If, as expected, Hunt goes after people on benefits it’s worth knowing that the director for the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that unemployment benefits “had not risen in 50 years, in real terms”.
And with regards to benefit fraud there seems to have been a deliberate attempt to convince the public that the amount of fraud is far greater than the reality.
Listening to Matthew Wright, on LBC, the last survey he has, regarding how benefit fraud is perceived by the public, was carried out in 2013.
At that time the public perception was that 24% of benefit claims were fraudulent.
The reality, according to official figures, was 0.7%.
Yet another example of the Tories operating a culture war, turning working class people against those who can’t work, with their constant attacks on benefit claimants and their failure to point out the true facts.
Yes I accept that there are some people making fraudulent claims but I also accept that the country is losing more money as a result of creative accounting by big business and the self employed.
They are the people who should be hounded, not the poor.
Edit. The same economist also states that the UK has one of the meanest benefit systems in Europe, which kind of pokes a massive hole in the argument of those who say migrants are only coming to the UK for the benefits.