CPS Welfare Whopper Busted

The alphabet soup of Astroturf lobby groups out there on the right keep on pushing the idea that the UK is awash with welfare dependency, and in the tradition of misinformation established by the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance has come the Centre for Policy Studies, co-founded by Keith Joseph, Mrs T., and Alfred Sherman, the last-named possibly best remembered for urging conversion of railways into roads.

Sherman’s idea was bunk, but that hasn’t stopped others exhuming it periodically over the years, and nor has it stopped the CPS trying to pull a fast one when the mood takes it, as witness their latest “report” on alleged welfare dependency, which has been swallowed whole by the piss-poor SunNation site: “MORE THAN HALF OF BRITS TAKE MORE HAND-OUTS THAN THEY PAY IN TAXES” it howls.

There is only one thing to do: “Shock new figures trigger fresh calls for Osborne to press ahead with saving”. Yes, just like the TPA, it’s “savings” and not “cuts”, because, for all those hard-pressed and hardworking taxpayers, it’s only “fair” that those “savings” should be made. But, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, there was only one thing wrong with this idea - it was bollocks.

“Almost 14 million households in the UK take out more than they put in – an incredible 51.5 per cent … over half of households in the UK get more in hand-outs than they pay in – far higher than the number supported by the state in 2000. Under Labour the number ballooned  from 43.8 per cent to 53.4 per cent in 2010”. And, readers are told, “This figure excludes benefits in kind, like education and health care”.

Yeah, make ‘em pay, eh? Guess what they aren’t telling you? Many have been taken out of income tax altogether, the figures include housing benefit - which goes straight to the landlord - and tax credits, and of course the less well off, in a redistributive system, will inevitably receive more than they pay in, especially when so many jobs pay no more than the minimum wage. And one other item is missing.

Yes, the CPS has lumped state pensions in with all those other benefits, so as far as they are concerned, pensioners, who have spent decades paying into the system, are part of the welfare dependency problem! As Littlejohn might have observed, you couldn’t make it up. Why the Sun hacks have missed this - well, it’s another case of “you might like to ask that - I couldn’t possibly comment”.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady has passed severely adverse comment on the CPS’ rubbish, noting “The number of working-age people who receive more in support is around one in three and the vast majority of these are low-paid families. But why let facts get in the way of spin?” Quite. Meanwhile, Adam Memon of the CPS claims “Welfare dependency is an economically destructive phenomenon”.

Not half as destructive as you telling whoppers to the press, Adam.