Writing, rather approriately in the Sun today, on the subject of welfare reform and benefit fraud, the Prime Minister makes the case against himself in a single, revealing, dog-whistling sentence:That's why benefit fraud is the first and the deepest cut we will make.
Benefit fraud?? Which costs the country £1.5bn a year (or less than 1 per cent of the £155bn budget deficit)?
Not tax evasion or avoidance by the rich, which costs around £25bn?*
Not the £1.6bn lost to the taxpayer in errors and maladministration of the benefits system?
Not the £5bn rail subsidy, which helps fund the multi-million-pound bonuses of fatcat rail bosses?
Not the £2.5bn being wasted by the Ministry of Defence every year?
Not the £4bn prisons budget, which, as the Justice Secretary admits, doesn't cut crime?
Not the £4bn spent annually on a bloody, pointless and catastrophically self-defeating war in Afghanistan?
Nope, cutting benefit fraud. That's Cameron's main mission. I think it speaks volumes about his priorities and his preferences. So much for the veneer of "progressive conservatism".
Mehdi Hasan, New Statesman, 12/08/2010
* It should be noted that Mehdi quotes from a particular set of data that does not include for instance, an even greater slice of tax being lost to the 1000 or so billionaires and multi- millionaires who last year increased their wealth by £77 billion and on which they paid virtually no tax at all... well, perhqaps something like £10 million, but it is hard to tell. Most of them have done deals with the HMRC to pay one-off peppercorn taxes of £10,000 at the beginning of the year to avoid the revenue the problem of actually counting up how much they should really pay.
If one was to look at it coldly, and apply 45% to last years increased wealth alone, that would account for £35 billion pounds for the revenue. That would cover MoD, Afghanistan, Prisons, Network Rail and any welfare cheating!
