Tory Bastards - Again!

I've got to hand it to this shambles of a government we're having to suffer under, they're very adept at diverting everyone's attention from the real issues. Right now they are, successfully it seems, shifting the blame for the current economic disaster from the very rich, to the poor. Yes, that's right, in Cameronland it is actually the victims who are to blame for their own plight! I'm referring, of course, to the current benefit cap that the government is trying to impose and which, for the time being, is having blocked by the House of Lords, mainly thanks to the intervention of the Bishops who sit there. The implication of the government's proposals to cap benefit payments at a maximum of £26,000 for a single family is quite clear: It's these idle scrounging bastards, taking taxpayers cash who are to blame for the situation we're in - is it any wonder we're having to cut public spending elsewhere if we have to support these work-shy shits? And the public eats it up. Not least because, on paper, it all seems so reasonable. After all, can it be right that some people on benefits claim more than many people in work earn?

Except that it isn't that simple. People living on benefits are not a homogeneous group. Their circumstances vary considerably. Many non-working households are the result of one adult member having to become a full-time carer to a sick or disabled partner, often with child dependents as well. Others are single parents left, by bereavement or other circumstances beyond their control, to look after small children. Frequently, much of what they claim goes in rent on the larger properties they require for their families and/or disabled dependents. Thanks to the running down of stocks of social housing, they often have no choice but to rent from private landlords at the current exorbitant market rates. I'm not naive enough to think that there aren't some people who abuse the benefits system for their own gain. But they are the exception rather than the rule and an indiscriminate and arbitrary cap on benefits won't stop them. It will only hurt the majority of genuine claimants.

But Dave and his lynch mob know all this and don't care. They are only interested in shifting the blame for the economic mess we're in away from the real culprits: the rich who just keep getting richer. The amount being claimed in benefits pales into insignificance compared to the amount of taxpayers money the banks have received (and not paid back) in the form of bail outs. And their executives just keep giving themselves pay rises and huge bonuses. It's the same across the private sector: bosses pay skyrockets whilst workers are laid off, or have their pay frozen and pension funds raided. These are the bastards who are robbing us blind, lining their own pockets whilst the rest of us suffer. But Cameron doesn't care because they're his friends. More than that, they're the Tory party's paymasters. So, instead of addressing the real problem, he gives us a few platitudes about needing to reform capitalism, then turns to attacking the poor again. And the public eats it up.