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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Bounty Hunters to Cut Benefit Fraud by £1bn
THE TELEGRAPH: Private agencies are to be paid by the Government to reduce benefit fraud by £1billion, David Cameron is to announce.



Finance experts will identify welfare cheats by trawling through their records, household bills and credit card applications.

The agencies will get a “bounty” payment for each fraudster they identify under government plans to cut the £5.2billion annual fraud bill.

By having access to the Government’s database of incapacity and housing benefit claimants, the companies believe they can shave at least £1billion from the welfare bill, earning as much as £50million.

The Prime Minister will say today that the level of fraud is “absolutely outrageous” and an “uncompromising” strategy is needed.

Mr Cameron will also call on members of the public to report suspected cheats and promise tougher punishments for offenders. >>> Holly Watt, Rosa Prince and Robert Winnett | Tuesday, August 10, 2010

This is so 'old Tory'. Whilst I am not in favour of people cheating the system for benefits, I feel that Cameron should have the balls to target the fat cat bankers who are stealing far more from the system with their multi-million pound bonuses than the paltry sums of money that Jo Average is getting in the form of welfare. Why doesn't Cameron come up with something new and original like jailing bankers who milk the system, and thereby endanger capitalism's very existence? – © Mark | Comment also posted here