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Statistics and foot in mouth

By Arthur Webster of Ask Old Coot

"Welfare and tax credit fraud and error costs 5.2 billion pounds a year, he said, equivalent to the cost of more than 200 secondary schools or 150,000 nurses.

Of the 1.5 billion pounds which is fraudulently claimed, only 20 million pounds is recovered, with three quarters of the people who are caught escaping prosecution."

The UK Prime Minister is at it again. Does this man not EVER think about what he is saying? The quotation, above, is straight from a report of a David Cameron speech in Hove on the south coast of England.

Am I the only person who sees here the dead hand of yet another rabble-rousing terror monger? Isn't DC simply trying to demonise those who are unfortunate enough to be on social benefits?

Does nobody else see what is wrong with this picture?

"Welfare and tax credit fraud and error costs 5.2 billion pounds a year . . . " says DC.

HOW DOES HE KNOW?

I don't quite see how he can give this figure without having something to base it upon. If he has something to base it upon other than the desire to shock and instil fear, why isn't something done about this abuse of the system?

Call me naïve, if you like, but to my simple way of thinking, if he can clearly state the level of fraud accurately, SOMEONE MUST HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MEASURE IT! If the level of fraud can be accurately measured, SOMEONE MUST KNOW WHERE THE FRAUD IS BEING PERPETRATED! If someone knows where the fraud is being perpetrated IT SHOULD BE RELATIVELY EASY TO CURTAIL IT!

Of course, DC's speech was not about reality. It was about what would disgust and offend the good burgers of Hove. It was about creating an under-class that could be targetted by any authority with (given enough additional propaganda) no civil out-cries against the erosion of the Welfare State.

Five billion pounds represents a lot of fraudulent claims but there is nothing on which the figure is based except a licked finger being held up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

This speech by DC can only be seen as the opening shot in a campaign to ostracise and marginalise people who can not help themselves. DC is setting up the needy as the fifth column in the midst of the British population that is working its' wicked ways to bring the country down. It is a sad and blatant attempt to set neighbours against each other.

What DC should be saying is that he has identified the officials responsible for such a terrible performance of their responsibilities to the British tax payer and that he is getting rid of them so that they can be replaced by competent Welfare administrators.

It is very sad to see that the only cuts that this coalition government is prepared to make are within the fields that directly affect the welfare and living standards of the population at large. Health, education, welfare and services to the less fortunate among us are being massively slashed and yet I still wait (in the definite fore-knowledge that it will never happen) for cuts in the mega spending areas like defence. The UK cannot be the policeman of the world. The empire is dead and with it died the massive income that enabled the country to fight two world wars, defending democracy, while totally ignoring the need to be recoup some of the cost at the end of them.

The UK does not need to be spending billions on WMDs. The UK does not need to be spending millions in order to futilely try to help subjugate sovereign nations. The European Union needs to accept that it will be a greater power for peace if the individual members are allowed to spend their incomes developing trade and creating life enhancing treaties rather than life destroying ones.

If every country brought all its troops home and used them to monitor and patrol their borders, isn't it just possible that the proliferation of terror, so beloved of some western countries, would come to an end? Disengaging the foreign troops and allowing countries to resolve their own problems might not give the military much pleasure but it just might prevent the almost inevitable escalation of threats to world destroying levels.

Maybe DC would even be able to make proper speeches with correct and verifiable statistics that demonise and marginalise no-one.

Contributor's Note

Please do not try to say that the current conflicts in the world in which the West is involved are just. They are all to do with oil!
The next scarce commodity will be water and you will, presumably, also justify military incursions to deprive sovereign countries of their water supplies. At the moment such deprivation is being made by the damming of rivers within national boundaries but not all countries have rivers flowing through them.

PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE

Ask Old Coot
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www.askoldcoot.info

Obviously any fraud is wrong, and benefits fraud means the rest of us paying for it. But, it seems to me that governments are perfectly happy to spend far in excess of a few billion pounds/dollars etc when it comes to war. Much of the terrorism threats in the UK strted up after the UK went in with the US over to Iraq and Afghanistan. Funny, in those countries which won't involve themselves, like Switzerland for instance, terrorism is hardly heard of. And, when it comes to setting up this or that committee, or new department, or yet another 'inquiry' (which often costs millions of pounds a time) they are quite willing to throw money at it like it was going out of fashion.

Excellent points.

QANGOs, anybody?

I had the occasion to visit Switzerland back in the 1980.
We rented a car and drove through many of the provinces. Most are seperated by mountain peaks, and each has a large presence of military. Men in Switzerland are in the military from 18 thru age 35. They bring their guns home and spend 2 weeks every year at training exercises.
Do you think that the free welfare abusers in America and England are ready for this commitment? We can't keep the illegal immigrants from jumping the border fences from Mexico into the US. Human rights and all that!!
Best wishes.
Frederick

I'm sure Welfare is abused - my question is in the matter of detail.

Your question about commitment is the one which should be out there in huge neon lights. There is not a country in this world that could not make massive improvements by looking inwards except those that have already done it.

USA and UK spend an obscene amount of money on defence - defence against whom? They spend most of their defence budget on hardware BUT HARDWARE IS NOT DEFENSIVE! Hardware is designed and built to be OFFENSIVE and, one day, when the lunatics have full control, it will be used.

If a citizen cannot commit to his country, he is no citizen. What is the reason the Swiss system cannot be adopted world-wide?

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