Consider This

Benefit Fraud actually costs £1.2bn, not the figure of £5.2 as Cameron has previously stated, and therefore gets banded around as the actual cost by the media. The rest of it comes from errors - namely claimants filling out forms incorrectly and computer errors. Now that is a lot of money, but there is a counter argument that has a figure which dwarfs this and goes to a greater argument, which I will articulate.

£13bn is lost through tax avoidance by individuals and another £9 to £12billion by companies and businesses. So each year, this country loses £22 - £25billion to people who can afford to move their holdings and accounts to places in the world that means they do not contribute to this country on the scale that they should.

Now, numbers aside, let us consider what sort of person commits benefit fraud, as 'covered' by the media. Get that image in your mind, the sort of education, the type of programmes they consider as worthwhile and the names that they get called.

Hold that image -

What sort of class are they?

Now imagine the type of person who can avoid paying tax, who can pay accountants and services to facilitate such an action, who can travel to tax havens as easily as you or I can walk to the corner shop for a pint of milk. To what class does that person belong? Do they run companies? Consider that the advantages wrought are cyclical, in that one advantage feeds the other and then I want you to consider why, if the government is committed to a course of action that means to cut the deficit, that it doesn't go after the larger saving? It would be facetious to believe that this is about picking on those who cannot mount a defence and a tame media that will demonise people who were unable to make better choices, wouldn't it?