The end of the welfare state, or is it?

Barrow - no, I don't know anyone personally who could work but chooses not to - I have two grandsons in East Yorkshire who are desperate for any kind of job they could get. The tabloid press loves to depict anybody on benefits as scroungers but it simply is not true of the huge majority of claimants and is very hurtful to them.
The bankers whose greed caused the financial crisis continue to receive their huge salaries and bonuses and nobody has been prosecuted to date for the obviously fraudulent behaviour.
My father always said that the Tories created unemployment in the 30's because it meant that the employers had the workers at their mercy.
The relentless targeting of the old, the disabled, the sick, the unemployed will continue as long as those in power are hand in glove with big business.
Is anybody still glad that they voted to allow Eton to run the country?
Please - don't anybody tell me that the last Labour government was just as bad - Blair and his cronies were just thinly-disguised Tories.

The key to dealing with social deprivation is PREVENTION. It is about putting in the help in child centres, support for failing parents etc. before the situation reaches crisis point. There is certainly no money going into this and the result will be more need and deprivation for the underfunded services to pick up.

These cuts are hitting the poorest and most disabled rather than those who caused the problem - the EU/banker/House of Lords gravytrains just keep on rolling.

The real catastrophe from my point of view is that funding for the arts and for libraries are the mark of a civilized society and these are being cut too - I really think this is a frightening development. Of course the care of the sick/disabled/poor comes first, but when a society starts to cease to care about arts/reading etc it has come to a sorry pass. Some LAs have completely cut their arts funding - what a disgrace.

And some LAs have closed all their public toilets - what does that say about our situation?

Further evidence that it is the poor who will pay for the failure of successive governments and the greed of the bankers.

The problem is there is a limited amount of money available and those people living on benefits as a lifestyle choice are taking the money away from those who really need it.

I am not talking about people in genuine need - they are the ones the welfare state was designed to help. I think that probably the majority of us know of people who could work but choose not to.

Depressing reading annodomini