is up at Half five to do a ten hour shift. The BBC can shove their reports up their guardian covered arses!
Ah, muggins, 😉 I’m sure you’ll be devastated to hear that someone on the dole who wants to live in central London and can fill five bedrooms could get a Local Housing Allowance of £2,000 per week – yes per week.
As soon as the Tories, yes the nasty party, try and do something about this obscene waste up howls the usual suspects with ‘boohoo ethnic cleansing boohoo only the rich are allowed to live in central London bohoo’.
Vote Labour – you know it makes sense.
Since 1998 support for more spending on benefits has consistently fallen
Mass immigration and a welfare state are utterly incompatible
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well yes, no-one needs david goodhart topoint out that telling the whole world that they can come to britain and get two grand a month for nothing is not a goer.
Unless you work for the BBC and/or vote Labour that is,