I genuinely believe that the welfare state was working well for the majority of the population, until this bunch of sociopaths decided to rip it apart

Indeed.

I think there are areas that need tightening up, it seems too easy for instance to get JSA without any real checks into whether someone is actually trying to get a job. But that doesn't mean you punish everyone, you tighten up the system and punish those who aren't trying/abusing the system. Not demeaning, demoralising and punishing everyone.

Plus, any talk of reforming the Welfare state is almost irrelevant without addressing the largest components - State pensions and Housing Benefit. Anything else is merely fiddling around the edges. Yet funnily enough there is little talk about reforming state pensions by the government. Because it scares the bejesus out of everyone (and 1 of their large constituencies) and rightly so. People should get a decent pension in old age. But let's not pretend the Welfare bill can be reformed/reduced drastically without tackling by far the biggest element.
And Housing Benefit is merely a continual failure in both social and private housing provision.

Despite the portrayal of it being an assault of -takers and scroungers it is not. The reason is clear. If that's what a government wanted to clamp down on it would do so in a period of so called "full employment." No government that I can recall has ever done that. They always clamp down when times are hard and the bill goes up. Labour presided over a so called perpetual boom but did absolutely nothing meaningful to stop the takers. If they had then the Tories would have less excuse for attacking the needy and vulnerable now. As always, politicians of all persuasions are the problem.

That's possibly because in reality, the number of "mickey takers" really is not as great as government and some sections of the media might like us to believe.

Oh, do pardon me, it's just that "[iWhat a shocker. People who get free money for doing diddly squat kick off because they are soon to get less free money for doing diddly squat[/i." didn't actually sound like a vote in favour of the welfare state.
Indeed, it sounded like an absurd reduction of what the welfare state is about.

The coalition makes noises about the tiny minority who fleece the system.
It then reduces the benefit [ufor all[/u, not just the abusers of the system.

All the while allowing tax evaders and avoiders to get away with it.
If they put as much effort and determination into chasing tax evaders and closing tax avoidance loopholes as they do into soundbites about benefit cheats and into benefit reduction, the deficit would sort itself out.
But they don't ... and you have to ask yourself why this is.
The answer is bleedin' obvious.

Now if they opened up HMRC's investigation and prosecution divisions to private enterprise, that could prove interesting. If the contractors were paid by results, as a percentage of tax revenue paid (like a bounty hunter), I doubt we'd see the cozy arrangements so prevalent under Dave Hartnett

... unless you're the sort of person who is happy to believe all the soundbites.

Do you know something, up until i read this little pargraph, i was of the view that i felt a little bit sorry for Osborne, he has a tough job (kinda) to do, and he's never going to be able to please everybody. The poorest among us, or just any regular anti-Tory will berate any cuts/caps aimed at us as ''oh, here we go, Tories narking on the poor and those on benefits again'', and to be honest, i fell for some of his stupid soundbites regarding the lazy etc etc (i ain't a Tory by the way). But, you're right, what IS he doing to close loopholes and chase tax-avoiders? What IS he doing to ensure that the better off (his mates) in this country are paying their (fair) share? The guy is a plank, and i don't know who it was who mentioned it, but his shouting-down people who disagree with his cuts just STANK of absolute arrogance.

I'll tell you what he's doing about the tax system.

Bringing more people into the 40% tax bracket, while giving those with a taxable income of over £150k per year a five percent tax cut.

It's a total myth that the richest in this country don't pay their 'fair share'.

To be fair i could have worded it better, they will pay more than i do, that's for sure, i only earn 13k, but those people could AFFORD to lose a little more and still live a very comfortable life, the people who are being targeted right now are those who probably can't afford to lose any more money. I'm not including those people who smoke and drink too much in that statement though, those 2 things should be cut down on if you're running a tight ship.

He had a job at one time – he was in the Army. And later, he lived off the incomes of various women – income that included that earned in jobs.

It is a myth that that household was always simply on benefits and that Philpott himself was "a product" of benefits. He was no more "a product" of benefits than he was "a product" of the Army.

And feel free to offer up a single example of a single institution or system where everything work perfectly, 100% of the time. You can include private business in this too.

Lord Lucan was in the army too.
A pattern is beginning to emerge. IDS should be arrested and locked away immediately for the safety of everyone.

Good call, that man.

The question that should be asked as a result of the Philpott case is how society deals with psychopaths – whether in work or not is irrelevant, although psychopathy may well make it less likely for someone to get/hold a job.

I am sure that is true.

When you look into what the government is on about it soon becomes clear this is an ideologically driven set of cuts because the amount of money being saved by them is going to be a relative pin-prick in terms of reducing the deficit.

As someone else pointed out the real big benefit bills are pensions and housing benefit and while they are reducing the latter in a pretty arbitrary manner they will still be necessarily large bills for the government.

It seems totally counter productive to put so much effort into clawing relatively small amounts of money back and causing a lot of misery at the same time when there are targets that would yield so much more revenue.

And it's worth noting that over 80% of households in receipt of housing benefit are working households.

A huge part of the problem is the shortage of decent, affordable housing.

As I said above, the government thinks those households should make more of an effort to earn more!

Well, it ain't the poor who move their dosh to tax havens.

Which is a load of utter e, when many will be caught in, for instance, zero-hours contracts.

I'd love to know just how many couples sit there and think: "Well we've got two kids, how can we become more wealthy? I know, lets' have another kid and get an extra £13.40 a week"

He takes a lot of stick from a lot of people in a lot of threads, but this once - maybe just this once - Dally is absolutely correct.

There can be little doubt that the tories' constant attacks on those in most need are ideologically driven and cannot survive economic or pragmatic examination or tests of basic decency; or that the lib-dems are hand-in-glove with them while the labour party is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate from them.

As my late mother-in-law used to say, "they all pee in the same pot".

Labour started going in that direction when Blair was elected as leader and immediately scrapped Clause 4.

Via Twitter earlier this week, there was some discussion going on about the preponderance of Parliamentary politicians from all parties that went to Oxford to study for a PPE. Some of the discussion focussed on how incredibly limited the philosophy part of that is.

But what it means, though, is that vast numbers of politicians – and we're talking career politicians here, which is also an important factor – have studied a limited and identical course, and come out with an inevitably limited range of ideas on the subjects shoehorned into that course.

And its influence in media terms is also noticeable.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_PPE_degrees_from_OxfordList[/url.

Interesting the 63% of taxes are paid by the richest 30% - this seems a high figure given these bods move all their dosh to tax havens?

and it's something like the top 1% pay 27% of income taxes.