Day: January 10, 2013

Dear Editor

The Tory/Lib government are trying to make scapegoats of people on benefits. They are playing one section of people against others, for example:

• people on housing benefit getting large sums of money, but neglect to say it is the landlords who get the money via the tenants
• people on disability benefits being classed as layabouts, being forced to undergo a work capability assessment test by a private organisation
• people on Working Tax Credit, benefit being cut
• Job Seekers Allowance, benefit being cut.

People on these and other benefits have been slandered and labelled undeserving, and – if these benefits were cut – all would be well.

This divisive campaign by the Tory/Lib government did initially fool some people into supporting benefits cuts, but now the real target can be seen: it is everyone’s income, wages as well as benefits.

The following quote may sound very familiar: a group of unemployed men wrote to the Poor Law Commission in January 1835, asking for help. The Commission responded as follows:

‘the amount of relief, you must be aware, ought not to be as to render the situation of the pauper equal to that of a person living by independent industry: a practice of making allowance for idleness equal or nearly equal to the wages of industry must tend to make pauperism preferable to independence’.

Tony Delahoy, Silverknowes Gardens