Spongers

[Tigger]

I find that there are a significant number of people who don't actually believe that there are a lot of people who want to claim benefits, and will do their utmost so to do. They work at their "other trades" in the black economy, charging the same for their services as the legitimate trader with overheads and tax liabilities. and they think they deserve it. Then they take time off during the working week so that they can go home to change before signing on the dotted line so they can claim their disability allowance and whatever else they can scrounge.

The welfare state is necessary, but ejecting those who take the piss, and there are a lot of them, is required.

[Coito ergo sum]

Will someone please offer an alternative to the so called 'welfare state'? Thousands of homeless people on the street? Jobless people committing crime to survive and our prisons growing and growing in terms of numbers? Immigrants forcibly deported?

Get real please.

Perhaps a system that does not allow people to do what the people in the article in the OP are doing? Does this have to always be an either/or proposition?

[AshtonBlack]

Carrot AND stick. Most certainly. I'm not saying a word though about specifics. I do not know all the details of the benefits system to comment. Having only claimed child tax credits when D was born.